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JAMES K. POLK
These are replicas of the original buildings where James K. Polk was born. Find your way to Pineville and head south on Polk Ave. The Polk Monument is one driveway north of the German restaurant a few miles south of town. DAY 22: MAY 13, 2013
After a drive of 293.5 miles I have come slap up against the Atlantic Ocean at a high priced little motel called the Ocean Crest on Oak Island, NC. I had a nice dinner at the seafood joint next door and am sitting around watching the sun go down out of the open motel room door. It is kind of bass-ackwards from what I am accustomed to seeing on the Pacific coast at sunset. This is more like a sunrise. Oak Island is just south of the estuary of the Cape Fear River. Locals hereabouts claim that the pirate Blackbeard went down in a blaze of glory a short distance above the little town of Southport. He was shot 19 times and had 7 saber cuts and his beard was on fire when he finally dropped. Folks a little further north claim that Blackbeard went down behind Ocracoke Inlet. In any event his ship, The Queen Anne’s Revenge, had grounded in shoal water at a low tide and was easy pickings for the British navy. They stood off a stern quarter in deeper water and smashed her to smithereens with cannon
POLK MONUMENT
The monument was erected on the site of the cabin. The replica buildings are in a meadow beside the visitor center. fire and then boarded her, but those pesky pirates were more afraid of Blackbeard than they were of being hung so they put up fierce resistance. Blackbeard was a man to be feared. His real name was Edward Treach or something. Atlantic coast seagulls are every bit as noisy as their cousins on the Pacific coast, but these fellows have black heads. They look as strange as the sunset does.
My two favorite Presidents Andy By God Jackson and James K. Polk were born about 17 miles apart along the Carolinas Road. Andy was born right on the state line down in the Waxhaws, whatever they are, and Polk was born near Pineville, NC very close to the border. Andy wasn’t any bigger than a minute when his dad passed away. He was raised on the farm of his uncle, Jack Crawford, until he was about seventeen years old. He would have been thirteen years old when the redcoat, Tarleton, killed most of his neighbors in what became fondly known as the Waxhaws Massacre. Polk was born about 30 years after Andy was born, but they would become close friends.
ANDY BY GOD JACKSON
The statue portrays Andy By God Jackson as a young man growing up on his uncle's farm. Southport On March 12, 1942 the Nazi U-boat 158 sank one of our tankers off of the mouth of the Cape Fear River. A few of the merchant seamen survived, waded ashore, and were cared for by the good citizens of Southport. Soon as they were able those seamen hoped on other ships and faced other torpedoes. They were brave men. Our cousin, Bill Wakefield, Jr. was in the merchant marines all through the war. Bill was called “Shorty”, but not because he was of short stature. He was called “Shorty” because one of his legs was 4 inches shorter than the other one. It kept him out of the military, but not out of the war; a tip of the hat to his great courage.
Oak Island This place is a kind of eclectic mixture of folks who would prefer to be up in the Hamptons sipping champagne with their snooty friends and a bunch mountain hillbillies fishing off the pier. I love the sound of the surf breaking on the beach and the smell of the sea. Last time I was at the Atlantic
JACKSON MONUMENT
The monument was erected on ground near where the Jack Crawford home once stood. Ocean was in March of 2003. I was attending a groundwater field methods seminar down in Charleston for a week. By about 4 days in I had eaten so much good Carolina BBQ that I had given myself gout and could barely walk. We went out to the beach after classes and I stuck my feet into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. I’ll be damned if the gout didn’t go away by next morning. I doubt that I will try wetting my feet again. The gout might come back.
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