___________________________________ "It
is perhaps more fortunate to have a taste for collecting
shells
than to have been born a millionaire."
–
Robert Louis Stevenson
"The old register at the
grocery
fell silent a quarter century ago.
Worn wooden shelves that once
showcased canned peas and collards
are now
crammed with beach glass,
feathers, shells, sand, bricks and bottles.
Glass cases that once tempted children
with peppermint sticks and licorice whips
are littered with whalebones,
peace pipes and driftwood.
Walls are draped in fishing tackle.
Frayed lengths of rope
coil
like cobras under chairs.
Chunks of old shipwrecks lie stranded on shelves.
A
watermelon sized wicker basket
overflows with children’s
toys.
A slender cash drawer
cradles miniature china dolls.
A fat orange buoy
lounges contentedly
in a corner.
All of it-every Cracker Jack toy,
every set of false teeth,
every spyglass, every shell,
every
World War II flashlight-
was spit from the sea.
And all of it was gathered off a 2 mile
long stretch of Outer Banks beach
by Nellie Myrtle Pridgen,
a Nags Head
native who
combed the shore at dawn and again
at dusk nearly every day for nearly 60 years.
Now that she’s gone,
we’re left to wonder:
What will become of the riches she gathered
and the beach she loved?"
Excerpted
from "The Collector" by Loraine Eaton, 1995
