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At night when I return from umpiring, I just sit on the front porch and am amazed by the growth on the south side of the river.  Some of us can remember when there was only Whichard’s Beach and Camp Hardee.  Now, there are houses up and down the south side of the Pamlico and no longer is there a Whichard’s Beach.  Let me first tell you about where my home is located on the Washington side of the river.

 Nestled between Edgewater Beach and River Acres is where I live and it is called Cypress Shores.  Appropriately named, because the shore is lined with Cypress trees and there are some growing out of the water.  I used to find my road because Hilda Spain had a house where you turned right up a dirt road and now the road is maintained by the State and it is paved.  Still, it is as friendly as it always has been.  Cypress Shores only has eight houses and I guess the oldest living family is the Hills.  Nancy and Jimmy built their home after their first one was moved down the road and is lived in by the Hodge family.  Nancy maintains a residence on the river and is visited by her daughters, Inda and Susan, longtime friends of Rose Ann and mine.

 Tracey and I live in the home that my father left me years ago.  He bought it from Dr. William Jackson, who had two of the prettiest step-daughters, Pat and Kay Walker, who attended Washington High School.  He also had a son, Billy, who use to come up from Tabor City each summer and invited me down.  There were only two bedrooms at that time and Billy and I slept on the front porch which is now part of our living room.  My dad added another room and built the new front porch and enclosed the old porch.  It was flat on the ground when dad made that purchase but after several hurricanes, he decided to have it raised.

 My Dad lost seven piers because of hurricanes and left me the responsibility to put the one up that now graces our front yard.  There wasn’t a bulk head either, at the time, and I can remember water skiing and dropping off at on the shore.  We all have them now, with the exception of the Weatherly’s and the Gibbs.

Cypress Shores is a great place to live and it is only three miles from Washington and three from the Country Club.  We go into town each day to work or umpire.  I miss the old road and the nostalgia that it had even when it was muddy.  But the neighbors make Cypress Shores our close knit community by the river.  When we have a neighborhood gathering it is so much fun and the Fourth of July proved that.  Janice and Bob Rich had the neighborhood at their house for dinner and the ladies fixed a dish. The food was delicious!  We will try to get together once a month since the summer months are here.

 I am thankful that Dr. Jackson sold this home to my dad!  As I look across the river, I can see so much development since the sixties and the river is like a highway full of boats. There is no life like river life, whether you live on the south side or the north side.

They were the best of times with the best of friends and in the best of places, Washington, N.C.!! The Original Washington!

  Harold Jr.