DOCK OF THE BAY (Mark)

Otis Redding died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967.  Three days earlier he recorded the song (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay.  He wrote the lyrics and music sitting on a houseboat in Sausalito California.  It became the first ever posthumous #1 hit in the USA.

I was sitting on an Adirondack chair on the dock pictured above, and the song was running through my mind.  I had been sitting there for over an hour without moving.  The temperature was 72 degrees, the sun was going down behind me, and a light breeze was blowing, just enough to cause a pleasing soft clanging sound from a boats rigging.  The music in my mind was absolutely perfect.  The chair and dock were situated about 100 yards from our trailer.  It was a wonderful close to a fantastic day.

Earlier in the day we had been here.  How we got here was by traveling the way we like to travel best.  Cheri had the road atlas on her lap and we were traveling using the littlest local and county roads we could find.  Wandering through the back roads this way has always fascinated me.

I believe I have genetics from both my mom and my dad’s side of the family to prefer this method of travel.  One of my sisters-in-laws refers to this as "Back-Road Jicha'ing," which we use as a point of pride.  ("Jicha" being my mother's maiden name.)

Burgaw, NC was one of the towns we made a stop in.  3,872 people call Burgaw home.  It is the county seat of Pender County.

The town is arranged around the courthouse square.  When we arrived, the town was having a community day, the road around the courthouse was blocked off, and people were walking and talking looking at some exhibits and listening to music.

These trucks had been carefully washed and washed then put on display.  They were all owned and operated by women and minorities.  There currently is a huge shortage in truck drivers, and over the next few years it is supposed to get worse, unless new drivers get started to fill the retiring ones.

The history of the little towns we are passing through is fascinating to me.  I have been reading a book about the Civil War, and the portion I have been reading currently coincides with many of the areas we have been passing through on this trip.

We left Burgaw and continued wandering.  Later we came back to the same railroad line in Wallace, NC.  This town lists 3,880 residents.  Part of this town is in Pender County, and part of the town is in Duplin County.

New use for an older building in town.

I stopped and talked to the manager of the Super Mercado.  He said over 25% of the town was Hispanic, mostly Honduran and Mexican.  Earlier I had seen a group of very finely dressed youth posing for pictures, a Quinceanera celebration.