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Pilgrimage to SouthportNov 18, 2007
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Plaque marking Robert Ruark's childhood hangout
The old cedars were broken by a hurricane in the 1990s, but...
Ruark's Grandparent's house, with magnolia tree in the side yard
| November 17-18, Wilmington and Southport NC, Robert Ruark From 1953 until 1961, Field and Stream Magazine published a monthly series of articles called The Old Man and the Boy, written by Robert Ruark. Ruark was best known as an iconoclastic, nationally-syndicated columnist for the Washington Post as well as for 'Something of Value', and 'Uhuru" which were highly successful novels about the Mau-Mau uprisings in Kenya published in the middle 1950s. The "Old Man and the Boy" series was published when I was between 8 and 16 years old, and I read every article in F&S, plus re-read them when they were published in book form as "The Old Man and the Boy" and "The Old Man's Boy Grows Older" . Each story tells a hunting, fishing or camping story, along with some philosophy and life lessons delivered as advice from the "Old Man" to "The Boy". Most of the stories also contain some conservation and ethics messages, delivered with humor and common sense. These stories had a large influence on what I believe, and undoubtedly had an influence on my choice to spend a career as a fishery biologist and to pursue boating, hunting and fishing as a vocation as well as an avocation. With that background, you might understand why one of my goals on this trip was to visit Southport, NC, where Ruark spent his summers and Holidays as a boy being initiated into hunting and fishing by his grandfather. I wanted to see the marshes and woods where he hunted and camped, the bays and creeks where he fished and boated, and to get a feel for this place that I have known through Ruark's writing for more than 50 years. Although there are signs of tourist developments and high-rent vacation homes, Southport is still a very attractive old seaport and fishing village, with many streets looking a lot like they must have in 1930 when Ruark visited as a boy. A plaque marks the old house where he visited with his grandparents. The magnolia tree, where young Bob got in deep trouble for plinking his grandmother's favorite mocking bird with his new BB gun, still stands in the side yard. A replica of the "Whittlers Bench", where the old men of the town whittled and talked weather, fishing, and politics, still stands at the foot of Howe Street near the town dock, where kids and senior citizens were fishing on the Saturday that we visited. The neat little harbor was busy with recreational boaters and a few small commercial crabbing or shrimping operations. There is a 3-foot shelf of Robert Ruark memorabilia in the visitor center, but not much else to mark the passage of a person whose writing was once read by millions. Ruark died at 49 years of age, largely because of his "tough guy journalist" life style that included heavy drinking and cigarette smoking. He became a great fan and advocate of Africa, and wrote some of the very best safari hunting stories I have ever read. His novels of life in a changing Africa were based on his direct experience, living and hunting in Africa when it was still very primitive. He was persona non grata in Kenya, because of his unflattering, but realistic, portrayal of the Mau-Mau uprising and the new native government, and he probably offended a lot of people with his essays and columns. When he died he was living in Spain and London as an expatriate. He had become fairly wealthy from his novels and movies based on his better known works and lived a fairly extravagant life style. Robert Ruark was probably not the sort of person who inspired people to build memorials, and certainly would not have expected anyone to build a monument, but I was a little disappointed to not find more signs of his presence in his home town. We have had several hilarious encounters with locals when we mention that we are from out west in Idaho. At least three times someone has said something like, "I was out west once, when my son graduated from college in Indiana." Or, "Oh yeah, my mother moved out west to Kansas City and I went to visit once." We were in the visitor center in Southport NC, and several local volunteers (relatively intelligent looking folks) were stuffing envelopes for a local event. Darlene mentioned that we were from Idaho, and how funny it was that the waitress at breakfast had not known that Idaho was further west than Nebraska. One of the volunteers said "Iowa? Why that's right next to Ohio, isn't it?" and one of the guys said, "I know about Idaho - they have that awful blue turf - I can't stand to watch a ball game on that awful blue turf." We are getting far into the southern latitudes. Wilmington, NC, where we are staying is about 33 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude; which is about the same latitude as Los Angeles, California. It has been unseasonably cool for the past few days, but warmed up to 70 degrees today, and is supposed to be up into the mid-70s all week. We have seen a big change in the vegetation with live oaks, cypress trees and Spanish moss starting to be fairly common. The evergreens are now loblolly pines and coastal cedars (that look like junipers) and we have seen a few palms and palmettos. We are in the area that has been affected by drought, like Atlanta, Georgia. Water rationing is on, and the tap water quality is not good. To us, it seems to be green and humid, but the annual precipitation is half of normal and it still has not rained notably except on the outer banks. This area usually gets some real soaking rain storms in late summer and early fall as spin-offs from hurricanes and tropical storms, but not this year. The news tonight said that even with rationing and extreme measures, Atlanta will be out of water in 66 days. Tomorrow, we head for Myrtle Beach, SC to see some more ocean and take in a Bluegrass Music event over the Thanksgiving weekend. |
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