This Weekend's Community Spirit Success

If you didn't make it out to the Goose Creek Island Fall Festival and Halloween event this weekend, you certainly missed a treat. With the help of volunteers and a some creative geniuses, a group came together and produced a successful event for our Island. Proceeds from the event benefitted the Community Center, the Fire Department and for future events.

photo by Jordan Hopkins

Me and Joe were so humbled and inspired by the outpouring of community spirit when we arrived to support the event. Hot dogs, chili boats, popcorn, kids running around, games, sweets, friends and family fellowship and an overall sense of goodwill were evident in the atmosphere. By the way, Joe said they were the best hot dogs he's ever ate!

Many of us remarked about the past Haunted House and Halloween events - boy if the kids today could have been around 40 years ago! We also reminisced about the camaraderie and service of that special Island group called the Tidewater Ruritan Club and how those members supported so many community service projects in our community. But most importantly, the conversations turned to, "we need more of this on the Island."

Friends, the wheels are turning. In order for a community to survive we have to support its needs. Whether it is putting together a community event such as the Fall Festival or even doing a road-side cleanup, community fellowship, goodwill, and spirit is essential for a community's survival. Let's face it, our community leaders are not getting any younger and their fine example of community service exemplifies so much of our Island spirit. Us younger folks have to step up and keep the torch going.

50 years ago, the Tidewater Ruritan Club was formed with over 40 charter members from our Island. Their commitment to supporting our Island was phenomenal. They charted the course in providing for the needs of the community as a whole. They maintained and kept the Hobucken School available for a wide variety of events, promoted and fund-raised to build our Volunteer Fire Department, and were a driving force behind our Annual Island Homecoming Event. They were also stewards to benevolent causes on the Island as well as assisting whatever need that involved community. 

I'm putting it out there and will be willing to help, organize, or even promote - we need to re-establish the vision and mission of the former Ruritan Club in forming a civic organization. By coming together as a community voice, we can help support the Goose Creek Island Community Development Association in maintaining the Community Center. We can step forward and help the Volunteer Fire Department with fundraisers. We can come together and begin planning our 150th or Sesquicentennial Celebration in 2024. We've got many cemeteries that need volunteer clean-ups. We've also got a 120 year old church that needs a helping hand with a few maintenance projects. And we all know, come February we will need to clean-up our roadways after hunting season.

If you are interested in keeping this past Saturday nights community spirit alive, let's talk! 

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! to those who made it happen Saturday night! It was wonderful and we look so forward to more in the future! 

PS - Save The Date! Santa and Mrs. Claus is coming to Goose Creek Island December 17th.

Easter on the Island

We're well past the official beginning of Spring, but for me, the true marker of the spring season is Easter. Easter has always been my favorite holiday and what better way to celebrate than to be on the Island. Nature wakes up from it's winter slumber, the fields and creeks come alive. I thought sharing this story by Gene Price would be 'fitting' for Easter. Happy Easter to everyone from me and Joe.

Reprinted from Folks Around Here, by Gene Price.

GOOSE CREEK ISLAND - John Steinbeck called it "the hour of the pearl."

It's that interlude between darkness and day "when time passes to examine itself."

At my camp on Goose Creek Island, a chorus of awakening birds provides background music for that time of soul-searching.

The birds begin their symphony before the lights come in most homes clustered in the village of Lowland near the confluence of Goose Creek and Pamlico River.

Thanks to an alarm clock with a propensity to go off an hour early, I crawled out of my sleeping bag earlier than usual on this Easter morning.

Four-thirty, I found, is a good time to stretch and scratch and have a cup of coffee while listening to the night sounds. And then to drive slowly around the still-sleeping community in my old pick-up, windows down so as not to miss the fading whip-poor-wills and the early-rising wrens.

My path took me by the Watson family cemetery and the Lowland Disciples of Christ Church. That had been the denomination of my boyhood in the Elizabeth City mill district. So, a forgivable pause for reflection as the truck idled by...

Obviously something was going to happen here this day. In the cemetery, some talented stagehands had erected a replica of the tomb where Jesus of Nazareth had been placed after the crucifixion. The stone had been rolled away.

To the northeast, across the road by the cemetery, a path of fronds led from an entranceway through what depicted a flowering Garden of Gethsemane. And in the distance, silhouetted against the early morning sky, three crosses.

As morning broke, young people came, dressed as those of that period. And townspeople made a pilgrimage through the garden and listened as the Rev. Bobby Waters told of the events of that time more than 2,000 years ago.

Youngsters silently acted out the drama - the trial and the sentencing and the washing of the hands.

As those who had come moved on toward the cemetery, their attention was called to the eastern horizon. Three of the community's young people now hung from the crosses.

Then there was the scene at the empty tomb and the message from the angels.

And from the garden of azaleas in the distance, accompanied by excited members of the cast, strolled a handsome young man, bearded and in a flowing white gown.

Those who had come burst into song, "He Lives!"

Sunrise services were held throughout the Christian world that Easter morning. But on this Island, during the "hour of the pearl," this little community produced a real gem.