Beaufort Twilight
Although this story contains actual places, towns and events from the world in which we live, including the “Crystal Coast,” and the towns of Morehead City and Beaufort, it should be read as a work of fiction. All characters are fictional and not based on any real person. The events depicted are entirely the product of my imagination.
He was now on the east coast, and it was different from southern California and San Diego, but the area had become a pleasant surprise. Like most, he worked Monday through Friday. He got up early and drove the one-way commute down state highway 24 from Morehead City to the back gate at Lejeune. Door-to-door, it took about 45 minutes. Sometimes it was longer. If he wanted to push it, it could be shorter, but the troopers were lined up on that stretch just waiting for victims — like a snake coiled on the side of a trail — so he typically kept the cruise control set to 9 over (64). One of his Marines who had gotten out and joined the State Police gave him the inside scoop: “The unwritten rule is ‘9 and you are fine; 10 and you are mine’.” So after getting hit a few too many times, he had resolved to be a little more patient. It was an easy drive after all.
He drove west and south along the edge of the Intercoastal Waterway and Bogue Sound, which separated the mainland from Bogue Banks and its two towns — Emerald Isle and Atlantic Beach. Bogue Banks was a barrier island that stretched about 25 miles from its eastern edge where the Newport River emptied into the Atlantic near Beaufort, all the way over to its western border near Cape Carteret. At Swansboro the road jogged north and crossed over the White Oak River for a distance then swung back west. After that, there wasn’t much scenery save the Carolina loblolly pine trees that went off in every direction in the sandy, coastal soil. He’d go through the back gate and usually be at his office a few minutes before 0730.
Lejeune really wasn’t as bad as the prevailing, inside Marine Corps “wisdom” had it. Sure, if one was single, it wasn’t a great place to be; the town it bordered, Jacksonville, was nicknamed “J-Actionville,” and in the past had been littered with the usual military town collection of tattoo parlors, pubs and bars, surplus stores, pawn shops, and strip clubs, all of which catered to young, male Marines between the ages of 18 and 25. Even with the recent development of the town into something more family-friendly, with a nice mall, chain eateries, and a civic move to shutter some of the more blighty establishments, Dalton avoided going into town at all costs. But if you were married and had a family, being attached to Camp Lejeune was actually a pleasant surprise if you gave it a chance. The key was to maximize use of the good things about the base and live somewhere else along the Crystal Coast. And Dalton had done both.
On base, the New River spread out and drained into the ocean along the western edge of the base, and as part of his exercise regimen, he ran endless miles up and down the network of waterside trails. The base had a brand new, state-of-the-art gym. And Lejeune’s two golf courses bordered the river at Paradise Point and were one of the best-kept golf secrets in DoD, routinely ranked as two of the best military golf courses in the world. One could rent boats or paddle boards at the marina, head out to the base’s stretch of beach, or obtain whatever one needed at the newly-renovated PX. That was the base.
As far as living accomodations, they’d bought a home on the western edge of Morehead City, a sleepy town of about 9,000, located almost equidistant from Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, where he also would be working at times. To the east across the Newport River sat Beaufort, an even smaller town (pop. 4,000) along the Waterway where boats of various types would pull in at the end of the day, their pilots seeking an overnight respite from another long day heading down the waterway after navigating Adams Creek from the north or coming off of Bogue Sound from the west.
Beaufort had become one of their favorite places, a small village with more good restaurants, bars, coffee houses, and shops per capita than most places they had visited. And having been to the west and east coasts several times, that was saying a lot. They had stumbled upon it really. A trip over one Saturday to the well-known Backstreet Pub had revealed Beaufort to be the perfect spot to hang out. It had everything they needed.
If it was Friday, that meant they would head over to Beaufort and down to the waterfront to their favorite spot, La Playa. They could ease into a small table on the deck that sat out on pilings over the water’s edge and order one of the place’s signature martinis or cocktails and sip it slowly while watching the sun set and waiting on the shrimp pot pie or the Pamlico Sound crabcakes. La Playa somehow got away with a happy hour that ran from three to eight, and they leveraged the low menu prices to the hilt. It provided a quiet, soothing respite from another just-completed work week.
They had lounged away countless languid, breezy Friday afternoons and early evenings there sipping a drink while watching the boats pull in or drift softly on their anchors out in the harbor. Though there were other spots up and down the shoreline they enjoyed, this was their favorite place to spend an evening on the Crystal Coast. The fair climate along the North Carolina coast meant the La Playa deck was in play year-round, and even on colder evenings during December or February, the deck’s massive fire pit provided plenty of warmth.
There, they would very likely run into the unlikeliest group of friends they had ever had. As it played out, they usually spent every Friday they were at La Playa with three other older couples. The husbands were all either veterans or military retirees, and they shared the Daltons’ perspectives and values. The other three couples each had grown children roughly Dalton’s age, and the group had a lot of common ground. And they all had settled in the area for the same reasons the Daltons loved it. On Fridays they came to La Playa for the same reasons.
Mark Bonner was a retired submariner, and had enough war stories to carry the conversation by himself. He had commanded one of the sub boats that had carried out some of the most daring missions in the final years of the Cold War, when our boats would dive under Arctic ice in Soviet waters and launch divers to put taps on their underwater communications cables. Those missions had been classified until many years later. Mark had actually served as technical adviser on a number of books that had recently come out on the subject after everything was declassified. He spent his days as a consultant to the Navy on sub issues and played a lot of golf.
Dale Rider was an old Navy “frogman” in the days before people called them SEALs. He helped pioneer the organization which started off doing strictly underwater reconnaissance and demolition missions, but later evolved under others to become arguably the top special operations outfit in the world. Dale was 68, about 6'4", and still looked like someone you didn’t want to trifle with. But he was easygoing and charismatic. He was also one of the original participants in the Iron Man Triathlon series, having completed the original 1978 race in Hawaii while still in the Navy. At 38, he was the oldest competitor. After running out of water during the marathon portion of the race, his “support crew” consisting of fellow Navy special-ops types resorted to giving him beer. Dale had eschewed any retirement work dealing with has past military career, and he and his wife ran one of the local bed and breakfasts in town. Dale, the old athlete and Navy diver, was the chef, and word had it their establishment had some of the best food in town.
And then there was Jim Allison, the resident elder statesman of the group. Jim was the owner of a local boat building company and former CEO of several corporations. Now a sprightly 80, Jim spent his days overseeing the building of sail boats or popping in to his wife’s harbor-side business to see what was up. Jim had gone to Yale in the late forties and then enlisted in the Marine Corps during Korea. He was commissioned an officer, rose to Captain, and when the fighting was done, he reentered Yale and got his degree with highest honors. Jim had earned a Silver Star in Korea. But even after all this, he was the most humble person in the group. One look at him and he seemed just like some extremely fit 80 year old who looked more like he was in his fifties, dressed perpetually in Tommy Bahama clothing, boat shoes or flip flops, and a sailing cap. He wore not one hint of his past accomplishments. He was gregarious, gracious, charming to women and men alike, and was an incredible raconteur.
The Bonners, Riders, and Allisons provided the Daltons with much-needed life-perspective and wisdom. All had raised children and had different life experiences. All knew how difficult the transition was from being a parent to a child and teenager as opposed to parenting an adult. All knew what was important and what wasn’t, and had learned through trial and error. And the Daltons could try to answer the older couples’ “why” questions about their own grown kids. “Why doesn’t my son listen to me?” “Why don’t they come visit us more often?” “Why does he get angry at me when I offer my advice?” “He thinks I’m judgmental.” “What are they thinking?” And so on. It was great two-way street of observations. The only thing that would occasionally catch Dalton’s attention was the brief hint of melancholy that would come over Jim Allison when the topic of adult children would come up. He would suddenly go quiet and subdued, but then recover, often changing the subject with an imperceptible transition.
In the twilight, they would sit and take in the panoroma along the waterfront, swapping stories and experiences between periods of silent reflection. Dalton felt privileged to be in their company and to call them friends. And he often wondered why he had never experienced such good fortune anywhere before. Maybe it was the common background and military service. Maybe it was just chance, though Dalton took a dim view of the notions of “fate” and “coincidence.” Or, just maybe, it had actually happened for a reason.
