the onlooker Mike Wagoner
Dick Clark
Summer at Cape Look was a Teenager's Dream
D
uring the days when the late Capt. Josiah Bailey was transporting up to 40 tourists at a time back and forth from Harkers Island to Cape Lookout, he had “encounters” with the “boys of summer” who camped out in style at an expansive A-frame cottage on Core Banks. Sam Quincy Bass Jr. of Raleigh clearly remembers the “Summer of 1968” at the summer home of his uncle, Charles Reeves Jr. of Sanford, N.C. Here’s an abridged version of the story, which Sam published in 2014: “My brother Clyde, cousin John Reeves and I were 13, 14 and 15, respectively. Cape Lookout offered “an entire summer of… adventure.” “We would spend the endlessly long hot summer days boating, sailing, water skiing and running the Jeeps over huge sand dunes,” as if straight out of the TV show “The Rat Patrol.” Sam said: “When we couldn’t eat another cinnamon bun shaped like a hockey puck or a cold can of spaghetti, we’d make the trek to the ‘Hook of the Cape’ to Dr. Graham Barden’s house. Mrs. Barden would make us the hottest, tallest stack of tender, mouth-watering, blueberry pancakes we ever put into our very empty stomachs.” Dr. Graham A. Barden Jr. and his wife, Mary Louise Moulton Barden, of New Bern owned the former lighthouse keeper’s quarters; they had it moved in 1957 about a mile away from the lighthouse. The radio played every night at the Reeves’ cottage, which the teens referred to as “Charlie’s Chapel.” Sam said: “Our station of choice was an AM out of Morehead City with the call letters WMBL “Where Morehead and Beaufort Link.” (The tower was on Radio Island.) In 1968, WMBL played early “Beach Music” – featuring “groups andThe singers like the Drifters, Clyde McPhatter and Big Joe Turner.” Tokens 16
ISLAND REVIEW • September 2020
“Skiing was our primary form of self-expression,” Sam said. “We considered ourselves as good as any of those gentrified Cypress Gardens guys.” “We held endurance events to see who could ski the longest. It was routine to ski the 14 miles from the Beaufort Inlet to the Cape. Add what were sometimes three- to four-foot waves to the mix and the effective distance and demands compound,” Sam said. “One of our favorite pastimes was harassing the Cape Lookout ferry boat, the ‘Diamond City,’ skippered by a wonderful old salt named Capt. Bailey.” “The ferry ran twice a day from Harkers Island to the Cape. It was filled with excited passengers eager for everything the distant Cape had to offer. We were convinced that included watching our superb water skills.” Sam continued: “One afternoon while skiing in Barden’s Inlet, we spied the ferry leaving her mooring at the Cape with her cargo of sunbaked passengers. Our best stunt skier, Henry Long (a friend from Roanoke Rapids), was in the water and both thumbs up to engage the audience.” “John wheeled our powerful boat around, poured on the gas and sped toward the ‘Diamond City’… and we fully expected Henry to lay a 15-foot wall of water on the crowd in the boat. But as elegantly as a figure skater, Henry glided along the gunnels of that 55-foot sailboat rising and falling in her wake.” “He flirted with a couple of female passengers and delighted everyone else with his style and wit to the point of roaring laughter and applause. All were entertained … with the notable exception of one red-faced sea captain. We would suffer his wrath later.” “But in time, ol’ Josiah Bailey let us know he rather appreciated our shows, too,” Sam Bass concluded. The Turbans
