The Onlooker

Mike Wagoner

Dick Clark

Summer at Cape Look was a Teenager's Dream

During the days when the late Capt. Josiah Bailey was “Skiing was our primary form of self-expression,” Sam said. “We transporting up to 40 tourists at a time back and forth from considered ourselves as good as any of those gentrified Cypress Harkers Island to Cape Lookout, he had “encounters” Gardens guys.” with the “boys of summer” who camped out in style at an “We held endurance events to see who could ski the longest. It expansive A-frame cottage on Core Banks. was routine to ski the 14 miles from the Beaufort Inlet to the Cape.

Sam Quincy Bass Jr. of Raleigh clearly remembers the “Summer Add what were sometimes three- to four-foot waves to the mix and of 1968” at the summer home of his uncle, Charles Reeves Jr. of the effective distance and demands compound,” Sam said. Sanford, N.C. Here’s an abridged version of the story, which Sam “One of our favorite pastimes was harassing the Cape Lookout published in 2014: ferry boat, the ‘Diamond City,’ skippered by a wonderful old salt

“My brother Clyde, cousin John Reeves and I were 13, 14 and named Capt. Bailey.” 15, respectively. Cape Lookout offered “an entire summer of… “The ferry ran twice a day from Harkers Island to the Cape. It was adventure.” filled with excited passengers eager for everything the distant Cape

“We would spend the endlessly long hot summer days boating, had to offer. We were convinced that included watching our superb sailing, water skiing and running the Jeeps over huge sand dunes,” water skills.” as if straight out of the TV show “The Rat Patrol.” Sam continued: “One afternoon while skiing in Barden’s Inlet, we

Sam said: “When we couldn’t eat another cinnamon bun shaped spied the ferry leaving her mooring at the Cape with her cargo of like a hockey puck or a cold can of spaghetti, we’d make the trek to sunbaked passengers. Our best stunt skier, Henry Long (a friend the ‘Hook of the Cape’ to Dr. Graham Barden’s house. Mrs. Barden from Roanoke Rapids), was in the water and both thumbs up to would make us the hottest, tallest stack of tender, mouth-watering, engage the audience.” blueberry pancakes we ever put into our very empty stomachs.” “John wheeled our powerful boat around, poured on the gas and

Dr. Graham A. Barden Jr. and his wife, Mary Louise Moulton sped toward the ‘Diamond City’… and we fully expected Henry to Barden, of New Bern owned the former lighthouse keeper’s quarters; lay a 15-foot wall of water on the crowd in the boat. But as elegantly they had it moved in 1957 about a mile away from the lighthouse. as a figure skater, Henry glided along the gunnels of that 55-foot

The radio played every night at the Reeves’ cottage, which the sailboat rising and falling in her wake.” teens referred to as “Charlie’s Chapel.” Sam said: “Our station of “He flirted with a couple of female passengers and delighted choice was an AM out of Morehead City with the call letters WMBL everyone else with his style and wit to the point of roaring laughter “Where Morehead and Beaufort Link.” (The tower was on Radio and applause. All were entertained … with the notable exception of Island.) one red-faced sea captain. We would suffer his wrath later.”

In 1968, WMBL played early “Beach Music” – featuring “groups “But in time, ol’ Josiah Bailey let us know he rather appreciated The Tokens and singers like the Drifters, Clyde McPhatter and Big Joe Turner.” our shows, too,” Sam Bass concluded. The Turbans