Charlie Russell of Harkers Island 



Of corncob pipes 

 And mullet fishing 



"When I was a little boy there were 

 about 14 families here. And mostly 

 everybody went barefooted and 

 smoked a corncob pipe or a clay pipe 

 with a reed center. Everybody dipped 

 their snuff like I chew tobacco now." 



Charlie Russell's face wrinkled into a 

 grin as he shifted a tobacco wad from 

 one cheek to the other. 



A few yards away, traffic on the 

 main road through Harkers Island 

 kept up a steady growl. It punctuated 

 Russell's narrative with motorbike 

 clamor, the swish of recreational vehi- 

 cles and the rumble of pickup trucks. 



Russell paid it no mind. He was busy 

 remembering. "These families lived 

 from one end of the island to the other. 

 Scattered. Nobody here much. And 

 you'd go clamming. You had a little 

 net to go mullet fishing and you'd get 

 25 cents a bushel for your clams. Now a 

 handful will give you as much as ten 

 bushels would then at the county 

 market." 



Charlie Russell is 81 years old. He 

 was born on Harkers Island. So was his 

 mother. Her people came from Dia- 

 mond City, the little fishing town on 

 Shackleford Banks that was aban- 

 doned at the turn of the century. 



That geneology makes Russell an 

 "insider" on Harkers Island. He's 

 privy to the unique cultural heritage of 

 people whose lives have for generations 

 depended upon the water. It's a heri- 

 tage that seems to carry with it rugged 

 self-sufficiency and an uncanny intui- 

 tion about the forces of nature that 

 rule a seaman's life. 



Continued on next page 



