ROAD TRIP:
Tangier Island - Paradise in the middle of the bay (continued ...)
Susan Guynn
Photography by Travis S. Pratt
Spring 2008 Issue
White picket and chain-link fences line the narrow streets. There are no sidewalks. Pedestrians share the road with golf carts and bicycles. Plastic baggies filled with slips of paper bearing traditional island recipes, such as Mom's Clam Fritters, Crab Cakes a Little Different and Seafarer's Casserole, are thumbtacked to message boards. A baggie full of recipes costs $1 and folks pay on the honor system. For the same price, you can also pick up hand-drawn "tourist-friendly" maps of the island at these fence outlets. These simple maps will help you locate the island's three inns, restaurants, the two churches, golf cart and bike rentals, gift shops, docks, the public beach and Muddy Toes Library.
When the sun goes down
"It's a nice safe place," said Trudy Crockett. "Kids have their freedom. You know just about everybody."
Indeed, Crocketts and Pruitts are firmly entrenched in the island's history. One source puts a third of the island's families bearing the name Crockett. A handful of Cornish families, including John Crockett, settled the island in 1686. The isolation of island life has preserved the Elizabethan dialect of their ancestors. Listen closely. You may not notice it in your conversations with the residents, but it's unmistakable in islander-to-islander conversations.
When the sun goes down on spring and summer evenings, the unpaved streets fill with golf carts - teens on the prowl and families out for ice cream at the "state of the art" ice cream parlor. Old men gather for conversation and bantering the way old men do. Over by the pier, kids and teens cannonball into "the basin."
"Pier jumping," one teen called it before taking a leap into the water. "We do it until about the fourth or fifth of July; then the sea nettles get so thick you can't swim."
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