Vibrant Village ™

There’s a well-worn strip of road, just south of the railroad tracks, paralleling highway 70, that runs between Beaufort and Morehead. It’s the old Beaufort Causeway. I remember, as a kid, my family would drive the causeway road from Beaufort over to Radio Island.

My sister and I would be in the back seat of my grandparents' big sedan, our swim rings already around our waists, so that we weren’t really sitting centered on the seat, but pressed forward, our knees nudging into the back of the front seat.

We’d pass the many small cottages up on stilts that lined the marshy waterfront. We’d roll by the Dinner Bell restaurant, tucked in among these working-class bungalows, where my grandmother sometimes worked.

Many of these cottages from my childhood are still there, most swaying with age--small boxes that have withstood the lashing wind and flood-high waters of countless hurricanes. They hold fast, even as bigger, modern habitats many times their size creep closer.

At the west end of the old causeway strip, past the cottages, cowering beneath the shadow of the four-story, newly constructed Morgan’s Landing condominiums, sits a ramshackle little building, weathered and old.

Tarpaper hangs in strips from the roof.

Flowers and vines straggle around and over the cracked cement blocks that lead to the front door.  There’s a sign, barely legible:  Wetherington Glass Shop.

I went one day, late last summer, with my mother, to Wetherington  Glass Shop.  She had an old piece of glass, found in her attic, lying in the corner, taking up space. She wanted to have it cut and put to use in a frame for my grandmother’s teaching certificate.

My mom was going to be sitting in one of the rocking chairs  at the upcoming Merrimon/South River celebration, chatting with the locals about her mother’s days teaching in the one-room school house that still stands there in Merrimon, beside the Methodist Church. Having my grandmother’s teaching certificate on display would be a nice addition.

We pulled into the dusty parking spot, directly in front of two men, one in a wheelchair and one in a metal-framed, kitchen table chair, enjoying the late-autumn sun in front of the shop’s big glass window.

Mr. Wetherington, in the wheelchair, stretched out his hands to gently receive the rectangular piece of glass that my mother so carefully removed from the back seat of the car.  His knobby, sun-damaged hands cradled the glass like one would handle a small injured animal:  soothingly, softly, stroking it and speaking to himself, but really to the glass.

Like tarot cards, Mr. Wetherington read the glass

In his hands, the glass was magic—a thing of beauty, with characteristics as unique as a diamond. Like tarot cards, Mr. Wetherington read the glass.  He showed us the wavy patterns that our untrained eyes had not noticed; these patterns told him how old the glass was and where it was made.

He spoke of old historic homes in Beaufort, just a few, whose windows held this very type of glass. This glass was not to be cut—Mr. Wetherington was very clear about this—it was very rare and very old. It was to be treasured and placed carefully in a safe place, preferably a place where others could see its beauty.

I learned something that day

I learned that even the simplest things can be precious. An old piece of glass--junk, really, that had lain for years in a corner of my mother’s attic--held a story.

How many times have we discarded something old and worn out, because we didn’t need it anymore?  Didn’t know what it was, didn’t think it held any value?  Tossed it because it was taking up space and we needed to make room for other things—other, newer things that didn’t have stories, didn’t have history.

I learned something that day with Mr. Wetherington, as he softly rubbed his hands down that old pane of glass:

Placed in the right hands, anything can be a treasure.