Bait, BBQ, & Karyoke

One of the most interesting and curious "charms" of small town atmosphere is the names of local businesses. There are others of course (charms that is) but generally, it is the ingenious marketing strategies, names and such, of these small town entrepreneurships that hurl me into fits of laughter.

Take New Bern for example, a lovely historic waterfront town, where the Crowe and Dodge Law Firms are strategically located just across the street from Big Daddy Wesley's Grocery and Bail Bonds (you can get yer bait there too); a real one stop shop if you ask me!

This past weekend, while dredging the off season North Carolina coastline marrying people, I became so engrossed in my own amusement that I began keeping a list... I saw Carla's Hair Design, Jack's Seafood, Skip's Tire Center, and Brad's Grill. We also passed Chris's Collision Center, Jaws Reef, Randy's Meat Center and Bart's BBQ (apparently a 2 in one establishment), Victoria's Restaurant, and Granny's Antique and Flea Market. My personal favorite was Big Nell's Pit Stop, apparently the real hot spot for local cuisine judging by the makeshift impound yard which served as a parking lot. --And those where just the ones I thought to write down, you know, for memories.

It should be noted that nearly every single food establishment also sold bait, as did the gas stations, for the record.

I mentioned other "charms." Another "ambiance" of the more rural civilizations is the fact that if you're hungry after 9 o'clock, you're pretty much shit out of luck unless you're hankering for beer and pretzels at some karyoke bar, which, just hours before was serving shrimp and scallops by candlelight on the waterfront.

Ironically, the dead of convenient corporate entities is one of the things I adored most about living in a little farm village in Northern Bavaria. Just one of the things. But let's face it, Brunswick County is a far, far cry from meine liebe Deutschland, especially when I'm starving for seafood at 10 o'clock at night after marrying my friends on a beach.

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"Anthropology provides a scientific basis for dealing with the crucial dilemma of the world today: how can peoples of different appearance, mutually unintelligible languages, and dissimilar ways of life get along peaceably together?"
--Clyde Kluckhohn