Meehonkey

“You from New York?”

I had not opened my mouth, so my accent did not give me away. I was wearing a Saratoga Springs Race Course ball cap, but after accessing my accuser’s accent I concluded he would have not known any race tracks outside of Bristol or Talladega.

An hour earlier I had been at the ferry terminal making reservations for tomorrow’s crossing to Cedar Island. There I gave out information about my vehicle’s registration. Maybe he overhead my conversation, but the place had been deserted when I spoke to the ranger. He joked about me stealing the RV from my dad and that there was an APB issued for the missing RV. I offered him a dollar to keep my identity under raps. Later I visited the museum and I indicated I was from Tennessee when I signed the register.

My accuser was sitting on the railing outside the kite shop in Ocracoke. His accent was definitely southern and definitely from somewhere in Eastern Carolina. “I saw your tag in the campground. Saw you come in.” His tone seemed like he had an unresolved issue with my Yankee ancestors, but maybe I misread it, lost in the accent. Was he an O’cocker, a local?

He fiddled around with one of the kites hanging on the porch of the store. “Leaving tomorrow?” he asked. I had my eye on the lighthouse across the bay when I walked across the porch looking for a potential photo. Now my mind quickly shifted gears. Had he followed me from the campground? I walked to the ferry terminal, the museum and was slowly killing the afternoon waiting for the approaching storm.

“Yes, on the noon ferry,” I volunteered and hoped it was early enough to suit him. “We are on the 9 o’clock, headed back home. Did you like it here?” Okay, so he was being friendly and I was being paranoid. The half dozen kids milling around inside the kite store must have been his. I had to ask him where he was from.

“Over near Raleigh.” I knew it was an eastern Carolina accent.

The O’cockers have an accent, borne out of isolation. The only way to the island is by ferry - either a forty minute ride from Hatteras or a two and a half hour ride across the Pamlico Sound. Despite the infiltration of summer tourists that is as thick as the clouds of mosquitoes that swarm these barrier islands, the seven hundred locals manage to retain their trademark speech patterns. The men retain a stronger accent as they work in fishing or crabbing, and have less contact with the dingbatters (non-residents) than the local women who find employment in tourism and therefore converse more with tourists. That is the story I heard anyway. I began to wonder if there was TV and radio out on the island.

The Ocracoke dialect known as Ocracoke Brogue finds its unique character in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Here is a small sample:

Being a dingbatter, I thought I was being mommucked by an O’cocker. It was slick cam when I took the ferry, otherwise I might have been quamish. The low clouds are a token of a storm. My two cats are no match for The Russian Rats or a even the fictitious wampus cat. Water fire is not something you drink, but is a light which appears on the surface of the water, probably caused by swamp gas or fire water.

Locals talk fast and pronounce fish as feeish and fire is figher.

Meehonkey is a game of hide and seek.