[gentle orchestral fanfare]

♪

[resonant strings
lead building orchestration]

♪

(male narrator)
Welcome to "Our State,"

a production of UNC-TV

in association
with "Our State" magazine--

for over 70 years,

bringing the wonders
of North Carolina

to readers across the state.

On this edition,

Bland Simpson takes us

down the Intracoastal Waterway,

from Money Island

to Sunset Beach...

real cowboys

in the real cowboy town

of Love Valley...

and the charming creations

of the Doll Lady.

♪

[gentle piano melody]

(male announcer)
From Manteo to Murphy

and all the small towns
and big cities in-between,

BB&T believes opportunity lives
everywhere in North Carolina.

It's a belief we've held
for more than 130 years

and guides us
as we support our communities

from the mountains
to the coast.

We love calling
North Carolina home,

and we're proud to provide
major funding for "Our State."

Quality public television
is made possible

through the financial
contributions

of viewers like you,

who invite you to join them
in supporting UNC-TV.

♪

[birds call as waves slosh]

[engine humming]

rrrr

[gentle melodica
leads guitar notes]

♪

(Simpson)
If you leave the drawbridge

at Wrightsville Beach

and head south
down the Intracoastal Waterway,

you'll soon approach
a storied little strand

of beach at the mouth
of Bradley Creek,

a spot long known
as "Money Island."

♪

According to legend,
pirate Captain William Kidd--

overburdened
with Spanish plunder

from the Caribbean--

buried two chests
of gold and silver plate

right here
at Money Island.

Captain Kidd
was soon arrested in New York

and subsequently hanged
in London in 1701.

And he never did get back
to Greenville Sound

to lift his loot.

♪

Now that
was just a legend,

but what about the mullet
men who found gold doubloons

on the beach
here at Money Island...

♪

or Hezekiah,
the old oysterman

who, according to
one Bradley Creeker,

discovered a pirate chest

"under an oyster rock
in Greenville Sound,"

loaded it onto his mule
cart, and quit being a waterman

for the rest of his days...

♪

and the Intracoastal Waterway
dredgers,

who sliced into Money Island

as they created
this channel 75 years ago--

what turned up
in their dredge pipes?

Pieces of eight.

♪

Stories of doubloons
in the sand

and pieces of eight,
it turns out,

are a whale
of a lot more valuable

than the gold and silver
itself could ever be.

And that's the real treasure
of Money Island.

But since I'm here...

[strings lead placid
piano and melodica tune]

♪

Across the Cape Fear
from Snow's Cut

sits the ghostly
Brunswick Town.

Here in the 1740s,
the Spanish plundered

what was then a thriving
naval stores port.

And in the 1760s,

North Carolinians stood down
Governor William Tryon

and the notorious Stamp Act
and shut down tax collection

and shipping
on the Cape Fear.

Before long, people moved on
upriver to Wilmington,

and Governor Tryon had himself
a palace built up in New Bern.

By the end
of the American Revolution,

Brunswick Town really did
belong to the ghosts,

who have held it ever since,
except during the Civil War

when Confederate Fort Anderson
helped defend Wilmington.

A group of visitors
to this quiet place

was surprised
back in October 1961

to see
the "Battleship North Carolina"

making its way
up the Cape Fear

for a permanent berth
at Eagles Island

across the river
from downtown Wilmington.

♪

[birds calling]
eeet, eeet...eeet

[horn tooting]
prfff, prfff

[deep horn blowing]
hrrrnnnn

Below Brunswick Town a ways,
sits Price's Creek Light,

a small brick tower
only 20 feet tall

built about 1848,

now dwarfed by
the industrial works around it.

One might find it
hauntingly hard to believe

that Price's Creek Light here

had been an important
communications link

for the Confederacy--

the link to signal Fort Fisher
across the lower Cape Fear.

Fort Fisher
with its two-mile pounders

kept the Union blockade
at bay,

allowed the blockade runners
to operate

and keep Wilmington open--
the last Southern port open

after Vicksburg fell
in July 1863--

and thereby sustain
the rebel nation

for nearly two years more.

And one might pause
to wonder that the fate

of the long-gone Confederacy
once hung, in part,

upon what Price's Creek's
iron lantern said,

or didn't say.

♪

Longer lived
and a little better cared for

is Old Baldy,

the tawny
Bald Head Island Lighthouse--

the oldest one still standing
on the Carolina coast,

dating to 1817.

♪

When Cap'n Charlie Swan
came out of retirement

to throw the first power on

at Oak Island Light in 1958,

across the Cape Fear River
from Old Baldy,

what he lit
was for its time

the brightest light
in all America!

[vibraphone joins]

At 2 1/2 million
candlepower,

it is still one
of the brightest lights

on the face of the earth.

♪

[bird calling]
eeet, eeet...eeet

Across the channel
from Oak Island

and Bald Head Island,

just across the river
from Southport,

lies Battery Island.

[gentle piano tune]

To this small spot
yearly fly 8,000 or 9,000 ibis.

They arrive
around Eastertide

in flights of 50
to 500 birds a mile high,

the birds' wings
first flashing in the sun

and then, as they come
dropping down to the island,

the wind whistling
through their wings

as they fall
out of the sky.

♪

A single cedar here
will sport 50 to 60 nests,

the trees becoming
not merely laden

but literally packed beak
by tail feather with birds.

The white ibis have had
a booming success breeding

in the lower Cape Fear,
and the numbers tell the tale.

In May of 1983,

there were 3,700
white ibis nests here.

In the spring of 2004,

the ibis built over
11,500 nests

here on Battery Island.

♪

[mellow bass melody]

Southport,
formerly Smithville,

was the pilots' town
where for generations

the men who guided ships
across the bar

at the mouth
of the Cape Fear River

had a nearly closed union.

In the old days,

if you weren't the son
or nephew of a Cape Fear pilot,

you couldn't
become one yourself.

You just couldn't crack
the select group

they called
the "Combination."

♪

Even if you were a pilot,
you wouldn't have wanted

to be up top
of the Pilots' Tower

on October 15th, 1954.

[mournful cello arrangement]

That's when Hurricane Hazel
roared ashore here

in Brunswick County
on a full-moon high tide

with 150-mile-an-hour winds.

Hurricane historian
Jay Barnes has written,

"The surge wrecked
the many shrimp houses

"that lined
the Southport riverfront

"and carried
the remaining debris

"far into the town's streets.

"Hazel ranks as one of
the most catastrophic hurricanes

to strike the United States
in the 20th century."

[oboe joins]

♪

[crickets chirping]

One morning, 30-odd years ago,
I heard a story

about the old Smithville
burying ground

from James Harper,
editor,

and with his wife Margaret,
publisher,

of Southport's
wonderful newspaper,

"The State Port Pilot."

Mister Harper leaned back
in his captain's chair and said,

"When the earthquake
of 1898 hit Southport,

"people came streaming
out of their houses,

"into the streets.

"And they all ran--
I mean ran--

down to the old cemetery."

[mellow bass
and guitar arrangement]

♪

He said, "They all
formed up in a big mob,

"the ground shaking
every now and again.

"People crying, praying.

"All of them at the cemetery
because they thought it was

"the Judgment Day and there was
gonna be the great Revelation.

"The graves
were going to open up,

"and their dead
relatives and friends

"were gonna fly up
and, you know,

be made whole!"

♪

Mister Harper told me,

"You ought to walk
on by the old cemetery.

"You'll see the same thing

those old-timers
saw that night."

♪

[lilting melodica
and ukulele arrangement]

♪

A Brunswick County native
named "Mannon Gore"

slapped this old
pontoon bridge

across the Waterway
decades ago,

connecting the mainland
to a causeway

through the gorgeous
mile-wide marshes

out to Sunset Beach.

The bridge rises and falls
with the tide.

So depending on where you are
in this endless cycling,

you either drive up
across a peak,

sink down into a trough,

or just roar across flat.

[machine noise]
hrrnnn

A cable and winch works

floats it open on the hour
for pleasure craft

and as needed for fishing boats
and barge trains.

Though the forces of speed

have sought for years to scrap
this homely, old clunker

and replace it
with a high-span flyover,

other forces stood firm
and fought that major change

to a standstill...
till now.

A new bridge is coming soon,
and tens of thousands of people

who grew up
with this one

are really gonna miss it
when it's gone.

[lilting melodica
and ukulele arrangement]

♪

These are just
a few waterway tales

from southeastern
North Carolina.

Thanks for joining us,

and I hope we'll see you again
somewhere along the waterway.

For now, from Mannon Gore's
old pontoon bridge

at Sunset Beach,
farewell.

♪

[acoustic guitar
leads Western arrangement]

♪

[gears squeaking]
eee, eee...eee

(Billy Barnes)
Some days you wake up

and wonder, where am I?

[whistler leads
Western arrangement]

Dirt streets,

hitchin' rails,

boardwalks
instead of sidewalks...

♪

reminds me of ghost towns
I've seen in Nevada--

more like
the Old West

than the Old North State.

But I'm told
I'm really

just a few miles north
of Statesville.

Morning.

[Barnes voiceover]
Looks like a good place
to be a cowboy.

[strings and brass
lead upbeat Western theme]

♪

[Western theme softens]

Every self-respecting
cowboy town

has a fellow
who just runs the place,

sort of like
the local Wyatt Earp type.

On a rainy day
not long ago,

I finally met him,

a tall, lanky fellow
named Andy.

(man)
It's Andy Barker!

(Barnes)
Everybody knows Andy Barker.

Good to see you,
Glen.

Hello,
there.

(Barnes)
Back in 1954,

he pulled out of his family's
thriving construction business

in Charlotte,

bought 369 acres
of wild country,

and turned it
into a legendary land

that he named
"Love Valley."

(Barker)
I just always wanted
to play cowboy,

and the first public statement
that I ever made

was in the fourth grade,

when you stand up
before the class and say,

when I grow up,
I'm gonna do so-and-so.

Well, my friends was gonna
be doctors and lawyers.

I stand up and say,

"I'm gonna build me
a Western town."

The first building
I built was a church.

I felt like
that then

we could build
a community around it.

[lively guitar strumming]

(Barnes)
Then Andy built
his business district.

[whistler joins]

There are a couple
of saloons and a dance hall.

If you're
wearing guns--

and it's legal
to do that here--

you have to check them

as soon as soon
as you step inside.

[gunshot]
bmm!

Across the street,

there's a store
full of saddles,

bridles,
everything you or your horse

could possibly need
except hay and oats.

The Moonshine gift shop

has cowboy buyables
for the folks back home,

and for
the travel-trailer deprived,

there's Miss Kitty's
grand hotel.

♪

And so it was done.

A childhood dream
became reality.

Love Valley was born...

a place
where a gentle breeze

is followed
by a face full of dust

and man's best friend
plays second fiddle

to another
four-legged animal.

[horse whinnying]
whe-hee-hee-heey

(Barker)
All the horse people
like to congregate together.

They come in
on the weekend,

and they get in
and tell their tales

and sit around,
and everything is about horses

or something
they've done with horses

or about the breed
of horse

or they argue about
who's got the best horse.

Yeah, it's horses.

[organ leads]

dng, dng...dng

(Barnes)
And on Saturday mornings,

customers and their steeds
are waiting in line

to get a new set
of shoes.

(Barker)
A lot of these
eastern-part-of-the-state boys

never shoe their horses.

And what happens
is that they come up here

and they get
into rocky country

and they gonna
need to shoe.

[trombones lead slowly]

clp, clp...clp

(Barnes)
As for Andy Barker,

the mayor
of Love Valley,

he greets town folk
in his hardware store.

(Barker)
Oh, that's my fun place.

I'll be down there
tradin' till I'm dead.

I'm runnin'
a special
on it today.

Buy one,
get one
free?

Oh, yeah,
if you pay enough
for the first one.

(Barnes)
Prices at Andy's store

are what you might call
"variable."

(Barker)
Well, you wanna
borrow one or buy one?

I just--well,
just got to level
one corner.

Well, hell,
let's get mine
out there.

(Barnes)
In rainy weather,
he gives 50% off on tarps.

Thank you very much,
and hurry back to see me.

(man)
Okay, I will.

(Barnes)
He'll sell you a plastic leg.

Everybody asks
about that leg.

And I got it
for butt kickin'.

I lease it out--
a dollar a day--

and they use it
for butt kickin'.

[deep guitar note]

(Barnes)
On chilly days,

folks come by
just to warm themselves

by the pot-bellied stove

and listen
to Andy's tall tales.

[violins rise dramatically]

Through the years,

this quirky little town
has attracted some big names.

A flamboyant Texan
named Lyndon B. Johnson

once rode through town
on a stagecoach.

North Carolina
Senators Sam Ervin

and B. Everett Jordan
stopped by

to chat
with Andy Barker.

Early mornin'
in Love Valley

might look
like a ghost town,

but by high noon,
it's anything but that.

There's a horse tethered

to every foot
of the hitchin' rail.

The boardwalks
are crowded,

and still more riders
trot down the street

to see and be seen.

♪

Why do people
bring their campers

and their horses
and their families

from all over
Tennessee,

Virginia,
Georgia, Alabama,

and certainly
from North Carolina

to spend a weekend
at Love Valley?

Well, they might have
a chili cook-off.

Want some?

(Barnes)
They might encounter a rodeo.

♪

And they might have

a Halloween parade
on horseback--

dressed-up horses,

tiny goblins
on ponies,

outrageous hairdos,

fancy dresses,

even a little
Indian or two.

[violin leads
rich arrangement]

♪

[cymbals resound]

You don't have
to spend much time here

to figure out
there's not really

another place
like Love Valley,

and where did
the name "Love Valley"

come from anyway?

(Barker)
I do love people,

and I was gonna call it
the "Valley of Love."

Well,
it was too long,

so then I changed it
to Love Valley.

(Barnes)
And lots of folks

are in love
with Love Valley.

The way gamblers
love Vegas,

the way hikers love
the Appalachian Trail,

this little
Western town is heaven

to thousands
of cowboys and cowgirls

who just
keep comin' back

to Love Valley's
happy trails.

[echoing guitar strums]

[lilting harp melody]

♪

(woman)
I'm afraid that

with the long-standing,
traditional crafts

that we're going to see
a decline in the motivation

to pass those on
to the next generation.

What happens
if the next generation says,

"I don't think
I want to do that.

I have other interests?"

What happens to a craft?

It's gone.

♪

(narrator)
It's the art of doll making,

and its roots lie
in a cultural exchange

that took place
between Native American

and colonial children.

(woman)
The Native American children

taught the early settlers
how to make dolls.

It's difficult
for children now to realize

that during that time period,
there were no toys.

The only thing they had
were things they made at home.

(narrator)
As it's been done
for generations,

Smithfield resident
Pam Earp fashions her dolls

out of cornhusks.

But today,
rather than having to wait

for the corn to get ripe,

she can shop
at nearby market.

[mellow Latin beat leads]

♪

(Earp)
I go to a Hispanic
grocery store

at a local
open-air market.

I usually am able
to pick out the ones

that would work best
for dolls.

They have to have
a special texture to them.

Then you almost
have to sniff 'em, too,

because they've
got to smell right.

[lilting harp notes]

♪

(narrator)
Pam found her interest
in doll making

while on her honeymoon
in 1978

when she stopped
at a craft show in Boone.

♪

(Earp)
I watched a man make a doll,
and I was fascinated.

I really enjoyed
watching him

and working
with a natural material.

♪

And I made a doll,

and it was
very traditional, very simple,

and very ugly.

It wasn't my style.

I wanted to find my own way
of making them

and put my own creativity
in it.

(narrator)
Nearly 30 years later,

Pam sits around the table
with her mother, daughter,

and an apprentice
still creating--

still upholding
this unique tradition.

(Earp)
Most traditions pass

from grandmother on down

a normal
family-tradition path,

but ours
is a little different.

My daughter actually
learned from me,

and now my mother has started
making things as well.

So we have
three generations involved,

but it's not
the normal passing down

from generation
to generation.

We just sort of
started one place

and branched out
in all directions.

You got it?

What color
sleeve you want? Natural or red?

[voiceover]
We have our own areas
we like to work with.

I really like to work

with the fancy,
very elaborate dolls,

and my daughter works
with the smaller pieces--

the angels and very intricate
pieces there.

And my mom does
a great job with flowers

and the very
traditional dolls.

♪

(narrator)
Pam dyes the cleaned husks

with about
ten different colors.

As you look at the fine detail
that goes into her craft,

you might notice that none
of her dolls have faces.

♪

(Earp)
It's a Native American
tradition.

There are a lot of stories,

but the most
common version is that

if you put a face
on something,

an evil spirit
could possess it,

so they left the faces off.

There are lots of different
versions of the story.

I like the look

because, then,
you can make the doll

anyone you want it to be.

♪

I don't do commission work

because, then,
it would be more like a job.

I don't want it to be
something I have to do.

I want it to be something
that I enjoy doing.

Oh, I'm having fun.

[voiceover]
It's very relaxing for me.

♪

Well, I like to have
the dolls doing things

or let them depict things

that a woman would do
in real life.

I like baskets.

I like little fancy parasols
and flowers and handbags.

And you really
have to look at the doll

once she's finished and decide
what fits her personality.

Every doll looks
a little different.

You can even
put an age on them,

or I can
when I look at them.

They look like they fit
certain roles in life,

and that's generally
how I determine

what I put
in their hands.

♪

(narrator)
Whereas dolls in the old days

were used as toys
for children,

they're now
primarily for display.

And each year
at the State Fair,

collectors can find
Pam's dolls for sale

at the Village
of Yesteryear...

♪

but a lot of preparation
is needed for this event.

(Earp)
Twenty-three made,
and I need a hundred.

I'm thinkin'
I have three made,

and I need about 200.

I really enjoy
doing these.

They're fairly quick
to do.

I can sit at home
watching TV doing 'em.

(Earp)
I think I prefer
the larger ones

'cause you can be
more creative with those.

I like the
smaller ones.

Should they have
any wrinkles?

No wrinkles
for the sleeves.

They don't bend
very--very well.

(Earp's mother)
If it's too flimsy and all,

it's not going
to work out as well,

so I try to get some
that's thicker.

(Earp)
We do have collectors.

I'm very fortunate to have
a large group of collectors

that come and visit me
every year.

I enjoy visiting
with the people.

They bring pictures
of their dolls

and their doll collections,

and it's interesting
to listen to them

because you don't
see them very often.

There are very few
of us left--

very few doll makers left
in North Carolina.

That's why I think
it's so important

that we teach this
to other people

so that we can pass
that tradition on.

♪

Each doll is very unique,
and I want to make sure

that when I do a doll,
that it is something

that people are going to
cherish for many generations.

♪

[gentle piano introduction]

♪

[resonant strings join]

♪

(man)
Ansel Adams said that

the negative
is like the score,

and the print
is the performance.

♪

You can interpret
the image, you know,

a lot of different ways,
and they can all be right.

♪

As far as what's
in the image,

the thing
that I am drawn to,

number one,
is that it tells a story.

And even
if it's a still life,

there's a sensation
that somebody was just there.

♪

I did a collection
of photographs

of North Carolina
Indian women.

You know,
what I try to avoid

is sort of the stoic,
classic Indian portraits

and to have it be
about my friends.

Right in the lens.

tckk

Good.

[Native American
singing and drumming]

Yeah, that's
very cool.

♪

[rushing wind]

[energetic string quartet
playing "Our State" theme]

♪

[dainty piano joins]

♪

[violins join]

♪

[woodwinds lead]

♪

[full orchestration]

♪

Captioning by Caroline Griffin,
Chad Propst, and Molly Freedman

Caption Perfect, Inc.
www.CaptionPerfect.com

(announcer)
To subscribe
to "Our State" magazine,

visit the Web
site www.ourstate.com or call...

[gentle piano melody]

From small towns
to bustling cities,

from the Outer Banks
to the Blue Ridge Mountains

and all the places in-between,

BB&T believes opportunity lives
everywhere in North Carolina.

And for more than 130 years,

we've helped people
discover it.

We're proud
of our North Carolina roots,

and we're proud to provide
major funding for "Our State."

Quality public television
is made possible

through the financial
contributions

of viewers like you,

who invite you to join them
in supporting UNC-TV.