An Encouraging Word

When has a rest stop exceeded your expectations? I found one today in Seagrove, North Carolina. It is in the central part of the state where I have warm memories of when I visited here with my grandmother. She loved the outlet stores located all along the “Pottery Highway.” Since the eighteenth century, this area has been known for making and selling hand-turned or "hand-thrown" pottery.

Upon entering this brand-spanking-new visitor center, we were warmly welcomed with a kind, inviting southern accent. We told the two hostesses where we were from and one replied, “Oreeeegon, bless your little heart!”

Then her counterpart exclaimed, “How niiiiiiiiiice it was for us to stop by and see the fiiiiiiiinest part of Narthcaliiiina.” Only in the south can one-syllable words be made into multiple syllable words. “Won’t ya’ll sit fer a spell.”

From these very proper, southern belles, I learned that Seagrove was named after a railroad official, Edwin G. Seagraves. However, a sign painter ran out of space and simply dropped the 's' from the end of the name and compounded it by misspelling Seagraves as Seagrove.

Curiously, the name of a town just southeast of Seagrove is named Whynot. The origin of that name came from residents debating a title for their community. After going back and forth for an interminable amount of time, one man asked, "Why not name the town Whynot and let's go home?" Even though I was enjoying learning about the history of the area, we needed to continue our journey south to see my mother in South Carolina.

As we got back at the car, Tim asked me if I’d like a Triscuit cracker. I didn’t know we had brought any. He said, “Sure, here’s some laying on the ground.”

Just then, a workman walked up and began sweeping them into a dustpan. I told him that my loving husband had offered them to me.

And in a slow, southern draw he said, “M’aaaaaam you can have ‘em if you want ‘em. I’m not worried about my job security. There’s plenty more for me to sweep up.”

I chuckled and said, “This has to be the nicest rest stop I’ve ever been to . . . and we’re from Oregon so we’ve seen a lot of rest stops.”

I went on to add “You do a wonderful job of keeping it spotless. I can tell you take pride in your work.”

He continued his job of methodically sweeping and moving to the next piece of trash to collect in his dustpan. As he did, I might have seen his step to be just a little lighter. Today’s gift was to tell him the good work he does to keep the place clean. Maybe it was because someone had given him an encouraging word for his efforts.

In Giving,

Robin