A sign at one of the few gift shops I visited during our recent trip to the Outer Banks stated: “If you’re lucky enough to be at the beach, you’re lucky enough.”
That couldn’t be more true, even if you’re there during a pandemic and a labor shortage.
Both issues have taken their toll on the popular North Carolina beach area, just as they’ve hit hard in the Fredericksburg region and any other place where workers are needed to serve dinner, clean houses, stock shelves, run cash registers, drive trucks, repair cars and do everything else required in our world.
I’ll admit I haven’t been out much since the pandemic hit in March 2020 and sent me home to work. Even before then, my companion, Lou, and I didn’t eat out often. We got takeout from time to time, opting to sit down at our picnic or kitchen table to eat food someone else had prepared instead of spending hours inside a restaurant.
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We tend to splurge a little more at the beach, but even then, we’d rather enjoy the sunset views from the porch on the top floor of the rental house. It’s also nice to sit on the deck and see families riding bikes or walking back from the beach.
We didn’t get to our spot in the sand in 2020 for the first time in decades because of the pandemic, and we held off booking a vacation this season until it looked like things had calmed down. And they had on Father’s Day, when we finally committed to a vacation.
Then, as the variant known as delta dawned—and exploded—we were anxious about going somewhere where thousands of others were headed. We pledged to keep to ourselves at the beach, avoid crowded restaurants and souvenir shops and wear masks whenever we were around others.
As for the latter, we regularly were the only people masked, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. What did become concerning was the impact the virus, and the lack of people willing to work, has had on one of our favorite places.
Many restaurants had shifted to takeout only and were closed one or even two days a week because they couldn’t find people to work. And being closed at a resort during primetime vacation season is absolutely unheard of, one business owner told us.
While I stood yards apart on a ramp into a restaurant, waiting for what turned out to be the best fish tacos ever, I talked with a man from Fairfax County. COVID-19 had claimed his mother-in-law, family doctor and a friend his age (he looked to be in his 40s), so he was clearly cautious.
He said he’d heard from a nearby store owner that every day had been like a holiday this year at the beach—at least in terms of the number of visitors. The Outer Banks were overflowing with vacationers from across the country, but the store owner still had to close a few days a week because she didn’t have enough manpower to fill all the shifts.
The people at our favorite tackle shop, The Fishing Hole in Salvo, have closed one day a week for the same reason. We’ve met a number of friendly and knowledgeable people there over the years, but several of the staff moved away and the owner has one helper remaining.
Between the two of them, they’ve tried to keep the store open for all the beachgoers, sunbathers and fishermen who come there for goods. They had advertised—and hired one or two people who stayed a few hours, then left and never came back. No one, it seems, was willing to work.
Thankfully, we had packed food and many of the items we’d need for our two-week stay. But as the end of our visit neared, we decided to enjoy a few more rounds of steamed shrimp and crabcakes.
I don’t usually leave a tip when I pick up takeout food—thinking there’s no wait staff involved—but the impact the labor shortage is having on the world changed my mind.
I was so grateful to see people working and trying to keep the doors open, I tipped generously. When I stopped at a seafood place on the way home and bought pounds of crabmeat for my brother, I even tipped the exceedingly pleasant young man who carried the cooler out to the truck for us.
I know it’s just a few extra dollars, but I hope it sends the message that we appreciate the work that others do for us. It allows us to enjoy a trip to the beach—or a nice meal from a local restaurant—that much more.