‘Tis the Season to Extend a ‘Hand of Hospitality’

Hospitality is a hallmark of Carteret County, N.C., especially during peak tourism season.

Everyone from Cedar Island to Cedar Point and from Cape Lookout to Cape Carteret can extend a “hand of hospitality” to welcome tourists, visitors and guests to our Crystal Coast communities.

It’s easy and it’s fun to say “howdy, y’all” to the “dit-dots” – the “summer people” who come to relax and enjoy our sandy beaches, paddle our rivers and creeks, go fishin’, soak up some history and savor succulent seafood.

 

The “dit-dots” are fairly easy to pick out of a crowd…once they open their mouths. They tend to talk funny, bless their hearts. That’s because they’re from “Off,” which translates loosely to “ain’t from these parts.”

According to Carteret County’s premier storyteller and historian Rodney Kemp, the term “dit-dots” originated during World War II, when the U.S. Army reactivated Fort Macon and set up special surveillance outposts along the shoreline and a communications center at Salter Path on Bogue Banks. Patrols were on alert to detect the presence of German U-boats in the waters off our coast.

 

Most of the military personnel assigned there were of “Northern persuasion,” Kemp said, and “because of the nature of their communications via Morse code using “dits and dahs,” the locals laughingly referred to them as a crowd of ‘dit-dotters.’”

As it applies today, “dit-dots” are a class of people who typically spend their money here…and then leave and go home.

It just makes good business sense to embrace visitors. As the late A.C. Hall, a founding father of the Town of Pine Knoll Shores and the architect and longtime owner of the iconic Atlantis Lodge, taught us: “Tourism reaches every single soul in this county.”

 

A.C. and Dot Hall

Truer words were never spoken, for indeed, “tourism is everybody’s business here.”

Within the hospitality industry, the pineapple is an internationally recognized symbol that emits vibrations that warmly say “welcome friends,” according to Dean Elphick, a marketing executive at Little Hotelier, a software solutions company based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The pineapple symbol is one that lodging properties often use “as a visual cue to help guests feel more confident in their decision to stay with you,” Elphick said. Pineapples located here, there and everywhere “tell guests: ‘You’re safe here, you’re valued here, you’re home here.’”

 

Several sources agree that the pineapple story in America begins with explorer Christopher Columbus, who “discovered the exotic fruit” on a voyage in 1493 that took him from Spain into the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. On the island of Guadeloupe, Columbus discovered pineapples growing in clusters on shrubs.

In an article written by Beth McKibben, a food and beverage freelance journalist in Atlanta, Ga., for southernkitchen.com, she said: “Columbus cut a few pineapples from their stalks to carry back to Spain to present to his sponsor, King Ferdinand.”

Columbus called the fruit “piña de Indes” (“little pine of the Indians”) for its resemblance to the pinecone, and he declared it “the most delicious fruit in the world.”

The natives had referred to the fruit for centuries as “ananas,” meaning “excellent fruit.” It is pronounced as “aa naa naaz.”

McKibben said she believes ananas originated in South America, deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, where the fruit was worshiped by the Tupinambá people who inhabited present-day Brazil and Paraguay.

“The Tupi not only consumed the indigenous pineapple but also used its meat to make wine and medicines,” she said.