My Dad Taught Me to Build Things

October 27, 2026

Good Morning OBX Crew!

Halloween lands Saturday and Manteo is going all out with a street party and a Spooktacular. Blackbeard's Pirate Jamboree runs on Ocracoke all weekend, the 4th Annual Wooden Boat Show is on the Manteo waterfront Saturday, and the Roanoke Island Oyster Shellabration closes things out Sunday.

Let's get into it!

Rafters and All

Quick note before the story: clocks fall back Sunday morning. Brighter evenings, which I like. Kids waking up an hour earlier than usual, which I do not. Maybe this year will be different. Probably not.

What I actually want to talk about is building things.

It started with Legos. Every Father's Day growing up I'd get my dad a Lego set, which was obviously for him and definitely not a scheme so that I could build it. He saw through that immediately and built them with me anyway. He's always been a hands-on guy, and more than that, he always made a point of showing me how to do things myself instead of just doing them for me. I'm grateful for that in a way I didn't understand until I was older. It taught me that you can learn almost anything if you're willing to be bad at it first.

A few years back we built a shed together, rafters and all. Since then it's been bathrooms, flooring, painting, whatever needed doing. Their house in KDH was one of those projects. When they bought it, every single room was a different bright color. Green, purple, orange, yellow. It had personality, I'll give it that, but it needed updating and that's what we spent our time on.

I love it for the memories, but honestly I also just like the doing. Fitting the pieces, getting it square, standing back at the end of the day sore and looking at something that wasn't there that morning. I think we're mostly caught up on projects for now, though I doubt that lasts.

If you want to see any of it, the house in KDH or the sheds, hit reply and I'll put some photos in a future letter. And thank you to everybody who sent me pictures from your own time out here. I genuinely love seeing them.

Restaurant Spotlight

Roanoke Island Maritime Museum

104 Fernando Street, Manteo

Since I just spent the whole letter talking about building things, this is the spotlight. The museum lives in the George Washington Creef Boathouse on the Manteo waterfront, named for the local builder who invented the shad boat in the 1870s by combining old split-log methods with plank-on-frame construction. It became the official state boat of North Carolina in 1987. The thing that makes this more than a museum is that it's a working boat shop, where volunteers and staff restore small craft and build new boats. The Elizabeth II was built on this site. They have Ella, an 1883 Creef shad boat, on display. Good timing too: their 4th Annual Wooden Boat Show is right outside on Saturday.

Go See It