9 x 12
Oil on Linen
Plein Air
SOLD
SOLD
The Thompson Clubhouse was a rite of passage for many generations of Bertie County folk when they were in high school or home for holiday from college. With no cell phones, texting, email etc word sure got out quick when Roy Thompson decided to fire up the gas heaters and crank up the cassette deck. Cars would line up the dirt path all the way to the road as revelers from miles around would keep pouring in as late seventies and eighties music rattled the window panes.
As time moved on, Vic Thompson slowly collected old pipes, drum barrels, abandoned refrigerators, pressure valves and anything that wasn't attached to something to finally put them all together inside to create a contraption that looks just like an old corn whiskey still that has somehow found its way into a ballast control room of a submarine. Its mechanical function, however is to serve as a makeshift oyster steamer instead of a moonshine distiller or aquatic depth regulator. Not much on exhaust, Vic didn't design a way for the steam to vent out of the low lit rustic cabin that houses a long cypress wooden oyster bar facing the steamer from end to end. On any given night its hard to find the door if it isn't for the whiskey or the steam fogging your visibility down to a foot or two.
With everyone taking turns shucking for one another on a cold winter's night as the fire place roars and the steamer hisses away on some salty Pamlico Sound oysters it really is a good 'ol fun place to hang out.
