Albert is O'Neal of the Week!

Sundae Horn
Albert is O'Neal of the Week!

Albert O’Neal was “born and raised” on Ocracoke.

His dad told him he had two choices after high school: get a job or go in the Coast Guard. Albert graduated from Ocracoke School in 1990 and started working for the ferries four days later. He started off as a deckhand, then worked his way up to be captain of the dredge Carolina, and also captain of the crane barge. Now he manages the Ocracoke ferry office.

Albert joined the Ocracoke Volunteer Fire Department as a junior member when he was 13. In 1999, he became Chief, a position he still holds. Having just turned 40, Albert can boast twenty-seven years serving Ocracoke as a volunteer firefighter.

He and Teresa have been married for ten years. Teresa got the fire department when she got Albert, and serves as treasurer and runs the popular fundraising Bingo games. Have you ever heard the fire truck go by on a hot Tuesday afternoon in the summer and heard a woman calling, “Bingo, Bingo, Bingo, tonight at the Fire Hall!”? Well, that’s Teresa.

Albert and Teresa own the Island Ragpicker gift shop, and he also does inshore fishing charters aboard the Miss Teresa.

Albert grew up crabbing and fishing with his father, and he’s worked as a commercial fisherman all his life, and is a member of Ocracoke Working Watermen’s Association.

“Gill netting, pound netting, I still do it all except crabbing,” he said. “I’m still fishing in the same boat – when Daddy retired, he gave his boat to me."

When I asked what the boat was named before he met Teresa, he said it was the Miss Stephanie.

“That’s my sister,” he added.

OC: What’s the last movie you saw in a theater?

Albert: I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you if I had to be shot.

Teresa: I think it was “The Perfect Storm.” Definitely nothing more recent than that.

OC: What’s your favorite traditional Ocracoke food?

Albert: Drum fish and potatoes.

OC: If you couldn’t live here, where would you live?

Albert: Nowhere 

OC: But what if you had to choose? What if Ocracoke got completely washed away in a hurricane?

Albert thinks for a minute….

Teresa: He has never, ever, ever even fathomed living somewhere else.

Albert: Portsmouth.

Teresa: Portsmouth? Well, have a good time!

OC: If you could change one thing about Ocracoke, what would it be?

Teresa: We talk about this a lot. We think Ocracoke is getting over-regulated, and it’s changed the feel of what it used to be.

Albert: That’s right.

OC: What’s your favorite part of summer?

Albert: The tourists.

Teresa: Really, that’s your favorite part?

Albert: Yes, they bring money. Money is good.

OC: What’s the farthest you’ve traveled from Ocracoke?

Albert: Barbados, to the East, and Malibu, to the West.

Teresa: I’m from Malibu and we had one of our weddings there – one here and one there.

Albert: I married the same woman twice in two weeks.

OC: How did you two meet?

Albert: She found me. She was working [at the Island Ragpicker] for Mickey and Carmie, and the air conditioner filled the shop with smoke. I came out with the fire department.

Teresa: This handsome devil showed up.

OC: And then….

Teresa: I worked here with Lisa O’Neal, who’s married to [Albert’s cousin] Tubba. I talked to her a little and then we got invited to their house for dinner on the same night.

OC: What a coincidence! Do you feel lucky being married to the Bingo Queen?

Albert: Yes, I do.

OC: What’s your sign?

Albert: Capricorn

OC: What’s your favorite poem?

Albert and Teresa exchange worried looks and laugh.

Teresa: Go ahead. Tell them.

Albert: There once was a man from Nantucket….

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