Known in some circles as a troublemaker, Brown grins with delight when told he knocks apple-carts on their sides everywhere he goes. He doesn't care. Controversy, like woodworking, suits him. And once he bites into something, he holds on, like a dog worrying a rabbit it's caught.

 Brown, who as a school board member decades ago refused a surreptitious raise given to board members in a secret meeting, never passes up an opportunity to take on what he sees as dishonest government. He lost a reelection bid to the post of county commissioner after a particularly ugly and public wrangle over former Sheriff Thomas Marshall's use of funds collected by his office. Brown knew his stand might cost him his position, but took the gamble anyway.

 He never officially returned to public life after his loss, but remains no stranger to county officials. He's wrangling with the county health department this time around and shows no signs of turning into a gentler, kinder Herschel Brown any time soon.

 "We're all living on borrowed time, might as well make something of it," he says.

 Brown, who'll be 81 in June, came to Onslow County on Jan. 1, 1952, to work on a construction project. It wasn't a long trip – he's originally from Wilmington and has other family connections in Onslow.

 Married to Marguerie (pronounced Mar-Grr-Eee) for almost 59 years, the Browns have two children. Their son, Raeford, is the news director of a television station in Wilmington and father of a grown daughter, Candy. Daughter, Suzette, taught school and is married to a Marine colonel. Suzette and her husband live in the Washington, D.C., area with their two children. Brown dotes on all three of his grandchildren, his face lighting up when the topic arises.

 "Ah, the kids are delightful, just delightful," he says, not a bit prejudiced.

 He and Marguerie make a lot of their free time, traveling in the huge Winnebago that Brown houses out back. He likes piloting the motor home and says they've taken a number of trips. He wants to go on more, but has trouble finding the time. Brown stays busy. But it's not his fault, he probably couldn't do it any other way.

 In his office, located in the back of the house, he has the tools of his contracting trade, a curious mix of yellow legal  pads covered with numbers and Brown's scrawl and a computer that sometimes frustrates him. He likes it, though, and prints out a letter he recently wrote to a New Jersey child who bought a can joe. She wanted to know how he invented it.

 "It really wasn't invented, it was more like being discovered," he says in the letter. The instrument, which is simply a stick with frets, a string, a resonator and a tuner, is sold through various catalogue companies. Brown says he only makes what he puts back into them. But he doesn't mind. This instrument wasn't designed to make money.

 He strums the opening bars of Amazing Grace. It's a surprisingly big sound for such a little instrument. Then he plays "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley" and grins. The man who has raised buildings from piles of lumber and concrete, who has stood in the center of controversy most of his adult life, who has crafted beautiful mountain dulcimers, holds out the can joe.