A sense of place

I think that it must be the tide, or maybe it’s that same joy of regularity routinely experienced by those blue haired condo queens on their latest multigrain high fiber diet. Unable to afford a beach house of my own, we spend a couple of weeks each year in a rental on Edisto Beach in coastal South Carolina. Right now, just as I’m writing this, my wife and children are playing bingo at the Edisto Island Lions club. Tidal in its own regularity, the Lion’s Club bingo night occurs every Wednesday and Friday evening during the summers. Catering to the vacationing lawyers, the Lions club bingo night checks in as pure wholesome family fun.

Perhaps it’s all the healthy competition that drives the island inhabitant’s ever increasing collection of Edisto essentials. A stint on Edisto is merely camping without them. First on that list, as my son would describe it, is a “Pimp Golf Cart”, now these are no ordinary golf carts…they are often complete with chrome wheels and are painted in the colors of the owners’ collegiate alumni. A dozen or so bikes, a minimum of one jet-ski and about a fifteen foot center console to motor in from your thirty-six foot Sportfisher will nicely round out your Edisto war chest.

On Edisto, residents and guest alike want to think life moves at a slower pace. In fact, I think that it’s just that slower pace perception that draws people to this place. I’ve spent my summers on this island for the better part of twenty years. Tonight, as the burning embers of a charcoal grill are permeating the air and faint voices from the family in the beach house next door fill the voids between the cicadas and the ever present tide, a carload of teen’s miss-shift a convertible in front of my rental.

Now, I’m quite high on California Chardonnay, so the lanky southern drawl of “Yall aint going back yet are you?” is all I can manage to discern from the teens curious and awkwardly familiar conversation. Kids really, they couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. Some might have been older, but not by much. Three young men and two girls piled themselves into a Mini-Cooper. Nothing good can come from a gaggle of well-off teens in daddy’s sports car, especially nothing that follows “Hey yall, watch this...”, but Junior finally found first and the whole lot of them hobbled off down Myrtle Street. The father in me worried somewhat, but that thought quickly faded as my wine glass emptied, and I did get a good chuckle at the sight of that little car bucking and jeering…like a schnauzer drags its ass to free the remnants of its most recent bowel movement.

I’m also rather guilty of perpetuating that slower paced perception by bringing my own family to Edisto for that very same well-intended-but-often-misguided sense of wholesome-ness, hoping that the density of wholesome would somehow displace the viscousness of dysfunction. But, alas I cannot run from my roots, and as a fitting and just reward for the years of aggravation I caused my own parents, the fruit of my loins did not fall far from their tree…my children are impatient, ungrateful, and have little or no regard for the personal property of others. I know this to be true because I have personally witnessed my son fill a solo cup with red kool-aid a full quarter-inch above the lip, retaining the fluid in the cup by sheer surface tension alone. Fearing that this defiance of physical law would inevitably lead to the destruction of a perfectly worn Berber remnant, I screamed at him to take that shit out back, which is where the ‘accident” eventually occurred, creating a rather realistic crime scene effect on the weathered wood deck. I know I should be glad that I don’t actually own the beach house, but I pick up a real estate magazine every visit anyway.

Truth be told, I'm no fan of white wine. I had stopped by the marina to have a few rum-n-cokes with the local crowd after dropping the family off at the Lions Club, but the line of tourist trying to get one of those sunset tables for dinner was gathering out the door onto the pier, so I meandered back to our rental by the surprisingly adequate light of the waning moon to make my own libation. I sat on the elevated porch and waved at the passer by’s. I listened to the mixed tape I had kept in my possession since high school. I switched to Scotch and water.

What is this wholesome-ness anyway? True, Edisto is no Myrtle Beach. There is no outlet mall, no fast food, and no waterslides or mini-golf. Matter of fact, there is only one grocery store on the entire island.You can count the restaurants on one hand, and there’s only one gas station unless you count the pump at the marina. But that’s not really why I come. I tell myself that that if I bring my kids to this place that they will leave with a rejuvenated and communal sense of family. I tell myself that family vacations don’t have to include theme parks and roller coasters. I tell myself that my over-stimulated Nintendo generation kids need to learn to appreciate the simpler things in life. But that’s not really why I come.

Our week’s itinerary included surf fishing off the Sound, paddling rented kayaks across Big Bay Creek to Otter Island, tidal pool exploring, crabbing, wave riding on the north end, a visit to the serpentarium for the afternoon gator feeding, a nature hike and visit to the interpretive center, a plethora of family style dinners on the picnic table out back, Bingo at the Lions club, and of course- consuming the intoxicating salt mash air while relaxing in a rocker on the front porch...and waving to all of those who have come to share the same experience.

I come for the passer by’s. I come for the sense of place.