Don’t look now, it’s Christmastime
By Lolita Huckaby
BEAUFORT
The Christmas season has officially begun.
Sure, sure, stores were displaying Christmas decorations practically since Labor Day and Black Friday sales were promoted weeks before Thanksgiving, but the city of Beaufort and several hundred volunteers “officially” launched the season this past week with the three-day extravaganza – Friday’s Night on the Town, Saturday’s Gullah Christmas Rice Cook-Off then the Boat Parade and Sunday’s Christmas Parade.
Turnout for all – despite threats of rain and fog that rolled in from the Beaufort River on Saturday night engulfing the downtown – was reportedly “packed” as residents and visitors took the opportunity to meet and greet and even do some shopping.
Parking along the residential section of Bay Street, always a good indication of crowd turnout when cars are backed up past the Beaufort Elementary School. And parking in the back streets was more congested than usual. Oh where, Santa Claus, is that parking garage when we need it??
Kudos to all those who brought the hand-bellers and the choral groups, the waste management trucks and the politicians, the dancing girls and marching bands together for our enjoyment. And FYI, if you missed the city’s kick-off, the county kicks off the season Friday night, Dec. 8 with a Christmas tree lighting and a visit from Santa who will explain our tax bills.
The town of Port Royal, still waiting for its new mayor Kevin Phillips to be sworn in during the first Dec. 13 meeting, is scheduled to light the lights Dec. 6. The town’s annual golf cart parade is Dec. 9.
Lots of “old-timers” – and those still worried about the rising rates of COVID and CRV – opt not to attend and just view the activities on the various streaming agencies like Facebook. Some, you couldn’t keep away, not even with the threat of rain or lack of parking.
There were remarks made that the weekend was another example of what makes Beaufort “what it is.” Others were heard to say they didn’t go “because it’s too big. … It’s not the same.”
Well Harvey’s Barbershop on Bay Street may no longer be a standard check-in point for Night on the Town, and the Gullah Christmas Rice Cook-off in the Waterfront Park was a new addition. But Tutti-Frutti, who actually died in 2013 after leading the Beaufort High band for many a local parade, was there in white shirt and pants, cap and whistle, thanks to impersonator Christopher Dantlzer, representative of the many spirits of Christmases past.
May the good spirits generated by the weekend carry the community through the month, particularly past the Dec. 12 mayoral election.
If the trees are gone, will we be able to see the forest?
BEAUFORT – Last Friday was also Arbor Day in South Carolina, and certainly in the city where trees are merrily planted in public ceremonies and quietly cut down while the public’s not paying attention.
While the National Arbor Day is celebrated in April, other states recognize the holiday on different dates. In the Palmetto State – named for a Palmetto tree for those who might not know – that celebration takes place the first Friday in December, considered an ideal time for planting trees.
The city Public Works crews planted a redbud tree at the Pigeon Point Park, accompanied by the city’s five-member Parks and Tree Commission. The Lady’s Island Garden Club, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year as the oldest garden club in Beaufort, worked with local landscaper and plantsman extraordinaire Jay Weidner, who donated a bald cypress for planting on the campus of Beaufort High School, accompanied by students from a BHS biology class.
Beaufort, in case you might not have guessed, is a one of the National Arbor Day Foundation’s 3,400 Tree Cities USA and has been for the past 32 years. To earn that recognition, the city has to have a tree board (that would be the Parks and Trees Committee), a tree ordinance, an annual Arbor Day program and a community forestry program (which would be the city street survey done in 2002).
Friday’s planting at the Beaufort High School campus came less than a mile away from the new Harris Teeter location on Lady’s Island where roadside tree-cutting three weeks ago shocked many passers-by and prompted the question, once again: what the heck is going on with our trees?
Turns out the latest tree murders were done in compliance with plans approved by the city planning staff over several years. The developers did have to pay close to $17,000 to make up for the trees they removed. And it also turns out, the S.C. Department of Transportation, somewhere in its vault of long-range projects, has plans for a right-hand turning lane from the Sea Island Parkway onto Sams Point Road, a project which would have required the trees to be removed anyway.
So the latest bulldozing follows the history of the site beginning with the tree-cuttings that accompanied the original Publix building on the site in 1997, cuttings which promoted a three-year court battle which ended with the wooded lot still being cleared.
Tree-huggers reading this column may see this as just another example of the abused environmental charm Beaufort claims to cherish and tourism folks love to feature in photographs of the area, trees ripped out of the ground all over the place, in compliance with existing regulations and by developers willing to pay fees to get rid of the hurdles for new construction.
It remains to be seen if the Beaufort City Council, under new mayoral leadership next year, will choose to follow the town of Port Royal’s lead in tightening the ordinances, making the fees imposed on developers for special tree removal the highest in South Carolina. They’ll have the opportunity, if they choose, to do so as they continue their review and updating of the city’s development code in January.
Or maybe they’ll just opt to focus on trees planted for Arbor Day and the special planting projects in the various parks, not really worrying whether we can see the proverbial forest.
Lolita Huckaby Watson is a community volunteer and newspaper columnist. In her former role as a reporter with The Beaufort Gazette, The Savannah Morning News, Bluffton Today and Beaufort Today, she prided herself in trying to stay neutral and unbiased. As a columnist, these are her opinions. Her goal is to be factual but opinionated, based on her own observations. Feel free to contact her at bftbay@gmail.com.
