By Scott Graber
It is Saturday, early and overcast. This morning I have my Eight O’clock Original coffee and a view of the early morning walkers (and their dogs) on London Avenue. Today there is no newspaper and so one is relegated to “The People’s Pharmacy.” This morning we’re getting a tutorial on sudden cardiac arrest from Joe and Terry.
I’m a 78-year-old man, and any discussion of sudden cardiac arrest makes me nervous.
Last night, I tried to attend Beaufort’s Night on the Town. Once this was a modest nighttime gathering on Bay Street and the opportunity to greet people who were friends, but slightly removed from one’s immediate social circle.
In those days the Bay Street merchants would stay open — some providing a complimentary bourbon beverage in Solo plastic party cups — leading to a standing-in-the-street conversation where everyone agreed that Beaufort was still a town with a unique, caring population who believed Norman Rockwell’s visual metaphors about small-town virtue.
But as I passed by the old Courthouse on Bay Street, it became apparent that there was nothing small about this Night on the Town. There were Escalades, Tundras and Tacomas parked bumper-to-bumper along the Bluff; and there were more cars along every other street — in every available space — extending North of St Helena’s Church and beyond the Charles Street Post Office. Although I haven’t been to a professional football game in years, it reminded me of the in-route, pregame calculation measuring the parking difficulty against the entertainment value of the game itself.
I am not without knowledge of downtown geography, and so I scouted law firms, churches and construction sites that might yield space for my Honda Fit. But eventually realized I would have to park somewhere near Depot Road, behind the National Cemetery or maybe in the new parking lot just across the Beaufort River.
I was alone and did not have to debate the merits of Night on the Town with my wife, and so I diverted to Don and Donna Altman’s house for their annual gathering which features several variations on chicken chili.
By the time that I got to Altman house, I was in a foul frame of mind, thinking seriously about the prospect of leaving for Ridgeland (population 3,749) or Eutawville (population 315). Sure, I would miss the fat-columned, Bluff-hugging houses, but convenient parking must still be available in downtown Estill. And yes, I would miss the Water, Shrimp and Gullah festivals that bring world-class water-skiing; custom-made jewelry and competitive croquet to the Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park.
But then, of course, there is hog-shooting available in Varnville; catfish noodling in Yemassee; and no columns of backed-up cars (on Carteret Street) waiting for the Woods Memorial Bridge to open after giving way to three Catalina (30-foot long) sailboats on their way to West Palm Beach.
And so I greeted my host, got my chili and surveyed the chili eaters at Don and Donna’s house. I realized these were older, mostly retired friends who were once energetic and instrumental in changing Beaufort when Beaufort was a non-entity, located somewhere South of Charleston.
Some of those present had re-imagined the schools; or upgraded the water and sewer system, or revitalized the library, or helped establish the Pat Conroy Center. Some had founded the farmer’s market or worked at the Good Neighbor Medical Clinic. Almost everyone holding a chili bowl in one hand and a Chardonnay in the other had done something concrete to make this rural, formerly unknown town better, and were (partly) responsible for the newly-arrived mob moving — plastic cups in hand — down Bay Street.
Our town’s vitality is not necessarily the case in other parts of the South. We read several weeks ago (in this very same newspaper) that the South still lags behind the rest of the nation in per capita income; and leads in infant mortality and obesity. There are millions of underemployed men and women who are in the thrall of methamphetamines and Fentanyl; or live with constant, incipient anger and the notion that their life has no meaning.
And so our real task is providing jobs, housing and a meaningful life for those in Allendale, Edgefield and Early Branch while, at the same time, hanging onto Beaufort’s human-sized scale, its eclectic neighborhoods, its downtown parking and the belief that we are unique, different from Bluffton, Myrtle Beach and Mt. Pleasant.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
