By Scott Graber
It is Sunday and it is warmer.
Port Royal is now entering its “festival season” — plein air events usually centered on pulled pork barbecue or soft-shelled crabs that come with a “side” of antique Ford Fairlane and handcrafted items made entirely of bottle caps.
Over the years there have been hiccups — this year’s Bands Brews and Barbecue event ran out of barbecue. But normally hundreds of folks walk up and down Paris Avenue eating whatever crustacean, mammal or bivalve mollusk then being celebrated.
Usually we are unaware of any particular festival until we hear “Big Wheel Keeps on Turnin’” that is the reliable, all-purpose anthem that seems to announce each celebration.
When my wife and I moved to Port Royal in 1980, it was hard to imagine that crowds would fill-up Paris Avenue for any reason. In those days Port Royal was still an occasionally used port; the Blue Channel crab factory and the sagging shrimp docks being where business got done. In those days Paris Avenue was a vast, little-used strip of asphalt that featured a dive bar and a barber shop.
When I was Town Attorney, I learned that our biggest business, at least from a business tax standpoint, was a car wash out on Ribaut Road. At parties I would be approached — sometimes by Beaufort’s Mayor — suggesting that he might be persuaded to incorporate our forlorn Town into the larger, more elegant City of Beaufort.
In recent days we have seen plans to completely remake Paris Avenue — plans which can be viewed on the Town’s website — which feature oak trees on either side of the road for its entire length.
Some of these are called “Fringe Trees”; but most are called “High Rise Live Oaks” that will, it seems, replace the ubiquitous palmettos that have been routinely planted inside the “pork chops” or in the existing medians.
Now, before you get too excited, I’ve also learned that there is only $1.6 million in funding and only the first 50 yards of Paris Avenue will be transformed. But this little teaser will demonstrated that oak trees are better in the shade department; and in our malarial, sun-stunned climate shade is the thing we desperately seek for eight months out of every year.
Highway engineers don’t like oaks — especially in medians — because they block the view of on-coming traffic. I have experienced the bias because once, long ago in another universe, I represented SCDOT.
In the 80s and 90s, there appeared to be an ongoing competition between Port Royal and Beaufort on who could remove the most live oaks on Ribaut Road.
The competition would commence when a new business would say it could not be profitable unless their lot was clear-cut — the only concession (by the new business) was a singIe, ornamental palmetto. I used to think there must be a “golden chainsaw” trophy; clandestinely awarded each year in the lobby of the Midway Motel; celebrating this tree destruction.
I do have a little personal experience with oak trees, having planted two of them (in cooperation with the Town) in front of our house on 9th Street. I believe we planted these in 2015 and now they are 30-feet tall, arching over 9th Street, making contact with an oak tree on the other side of the street.
In coastal South Carolina live oaks grow at a rate of 2 to 3 feet every year meaning the “new” oaks may actually canopy the street in 15 years or so. I won’t live to see this canopy, but if the festivals (and street music) continue others will see, and perhaps feel, our green and gray streetscape in a completely different way.
That part of Paris Avenue adjacent the Cypress Wetlands will be bricked over and 26 new oaks — together with existing pine and oak trees — will provide an island of repose as one enters into the Town.
The new “travel lanes” will only consume about 20 feet; leaving large, shaded, plaza-like areas on both sides of the street.
This makeover will come with benches, bike racks and, at least in the beginning, a directional sign telling bike riders how to access the Spanish Moss Trail. The Trail itself will eventually run down the southwestern side of the Port Royal peninsula, but in the short run the starting point will be on Paris Avenue.
I have attached a doctored rendering showing what Paris Avenue might look like in 20 years.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.