Myrtle Beach, Summer 2025
Given the disruptions to air travel, the uncertainty about our National Parks, and a chaotic tariff war, we decided to vacation close to home this year. I said, let’s go to South Carolina since we really have not explored that Southern state. Wally chose Myrtle Beach for our destination because his parents had once gone there so that Pop could play in an old-timer’s golf tournament. Before he got to play a round, a hurricane blew in, and they left the beach. Now it was our time.
It is interstate pretty much all the way from Alpharetta, Georgia to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, so much of the view from the road was a monotonous wall of green. We did make a side trip to Eatonton, the home of Joel Chandler Harris and the Uncle Remus Museum. The museum is a small affair made up of slave cabins from Putnam County and the Office Library Wing of the Joseph Addison Turner mansion where the young Harris worked as a printer’s devil for The Countryman newspaper. The museum features framed newspaper articles, including the want ad for a white boy who could read and spell that drew Harris to journalism, and two prints from Song of the South, signed by Walt Disney. Wood carvings of “de critters” grace the lawn.
Our tour guide was an 80-plus year-old African American woman, Georgia, with a gift for storytelling. She gathered the handful of visitors, all of us “seniors,” in the back room, bade us pull up the cane-bottomed chairs into a circle, and commenced telling us about Joel Chandler Harris, interspersing the tale with stories of her own life, of sweeping her Grandmother’s yard and going to a segregated Black school, which she jokingly referred to as her “private” school education. All the while she nibbled on the M&Ms she had in her hand.
I was a bit leery about going to the Uncle Remus Museum, given issues of the appropriation of Black culture by whites, something that Zora Neale Hurston addresses in her own collection of Black tales, Mules and Men. But from Georgia’s perspective, Harris saved the African American tales at a time when they were shared only orally since most African Americans in the nineteenth century could not read or write and hence preserve the old tales for future generations. Georgia remarked that kids today don’t know the stories and that part of their heritage is disappearing. But the Museum, Harris’s printed texts, and Georgia’s own storytelling are keeping some of those traditions going.
As we were buying our souvenirs, a copy of the Nights with Uncle Remus and a cd of the Disney version of the stories, Song of the South, the owner of the local Zaxby’s chicken restaurant brought Georgia’s lunch to her. He had called earlier, asked what she wanted, and then personally delivered her lunch, free of charge. She must be a loved feature of this little Georgia town.
An hour and a half later, we were back on the road, looking for our own lunch break.
Arrived at our motel, the Best Western at North Myrtle Beach. A little dated and in need of some repairs and updates, but we had a balcony facing the water. Then a quick walk down the beach before the evening storm blew in. We got to Molly Darcy’s Irish Pub just in time to watch the wind and rain swoosh in while we enjoyed drinks and bar food.
The next morning, the Tour de Sandy Island and the Gullah Geechee community. We had to drive down a long gravel road to the end, where the road meets water. We weren’t sure if we were in the right place—a rickety pier with partially submerged or flooded boats about, cars and pickups randomly parked in the gravel lot, no signs announcing the tour. The brown water, dark green trees crowding the borders of land and water, of road and forest, seemed foreboding. Were we in the right place? I asked a guy standing on the pier about the tour, and he assured us that his cousin would soon arrive to take us across the Waccamaw River to the island.
Our guide, Rommy Pyatt, a tall African American with a graying goatee and a straw cowboy hat showed up in his used, tired looking pontoon boat and loaded us and three other visitors aboard to ferry us over to the island. He had a narrative about the island, its people, and history, that he shared with us as he took ferried us across and then as he drover us to points of interest on the island in his 10-seater van. Some of the women in our group kept interrupting him, Daisy who wanted to know his personal story and Emily who questioned him about becoming a captain of the school boat that takes the few children living on the island to the mainland schools and about building a home on the island. Rommy was very patient with them, but you could tell that he had a story that he wanted to share, a mission to bring awareness to the island and the Gullah traditions.
Rommy explained that he refers to the people who were brought from Africa and forced to work the rice fields as his ancestors, not as slaves, a term that dehumanizes them. He would say, “my ancestors” and then explain how they managed the several hundred years that they have been on the island. Some of the things we learned:
The ancestors hid seeds, for rice, okra, sweet potato, in their hair when they left Africa, in what we now call “corn rows.”
The processes of rice planting and harvesting, which the ancestors already knew. And the great riches made from Carolina blue rice, its “gold.”
The ballast bricks that were left on the island when ships loaded up with the precious rice and how his uncle used some of these bricks when he built his house.
How people go to and from the mainland. The vehicles we saw parked at the pier belong to islanders to use on the mainland.
How the island finally got some basic infrastructure, like electricity and plumbing, in the 1960s.
How the school was built in the 1880s by Archer Huntington, a wealthy land owner and philanthropist, and how the light blue paint around the windows and on the porch ceiling is called “haint blue” –to ward off evil spirits.
How the burying ground of the ancestors remained unmarked until a group from Coastal Carolina University used a detective device to locate the bodies. Now the places where they lie are marked by PVC crosses that Rommy built.
The history of the Bethel Baptist Church and how the ancestors were forced to accept the white man’s Christianity but doing so made practicing their own beliefs and practices safer.
That the word “Gullah” to identify the ancestors derives from Gola, the region in Africa associated with them and that the Gola language became a kind of pidgin with influences from the different European languages.
About Spanish moss and its uses—beware of the chiggers that live in the moss— the loblolly pine and squirrels who toss down bits of the cone after they have nibbled on it.
Throughout the tour we could feel the stillness and quiet of the island, the spirit and history of the place. One woman, a bit overweight, said that she felt her blood pressure had gone down just from being on the island, perhaps a result of the calming quiet or the curative effusions of the Spanish moss.
At the end, we shopped at the General Store owned by Rommy’s mother, Beulah Pyatt. I bought a book, At Low Tide: Voices of Sandy Island, published by the Atheneum Press, a student-centered laboratory for media studies at Coastal Carolina University. I had once interviewed for the Dean of Arts and Humanities position at the university at an “airport” interview in Charlotte, but did not get tapped for the job. Seeing and hearing the things that Coastal Carolina did to help discover the graves and preserve the stories made me a bit wistful—that could have been me overseeing some of these programs, if only . . . But then I remembered Women across Time: Sixteen Influential Women of South Texas and what I did to promote and preserve the work, arts, and lives of South Texas women while I was at Texas A&M-Kingsville.
Polynesian Luau
Dinner and a show! Myrtle Beach, the tourist destination, abounds in staged entertainments, including themed dinner theaters. Wally selected the Polynesian Luau as one of our evening outings. When we entered the conference room of the St. John’s Inn where the luau is held, we were greeted by the performers doing double duty, handing out imitation leis, taking our photos, and directing us to the buffet line and the rows of long tables arranged cafeteria style, where we would sit with other visitors to eat and enjoy the show. On my left, an extended family that included grandparents, cousins, and a sleeping baby. On Wally’s right, some evangelical, tattooed Trumpers.
Then the fun began. “Aloha,” shouted the leader of the troupe of performers. “Aloha,” the crowd of tourists managed to weakly respond. “I can’t hear you. Say A lo HAAA!” “A lo HAAA” we all shouted back, and the music and dance began. The troupe of three musicians, two women dancers, and three male “warriors” performed a variety of Polynesian songs and dances, including the Haka where the male dancers, the warriors, bulge their eyes and stick out their tongues, and the fire dance, a whirl of burning batons. The real fun came when some women and girls were picked to come on stage to learn the hula. One woman, large and in a bright orange tropical dress was hilarious. She really enjoyed being in center stage, laughing and putting on all the moves. Then a group of men was called to the stage to learn the Haka. They were more self-conscious and awkward, which made them even more fun to watch. We were all laughing, clapping, and joining in on the fun. A lo HAAA!
Golf on Sunday at Azalea Sands, one of the many golf courses at Myrtle Beach. Wally got us a morning tee time, which we shared with another golfer, Ricky, a retired used-car broker. He was congenial in a Southern way and spoke with a soft low-country drawl, patiently waiting for me to hit my way down the fairway and calling out encouraging words. “Shabam!” When someone had a good putt.
Now, I had not golfed in about three or four years, when I last played with Brad at his Kennesaw club. The first hole was bad; I kept hitting the ground behind my ball or completely missed it. But finally, I found my usual stride with some advice from Wally: straighten out the head of the club, stand closer to the ball. Generally, I cheated, tossing the ball out of sand traps or the pine-littered rough or up from the ditch so that I could have a better shot and not slow things up. For one hole, we actually counted my strokes!
I was playing with clubs Mom had gotten in Jamaica back in the 1970s plus one or two newer clubs. The grips on the now vintage clubs are rough, deteriorating, and stiff. They will need to be replaced if I continue to play. I wore a glove I had found in Mother’s stash, a Nancy Lopez glove with a picture of Nancy in her bouffant hairdo on the package. So 70s!
Playing, I remembered golfing as a young woman in Jamaica at the club in Mandeville, an old English retreat from the heat of the coastal areas. We had no golf carts. Instead, caddies carried our bags for us. I inevitably got George, a snaggle-toothed Black young man, who gave me such advice as “You top the ball, miss.” I remember playing the course with my dad and Wally in the 1980s; a black bull was grazing on the green, as cattle were wont to do despite the four-foot-high rock fence that surrounded the course. My dad brandished his golf club and chased the bull until it sauntered away and we could play out that hole. After a round of golf, we would often sit on the veranda of the Victorian-style club house and enjoy a limeade and then grab a bag of patties, the Jamaican meat-filled pastry, from a local shop to eat when we got home. The club was a mecca for ex-pats and white residents to play golf or tennis, to swim, and just hang out. What privilege we had and did not think too much about.
This picture shows my brother swinging his club while I stand waiting my turn to tee off. The bag of clubs on the ground, the caddie at hand.
At the end of our eighteen holes at the Azalea Sands, my old hips and legs were tired and tight after swinging all the extra strokes it takes me to move through the course.
Our golfing partner, a local, recommended Bimini’s Oyster and Seafood Restaurant for dinner. Not one of the gigantic “all-you-can-eat” monstrosities with giant crabs engulfing the entryway or pirate ships riding atop the roof that proliferate at Myrtle Beach, Bimini’s is a smaller, more local place, crowded, loud, but good food. I had a fried oyster salad (the oysters were sweet and buttery); Wally had fish and chips, the batter for the fish light, not greasy.
Walks along the long, wide beach lined with people playing, tanning, reading, napping, visiting, drinking, flirting, scurrying after little kids. Chairs, umbrellas, towels, coolers, plastic shovels and buckets for channeling through the sand and building castles. The sand is gritty and crusted with broken shells, not much there for “shelling,” a favorite of my grandmother who would turn shells into earrings and funny little knickknacks.
While Wally was drinking his morning coffee on our little motel balcony, a wren flew smashing into the glass door. It lay stunned on the deck. I could see it breathing, opening its little black eyes. Wally stroked its softly furred tummy and head, helped it turn over to recuperate. I even patted it, soft, quiet little thing. Wally took it into his large, warm, gentle hands to help it revive. Just when we had some hope for it, the little fellow ruffled its tail feathers and then stopped breathing. Saddened, but understanding the fragility of life.
Waccamaw River Nature Tour
This tour is another family operation, the family dog, a heavy-bodied Rottweiler dog, Bella, laid out on the grounds as visitors arrived, loitered about the gift shop, admired a peacock that had wandered onto the lawn. Bella was the first one on the pontoon and the first one off for the one and a half-hour tour down the intracoastal waterway and the Waccamaw River. A fresh-water river, its name means flows back and forth to reflect the pull of the tides.
Colors of brown, shades of green, and the blue sky above paint a landscape at once close and wide, inviting and forbidding.
The water, tannin-brown from the dissolving needles and bark of the surrounding trees, the greens of the trees at the water’s edge, cypress, some pine and tupelo, and the lighter green of the grasses and floating water pads. Osprey nests gathered in the tops of trees, brown masses built and re-built by returning Osprey families, the female sitting on the nest and a baby bird’s head barely visible. A baby alligator, its striped body and bulging eyes; later a mature alligator that swam near the boat and then with a slight gurgle of bubbles disappeared below the surface. Yellow-bellied slider turtles sunning on bits of fallen trees popping above the water’s surface. The tour guide announced that snakes might be mating at this time of the year and to look in the trees for them--and hope they don’t plop onto the boat. Thankfully, none did. A quiet, calm ride through the primeval river land, some trees hundreds of years old, a place with an old history of rice, enslavement, wealth, and then the disappearance of Carolina “gold,” the rice that enriched some and caused the misery of others. Our tour guide told us that enslaved children had a 95% mortality rate since they were sent as scarecrows into the infested, water-logged rice fields. Oh my, what stories of misery, resilience, survival, and greed.
Pirates Voyage
Our last night, Pirate Dinner Theater! It seems that theater and dinner theater are a real thing at Myrtle Beach. This one is part of the Dolly Parton enterprises and is contained in an enormous building, since the stage is a mock-up of a pirate ship. When you enter the facility, you are greeted by the photographer who gets a shot of you at your pirate best. Then you are shepherded into the gift shop-tavern-small stage area to await the big event. I got a 12-ounce pour of chardonnay to last through the night and Wally got a blue slushy in his pirate mug. We saw little boys with pirate hats, swords, and painted beards, little girls with lighted flower crowns. Kids could get their pictures made with the mermaid who sat in an alcove near the stage. On stage musicians sang some pirate songs, and then pirate quizzes, like what is a Jolly Roger, appeared on the screen. All to get us prepped for the big event.
We were herded into the main arena, a theater in the round, so to speak, with the pirate ship aka stage surrounded by a watery moat or “lagoon,” and rows of tables and benches for the audience lining the upper levels of the theater. One side of the arena cheers for the red pirate team and the other roots for the blue; red and blue flags given to kids as part of their priority tickets flutter to encourage their pirate team. When we enter, brightly colored parrots are circling the stage, coached by their pirate trainers as the servers begin to take drink and dessert orders. They come by periodically during the show with pitchers of tea and water and then tubs of food, the pre-set menu—roasted chicken halves, a slab of ham, a biscuit minus any butter, macaroni and cheese, roasted corn on the cob, and then dessert. They are set up to feed lots of people efficiently if not delectably.
The show was a lot of fun—pirate antics, acrobatics as performers hung and danced from the center poles, swung on ropes, did flips and jumps, engaged in sword fights, the sparks from their swords popping, juggled, dived into the moat, and generally showed off their gymnastic chops. As part of the pirate extravaganza, trained seals waddled, waved their fins, and dived into the moat.
A group of young women sat next to me; they come to the pirate show every year. The woman closest to me enthusiastically cheered on the pirates in her raspy, cheerleader voice. When the actors did something especially daring, she jumped up and waved her fist around. Her infectious spirit enlivened the event for me, and I left having had a great time, and with leftover food to enjoy later.
Our last morning, a farewell walk on the beach and then load up the car for the six-hour drive home. As we left coastal Carolina, we saw some handwritten signs advertising a “Yarda Sale” and “Canalopes” for sale, reminding us that the local, the authentic, resides alongside the staged, managed tourist experiences for the hordes of people who come to relax and play. That leisure is not accorded to all.
