Questions And Answers From an Oyster Shell

     Is there anything more perfect than an oyster roast on the beach with the sound of the surf in your ear? The warmth a bon fire warding off the first attempt of the winters season. Your custimised oyster knife hanging from your jeans beltloop via leather strap. Jimmy Buffet playing in the background as you quietly sip on the coldest beer known to man as you prepare yourself for the next batch thats almost ready to hit the table. The smell of oyster steam rising up like a thank you smoke signal to heaven.
     How about old Bowens Island Resturaunt  B.H. (Before Hugo, as all time in Charleston seems to be measured) and rightly so. With its missing side wall and bi-valves so fresh that they were probably filtering their lives away, going about their own business in a pluff mud world  about the same time that you were parking the car. Brought to your rickety card table from the fire pit half inside the room  on a snow shovel. The ONLY true use for one of those damn things.
    Were there sweeter words ever written on the specials board at the Sandbar than "All you Can Eat" .
My wife and I had our first date there,  and once on my birthday I consumed 14 pans of the low country delicacies as the entire staff watched from the kitchen window. You could hear the groans everytime I started a fresh batch.Patiently they waited for the big bastard to leave so that they could close for the night.( God Bless You Darell)  Oysters will always make room for another one.

World Famous Sandbar...Picture by Donnie Smith Photography

    Living on Seabrook I once watched  from my balcony as a large cluster of the salty beauties grew into maturity in the creek behind my condo all that spring till fall.  I kept time sharpening my knife and waiting for the day, and by late November  they were ready. Putting on some old jeans and  a tightly tied pair of boots ,I waited for low tide to make my move. Wading hip deep in the tidal creek I soon attracted the attention of all the tourist in the condo, as I happily invaded the view that they had paid so much for. But my mind was set and my goal in reach and soon I sucked and sloshed my way to the long awaited treasure trove of salty-sweet redemption. Hammer in hand I  soon  had a burlap bag full and once I again returned home repeating a scene as old as time, the triumphant caveman with dinner in hand. As I washed and prepared tonight's guests of honor, my neighbors that week looked on in horror as I popped and ate the first raw one. Being raised with manners I offered all of our states most recent arrivals a sample but, it seemed no one liked oysters, or could it have been the mud covered person with a hammer and knife that turned them away,,,that's OK, more for me. I sat there that night watching them depart for Charlestons restaurant district, and I wondered how many of those very same folks were soon going to pay big bucks for what I was enjoying for free. I waved goodnight,threw another batch on the grill and covered them with a wet potato bag.
Lord sometimes life is so simple.
    Oysters were put on the earth to teach us some very basic things.
      1.How simple things can be, and simple is always good.
      2. Never judge anything by appearance, or man would have never eaten the first one.
      3. Never say theres nothing to eat until you've checked everywhere.
      4. Never eat oysters in a state with no ocean and alot of sheep.
      5. Never pay for a mud bath when you can get one AND a meal for free.
      6. One mans view is another mans grocery store.
      7. Other than Christmas eve Santa uses that big red bag to store a buschel or two.
      8. How blessed we are to be who we are,where we are, when we are, with what we have.....

         "Give me oysters and beer for dinner everyday of the year, and I'll be fine"  J. Buffet

Second Helping- Intro

   She was born off the west coast of Africa on a balmy Sunday  evening in late September at the end of a long hot summer season  that had seen drought cover much of the dark continent. As the cool wind from land moved over the warm dark waters of the mid Atlantic she looked to the west and her future. Few would know then that she would find her way into the homes some of the wealthiest families of Charleston, South Carolina. One day she would make her presence felt in every drawing room, church and office of that graceful  Queen of southern cities.  Fatherless she grew to be a strong and willful woman, but one without conscience or regret.She learned early that cruelty and destruction was her game and she played each and every card with the knowledge that she would always hold the winning hand. Even now her path was set as she left her home for a journey into the history books.
   Drew had followed in her siblings to the new world on her westward voyage but unlike the rest of her dysfunctional family she promised  to deliverer on her word.First up was Alvin who crossed in early September, a significant cat. 3  turned north as it grazed the Bahamas and Bermuda before taking an eastward tack as it went on to blanket the west coast of the south of France, bringing much needed water to the grapes that what would become a well remembered vintage. Bonnie a category 2  made a bee line for the gulf coast where she teased every town from Corpus Christie Tx. To Apalachicola Fl. each time corkscrewing back into the Gulf before coming ashore in Gulfport Mississippi as a tropical storm, Giving surfers their some of the best rides of the decade, before heading northeast to visit New England. Carl was the biggest bust of all as the cat 2 hurricane ran the corridor between the continents at Septembers close only to meet his fate in the cold waters of the north Atlantic ocean.
     Drew had no intention of letting anyone forget her.

Whats in a name

    OK,where do I start?   The Name. Gator HOoooo isn't about the U of Florida or any wild life preservation group,or even one of those great southern nicknames.  It's a nod to my hometown, but more specifically the men who built her from the post world war era , and continue that work today. The unknown blue collar hero's that work their whole life away for family,friends, city, state and country, expecting nothing and almost always rewarded with the same.
    I grew up in North Charleston, the blue collar backbone of the Carolina Lowcountry, A place of ship yards, air bases, and factories of every size,type and shape. Where the stench of the paper mill  fills the air with it's sickly sweet odor and the locals  describe it as the "smell of money". Everyone knows Charleston with its historic homes, and history, but North Charleston is the hired help, the manservant to its well bred sibling, a job its done quietly, suffering in silence since its inception.
    In North Charleston like every other town big and small across the south when World War II came, men lined up to defend what they loved. Many of these soldiers like my father  faked their birth certificates to get into the army early. At 15 he was inducted into the army and served in the last days of the war. They never got to be kids, manhood came quick and violently. After 1945 those who returned wanted to restart what was left of their lives.The GI bill seemed a natural place to start, problem was many,most hadn't graduated from high school and now returning from war they entered the work force. The only solution was night school at North Charleston, Then "Cooper River" High.

Old Garco Plant--Picture by Donnie Smith photography

    Many of these vets worked for the Garco asbestos plant just a stone throw away from the high school, at lunch they would amuse themselves by catching the alligators that inhabited creeks and inlets close to the plant on the Cooper river, but one of the favorite forms of recreation was football, and in 1946 if you went to school ,even night school you were eligible.  These were men who had faced the best the axis countries could throw at them, they worked 60 hour weeks in dangerous jobs,,,,football was a walk in the park.
     Story go's that the allegiance they felt was, like in war to their friends and team mates not so much to the school and soon  they began calling themselves the Garco Gators, even though the Cooper River mascot was a blue devil.  They would gather at one of the many bars on Montague Ave. in the old village and have a few beers before game time and come back at HALF TIME, but boy they could play. Soon friends, family and fans picked up on the Garco Gator designation as the team won more and more games, Soon the stands would resound with the call of  GAAAATTTOORRRR! HOOOOOOOooooo! after each touchdown or defensive stop.  The Team won State, once again finding a watering hole at halftime, then they stole the other teams bus and drove home from Columbia. I graduated with the last Blue Devil class in 1979, the school changed its mascot to cougars after several high schools were combined. North Charleston is a basketball school now but on nights when the gym is rockin you can still hear the old war cry.
     So for all the Garco Gators, or whatever name they go by in your hometown I proudly carry on their tradition. Jack Kerouac said
"Better to be anonymous on earth than a star in heaven". If that's the case then black starless nights must be Gods way of recognizing all the unknown working people of this world  who have made us what we are.   Take That Pat Conroy.

                                                                                                                              Gator HOoo!