Folly: It's a lot more than just a beach

"Wet, wild, warm and damp,

Hotter than a hooker in a Boy Scout camp...

She's crazy, but I love her - Folly Beach."

-- Rick Huff, "Folly Beach Weather Report"

This is probably the wrong time of year to think about the beach. People up North are freezing, for godsake. And the season is not all that wonderful in South Carolina either.

But Folly Beach is more than ocean and sand. It's an experience.

The Isle of Palms may have the nicer beach, Sullivan's Island may have the richer history, and Seabrook Island's beach may be more secluded -- the only reason I was able to visit there was because an ex-girlfriend's family had property there -- but Folly has its own flavor

Call it The Edge Of America, which most people do. The locals call it Mayberry By the Sea. The town itself is doomed, being situated on a sea island that is forever moving south, so erosion on the north end is a major issue. Plus hurricanes, and whatever else Nature throws at her. And the people there - well, think of all those crazy Californians living within driving distance of the San Andreas Fault. While their property may not outlive them, it's not something they're going to get all worked up over. There are bigger things in life.

"Hendrix on the jukebox, Rush Limbaugh on TV,

Everything else that's in between is pretty much anarchy."

-- Rick Huff

Lots of places to get a drink at Folly, and you're likely to share bar space with some character who looks like a dreadlocked Jesus Christ and smells of patchouli. Nobody really seems to care about that. Nobody seems to mind the mix of housing - funky shacks next to megabucks beach houses. And nobody really seemed to care much when the mayor wrecked his car and got booked for DUI (with a prior). He made his obligatory mea culpa at the next City council meeting and the audience gave him a sitting ovation. The mayor was voted out of office in the next election, but knowing the people of Folly, the DUI had little to do with it.

Life at Folly wasn't always a ... uhh, day at the beach. The little spit of land was once known as Skull Island, and it served as a quarantine station. When ships pulled into Charleston Harbor they always emptied their sick bay there, then conducted their business at the docks. On the way back out, the ship would stop by the island again and pick up any crew members who were still alive.

While composing the music to Porgy And Bess (which was written about Cabbage Row in downtown Charleston by local resident William DuBose Heyward), George Gershwin lived at Folly Beach and spent a lot of time on nearby James Island, then composed of the descendants of freed black slaves, to soak up some atmosphere.

In the 1950s, Folly Beach was home to one Elmer Burke. Call him "Trigger." A real charmer. He was a player in Boston's famous Brinks robbery, when ringleader "Specs" O'Keefe indicated he might turn state's evidence. There had been a fight over splitting up the loot, and O'Keefe was playing that card. No one was amused, so Burke was sent to silence him. Burke was arrested and eventually escaped, digging out for Folly Beach.

Burke is gone now, little more than a footnote to Folly's background.

First time I saw Folly Beach, I knew I had arrived. Being a Californian I'm used to beaches, though I'm really a mountains-and-desert guy at heart. I did notice the water was a lot more dusky gray than the oceans I'm used to seeing.

There's a reason for that. The Charleston area is crisscrossed with several rivers - the Cooper and Ashley are the biggest, and they move a lot of silt into the ocean. The Pacific along southern California - and especially in Hawaii - is so blue because there are fewer rivers to stir things up.

That was my first look at the Atlantic Ocean, anyway. My then-wife, who had never seen a body of water larger than the Ohio River, had this to say when she first saw the ocean:

"I have to go to the bathroom."

You can no longer see the ocean from that prime spot where we stood that day. Unless, of course, you have a lot of bucks or know someone who does. A bunch of condos were built there around 1999, which always seems to happen with choice real estate. Even doomed choice real estate.

"It's shark-infested waters, and real-estate agents on land," sang the late Rick Huff, a great friend of mine. Rick, a singer-songwriter who moved to Folly from Atlanta and came to love the town, was the Bard of the beach. Rick didn't distinguish which of the two hazards was worse, preferring to let the listener figure that part out on his own.

While developers have been trying to get their hooks into Folly for years, they have had scant success. Left to their own devices the town would be turned into another Myrtle Beach, with its very own Costa del Concrete (where's a good hurricane when you need one?). But Folly remains, with its 2,000 population (counting dogs), one way on and one way off the island, and rat-trap shacks next door to multi-million-dollar beach homes. It's still my kind of place.

"Will the last one coming home tonight,

Please blow up the bridge."

-- Rick Huff