There is something special in the slow unknown

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There is something special in the slow unknown

We made our first trip to Edisto Beach 10 years ago and almost immediately, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. We had been mired in traffic snarls for hours on I-26 and arrived much later than planned, only to find ourselves in the middle of a rainstorm reminiscent of the days of Noah once we crossed over onto the island. The kids reckoned themselves about starved to death and were scanning the roadsides for any sign of a Burger King or McDonald’s. Nothing. Not a chain restaurant in sight. The whining inside the car intensified to match the rain on the outside.

I suggested that we go ahead and stop at the one grocery store — the Piggly Wiggly — for some bread and lunch meat before we checked into our rented condo so that they could eat something while Tammy and I unpacked the car, which would take a good hour. I guess the rain had chased everyone off the beach and into the grocery store, because the Piggly Wiggly was so crowded that it was nearly impossible to navigate a shopping cart up and down the aisles.

Agitated mothers pulled their smaller children again and again out of harm’s way as people jockeyed for position among the fruits and vegetables and cuts of meat like basketball players boxing out for rebounds. A sullen teenage girl checked for her brand of yogurt, and finding it missing, rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. A grandfather, his tanned and weathered arms and shoulders still glistening from the rain, craned his head and stood on his tiptoes, looking for his missing family. Lose them in here and you might need a search party, I thought.

It took us a full hour to get half a dozen items and check out. The kids had long since passed the whining stage and had now entered into a period of bleak resignation, their faces expressionless and dark as a shark’s eyes. The day was miserable and would remain so. A thunderclap shook the building. Lunch meat quivered in the pack.

“I hope we knew what we were doing,” I said to Tammy, who blew a loose strand of hair out of her eyes and looked the other way without comment.

That was 10 years ago, and we have been to Edisto every summer since then, except the summer we sold our house. It turns out that what under ordinary circumstances would be considered minor nuisances are actually an essential part of Edisto’s unique charm. In the beginning, we were mildly annoyed that we couldn’t grab a quick hamburger and fries to appease the backseat demons who had taken possession of our children. In the beginning, we just could not understand how anyone could tolerate having to drive behind golf carts puttering along Jungle Road at about 10 miles per hour. Golf carts, along with bicycles, are just as common and perhaps even more numerous on the island than automobiles.

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As a police officer once told my wife, after pulling her over for barreling down the road at a blazing 35 miles per hour (in a 25 mph zone), “Remember, it’s Edi-slow.”

And it is. Once you enter the low country and cross that certain line, everything changes. Time doesn’t just slow down. It reverses. Not only are there no fast food chains or high rises, there are no stoplights either. You will not find any swinging nightspots, unless you think playing Bingo at the Lion’s Club on Tuesday and Thursday evenings counts. Many people obviously do, as the line to play begins forming well over an hour before anyone is allowed in. By the time the doors open, there are often more people in line than there are seats inside.

You will not find a theater on the island, but you will find VHS tapes if you visit the ice cream parlor on Jungle Road. They’ve updated their stock to include DVD movies as well, but the VHS tapes are still for rent, a testament to the many residences on the island that still have VCRs as part of their entertainment centers. You may not find reliable wifi — some places have it, and some don’t. But you can park outside the bookstore and “borrow it” if you have some work to do online or need to check your email.

This year, I had to spend a couple of hours in the parking lot working on my laptop, watching the traffic go by while listening to Bob Marley on my car radio. In Edisto, my Subaru had become my office.

One afternoon, we saw a sign for barbecue, ribs, and chicken at the local AME church, so we stopped in for a truly delicious meal while a dozen or so of the male members of the church serenaded about a dozen diners with some old spirituals. They finished a few minutes before we did, and we applauded them as they filed by, some grinning sheepishly, one stopping to bow and then chat with us a minute or two. We had our picture made by the lady who took our money, thanked everyone serving up the food, and then left. A mile or so down the road, we saw a car pulled over on the side of the road with the trunk open. There were several members of the choral group gathered there, enjoying a beverage that I believe some people still call “hooch.” A respectable distance from the church, I reckon.

We never know what is going to happen when we go to Edisto, what we’ll see or what we’ll do. We know we are going to eat the french toast at Sea Cow restaurant. And we know we are going to spend some time communing with the dolphins around dusk at Bay Point. And we know we’re getting a key lime pie at King’s Farm Market out on Highway 174.

Otherwise, every vacation in Edisto is a mystery waiting to unfold. I just hope I get several more years on the bicycle before I have to trade it in for a golf cart.

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Haywood County. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

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