Pawleys Island

My maternal grandmother grew up on a South Carolina beach and has passed her love of the beach on to her grandchildren. Ever since I can remember, my family has spent a week on Pawleys Island in South Carolina. We would fly from Arizona to spend two or more months between our grandparents’ home in Virginia, Pawleys Island in South Carolina, and Camps Sea Gull and Seafarer in North Carolina. We tried other beaches once or twice, but we always return to Pawleys. Our week there is my favorite of the year. As many family members as possible come and we fill up a different house every year, up and down the island, beach front or beside the creek.

We start by packing up swimsuits and beach chairs at my grandparents’ house on a Friday night. Saturday morning the younger kids devour cereal and the upper half and adults sip coffee on the porch. By 8 am, two cars are rolling out of the driveway, and we wave farewell to the Rappahannock River for a week. One car is driven by my parents with the youngest siblings in the backseat and in the other are my grandparents with the older kids. Fuller’s, in Lumberton, NC, was my favorite place to eat on the way down before it closed after flooding in a hurricane.

My grandparents always like to drive to Dillon, SC, first, to see the house of

Grandmother Williams (my great-great grandmother). Then they stop for some South Carolina peaches at a fruit stand. My parents usually beat them to the house. The first 30 minutes are always the same: whichever kids are in the winning car run through every room in the house, looking for their favorite room before high tailing it to the beach. Right as Gpa and Gma roll in the swimmers return soaking wet and grinning ear to ear. My mother and grandmother are saints. On the first night they plan out meals for the week and get groceries with children as helpers in the store. Meanwhile, my dad and grandpa are on the porch in rocking chairs, silently grateful for a weeklong break from driving. At our first meal on Saturday evening, my dad takes the “island vow.” Each year he decides to remain on the island without leaving. No shopping or anything of the sort, just unadulterated beach life. He chooses a book to read and spends his time swimming and reading on the porch.

Every day at Pawleys is wonderful and almost exactly the same. My mother and grandmother rise early and start brewing coffee. As people wake up and wander to the kitchen they find coffee, maybe donuts and cereal. Morning coffee on the porch is a sacred tradition. As soon as breakfast is over most of us go to the beach while Gma and Gpa hold down the fort in the rocking chairs. Lunch is a free for all. Gpa will occasionally find his favorite local golf course and hit a few balls if the house gets too loud. Afterwords, Dad takes a nap while the ladies shop at the Hammock Shops in the early afternoon. They will return and he’ll get up and read while they have afternoon coffee. Then we all troop down to the beach again. The avid readers sit in beach chairs and read until the sun puts them to sleep or the tide reaches their toes. Once the second beach trip of the day is concluded people will jump in the creek and swim against its current before rinsing in the outdoor shower. In the late afternoon my dad will make drinks, and the cocktail hour starts for the adults. Sometimes the young kids have a Coke and join in. Before most of us kids reached high school and college, my mother and grandmother would prepare most dinners. But as we’ve gotten older, the kids and parents are paired off into teams, each responsible for a single night. Heaping plates of fried chicken, hamburgers, frogmore stew, and endless treats are gobbled up until nobody can eat any more. After an evening walk on the beach the adults go to bed while the kids all stay up. One by one we all wander to bed and fall asleep listening to the waves.

When we were younger my grandmother’s siblings would drive up from Charleston to visit with us for a day. Uncle Roy, the family historian, his wife Aunt Bonnie, Uncle Mike, a retired doctor, and his wife Aunt Martha were all so good to us kids. They would give us a bit of cash and tell us we were getting taller all the time. All the adults would sit on the screen porch in rocking chairs and talk all about old friends and the “old days.” Once us little kids couldn’t follow the conversation anymore, we would scamper away to play. Exhausted, we would come back in search of food and tell our aunts and uncles about all we were up to now and ask about history or family members. Now Uncle Roy and his wife Bonnie have both died, and Aunt

Martha can’t travel anymore. We go see them in Charleston instead. That porch and the older family members who so often occupy it are special.

While inside the old town hall this summer I happened upon a reprint of a book all about Pawleys. I had just finished Captain Blood, an exciting tale of a fictitious doctor-turned-pirate in the Caribbean and needed something to read for the final two days. First published in the early 2000s, Pawleys Island: Stories from the Porch is a collection of essays and recorded interviews from many different folks who have a long history on the island. Happy to read about the island so beloved by my family, I immediately bought a copy.

Each of the essays I have read so far shares one primary constant: the island is a beautiful and joyous place. Of course there have been many changes in the last 100 years, and surely more will come. But no matter the change, Pawleys Island will remain special since it has watched us grow up. As children we would run on the beach and play in the waves. Our older relatives visited us. Now our new in-laws join us. I am sure that in 15 years my siblings and I will do what my parents and grandparents do now: watch the sweet southern beach summer bring joy to those whom they love so dearly. Pawleys, thank you and see you next year.