A Grand Meander Into the Past

It's hard to miss Jon Sharp. He's the tall, lanky guy with a mane of shock-white hair leading packs of tourists through centuries of Beaufort history.  As we count down to next January's tricentennial, here's an encore of a piece we did on Jon in October, 2008...

Timing is everything

    “Is this your retirement job?”
    The tall man with the full mane of white hair takes no time to ponder the question.
    “Yes, it is.”
    The woman nods, “Sweet,” she says.
    Jon Sharp smiles, a piece of silver and turquoise the size of a teaspoon dangles from his left ear. He welcomes a group of women from West Virginia day-tripping up from Hilton Head. Three or four locals and a couple from Michigan round out this morning’s tour. Charming and charismatic, in another time, in this same place, Jon might easily pass for a pirate or a privateer, ironic considering how he practically washed up on these shores.
    The tour group begins to form up in the parking lot of the Beaufort City Marina, beneath an uncertain sky of rolling grey clouds.  The famous and influential breezes off the Beaufort River have given way to autumn’s full bluster. The river is choppy and smells of the sea. There is drama in the wind.
    “I set sail out into the Atlantic in winter time, alone, never having sailed a day before in my life.” This is not a line from a lesser known work by Robert Louis Stevenson . This is the beginning of Jon’s own story, one that might fit neatly into the running narrative he delivers each day to groups like this along a 2 mile trek through 500 years of Beaufort history.  It sounds like a classic adventure tail: a man tires of the glamorous life in a big city, sells off his possessions and sets off across the country on a quest for some sort of inner fulfillment. In this story the big city is Hollywood where Jon directed television shows like “Archie Bunker’s Place” and “The Golden Girls.”   Later he caught the acting bug and moved in front of the camera for guest shots on shows like “Dynasty” and “Hunter.” But by the early 1990’s he was burned out on Hollywood and facing one of life’s major milestones...(cont'd)Read the rest of the piece here.

Notes From the Field: the New Shooter

I write a lot of stuff that requires - at the very least - decent accompanying images. My big, fat (and recently obsolete) Nikon D80 is my baby. But she's a little bulky for some things, particularly in tight quaters and low light situations. I needed a good pocket camera and after much research I decided on the Canon S90 (purchased through Adorama).

These snaps were shot around Beaufort in a hurry, mostly one-handed, no tripod, no flash.

 

Palm Key Part II (Wherein Miss Warrene briefly loses her beverage)

  Originally published in The Lowcountry Weekly 10/14/08

“You can’t rush good”
Palm Key is an award-winning nature-based retreat on the tidal marshes of the Broad River. The colony of picturesque cottages and meeting facilities was founded by Judy and Emil Rigg more than two decades ago and is also home to The Institute at Palm Key, a separate education-based entity. To read Part One see the previous post.


Meat, Fire, Eat
This may come off as a wildly hyperbolic, possibly sexist generalization, but I’m willing to bet real money that about nine out of ten guys who couldn’t find their own kitchens with night goggles and a GPS could still char a passable steak given a slab of raw meat, a pack of matches and a sharp stick.  This is part of our genetic code, a misty kill-cook-eat muscle memory from a time when the embryo of civilization gestated ‘round the cookfire, and meat was what’s for dinner.  Any meal that found you eating instead of being eaten was a good one.  This is not to say that women are missing the BBQ Gene (as it came to be known), it’s simply recessive…more or less.
    Culturally speaking, this phenomenon manifests itself on a global scale in a kind Culinary Darwinism.  It’s like that lake in Africa with something on the order of eight hundred species of cichlid. All evolved from a single species. As a species we have evolved many forms of marrying meat to flame around the globe, separated by oceans and eons, under extreme and diverse conditions. And when it is no longer a matter of survival, we elevate it to an art form, to a culture all its own.  Meat on fire is among the basic things all of mankind shares as a common point in our anthropological heritage, even if some members of the species no longer choose the way of the carnivore.

Carnivorous Ways 

    In the South few topics apart from religion and politics are capable of igniting such incendiary passions as barbecue.  “It’s football, God and barbecue,” admits J.T. “Tim” Handy. He’s the “J.T.” in J.T.’s BBQ of Summerville, land of coaching legend John McKissick’s Green Wave and a place where barbecue, like football, is practically religion.  Handy has come to Palm Key as the keynote speaker for an Elderhostel program dedicated to revealing the culinary mystique of Barbecue in the Lowcountry. Twenty-eight people from as far away as Seattle, Washington and Carmel, California have converged beneath the live oaks on the edge of the salt marsh to learn both the theory and practice of terms like “low and slow,” “dry rub” and “beer butt chicken.” I’m keen to learn the last one myself.
    Tim, a former North Charleston police officer, is a rising star on the burgeoning pro barbecue scene.   That’s right, pro barbecue.  It is – forgive me – the hot new thing, kind of like NASCAR, complete with custom vehicles, plenty of smoke, flame, sponsor logos and sweaty men in uniforms, only a whole lot slower.
    “I had a little motorcycle accident and ended up with several rods in my legs,” Tim says nonchalantly, “so I got an early retirement and now I just travel the [professional barbecue] circuit cooking barbecue full time.”
    “So, what you’re saying is that you don’t miss police work?”
    He laughs, “Not at all. Fifteen long years, it sure was.”
Tim found his passion slowly hissing on the grill via several Fraternal Order of Police fundraisers.  “I entered the first contest down in Charleston kind of on a lark ‘cause I enjoyed cooking ribs. And like everybody, you always think yours are the best on the block. We entered ‘em and got thoroughly beat.”  That was far from the end.
He “got hooked on the camaraderie” and found out the “prize money wasn’t bad, either.” Once he started winning, he never looked back. He’s the 2008 SC Master Barbecue Champ with an impressive string of five consecutive Whole Hog titles under his belt, and a real threat to cook up a national title for South Carolina.
    Today, Tim’s taught backyard basics and ribs 101, and along with event organizer, Ron Toole, led the group in a prepping tonight’s main course. The evening’s meal features a national barbecue phenomenon (not Bobby Flay) called “beer butt chicken” and a special guest appearance by the dish’s inventor, a famous TV chef (still not Bobby Flay).
    Rick Browne, host of the PBS series Barbecue America is on his way to Charleston to shoot a show, when somehow word reaches him through the piggy pipeline (it’s a ‘cue thing) of the program at Palm Key.  Why, I can practically hear the tires squealing all the way from the Charlotte airport.  Besides, why waste time in a state with only one kind of sauce and a proportionate skill level in major college football? Really?  It’s a fact that every Southern state (Texas and South Florida, excluded) lays claim to its own indigenous style of ‘cue except South Carolina. We claim four.
    “It’s the only state with four distinct varieties,” Tim tells me. He’s fired up the massive cooker on the rear end of The Beast, his custom-built twenty-four foot competition trailer and work in progress. “That makes judging more difficult in competition. Not like anyplace else.” And competition is serious. Consider this: The Beast was built from the ground up, by a firm that used to build race car frames. These days all of that accumulated skill and knowledge goes to fabricating custom grills, many for the teams queuing up (sorry) for the gastronomic answer to NASCAR.
    Dozens of plump chickens have marinated long hours in a rub of savory salt and spices.  Cans of beer are popped and inserted into the cavity, the chickens set standing upright, balanced on the can.  The idea is to steam the chicken from the inside, keeping it moist and tender, while sealing the juices in a crispy, spicy skin and providing fodder for any number of jokes/humorous comment during the insertion/removal of the beer (“you’re not gonna throw that away, are ya?”).

The Art of Flame
James Beard once wrote “Grilling, broiling, barbecuing - whatever you want to call it - is an art, not just a matter of building a pyre and throwing on a piece of meat as a sacrifice to the gods of the stomach.” During the days my wife, Susan, and I spend absorbing and being absorbed by Palm Key, the theme of art is a constant.  People speak of art as an essential thing, a healing force – a gift or skill we may possess and master yet consider ordinary. Judy’s brother, Ron, clearly agrees with Mr. Beard.  “You can’t rush good,” he says. Well, yeah.

    This program is Ron’s baby and so far it’s a prodigy. The average group for an Elderhostel program usually runs about a dozen, mostly couples. “This one hit the limit at twenty-seven,” he explains, “and we made an exception for twenty-eight.” Most of the CueSapiens are retired married couples. But a few women like Kathie, a former airline executive from Seattle, have come to immerse themselves in an unknown culture. And the indigenous cuisine of a place is always key to understanding its people. She tells me the Lowcountry is unlike anything she encountered in thirty years of flying around the world, splashing about in the bigger bowl of cichlids. The emphasis here – the main attraction – for Kathie and the others is the barbecue, but they’ll savor Frogmore Stew, as well as the history behind it.  Palm Key may be a world away from the Northwest, but that sense of Something Bigger is a powerful draw. “It’s what life should be like,” says Kathie, “respect for the environment – so important. That’s what I see here.”
   Rick Browne is a big hit with the crowd, a bonus prize, if you will.  They all gather ‘round The Beast as Rick, Tim and Ron unveil the beer can-infused poultry. The smoke disperses revealing row after row of perfectly bronzed, upright chickens lined up in formation on the massive grill top.  Amid all the “oohs” and “ahs” someone quips, “looks like that terra cotta army, you know, in China.” And they do, only without heads.
    The Terra Cotta Chicken (as it came to be known) is among the best I’ve ever had.
After dinner Rick spends the evening with most of the group over at cottage fifty-one answering questions, swapping recipes and autographing his cookbook.  We make plans for an interview the next morning before he and his crew head to the Holy City but some sort of scheduling snafu torpedoes the plan. Next time, though. I have a feeling he’ll be back at Palm Key.  I’m also guessing his cameraman, a tall skinny young guy, is doomed to pack on about thirty pounds in this gig, unless he’s got the metabolism of a rabid shrew.
    I leave them to it and head back to cottage forty-four. There’s a full moon this evening and we’ve got front row seats on the river.

The Moon and Mrs. Parker

The day had been hot. The kind of hot that inspired the creation of air conditioning, modern refrigeration, the inflatable kiddie pool and any number of Tennessee Williams plays. This was the stifling, claustrophobic simmer worthy of Blanche DuBois or Brick Pollitt.  And it reminds me - oddly enough - of Neil Simon. As his autobiographical alter ego disembarks a World War II troop train in Biloxi Blues, Eugene Morris Jerome of Brooklyn proclaims “Man it’s hot. It’s like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.”
    Indeed, we’re a mile from the sun – for now. Fall is out there. The signs are unavoidable, even to such a reluctant guest as summer. I can smell it. This morning it was practically palpable as we paddled out into the freshening tide of the Broad River with moonset to starboard, sunrise to port, a cool sweet breeze fleeing the onset of the day, whispering conspiracies of coming change in flight.
    Now, it is the moon’s turn. Why is it, I wonder, that so many cultures attach the masculine to the sun and the feminine to the moon? How is it that the sun comes to symbolize war, aggression and power when Sister Moon inspires the sensual?  The second story porch of cottage forty-four is the perfect place to ponder such things between the turn of a simple, eternal celestial routine.
    An iridescent glow builds beyond the Broad River, a pale backlight silhouettes the savannah and the furls of Spanish moss dripping from the gnarled oaks, limp and still as sorrow.  All is still. The moon arrives like Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin Round Table, suddenly outshining everything else around, dazzling in her pallid brilliance.  She rises quickly turning a bright buttery yellow, the perfect match for a deep, ironic indigo sky and the shimmering train she trails on the water.
    
Miss Warrene and a change of season
    “I’ve lost my glass.”
    I’m standing in the kitchen of the main dining hall watching Ron put the finishing touches on his peach cobbler. The room’s a hive of activity as guests help out with the preparations.
    “I seem to have lost my glass,” repeats Miss Warrene.
    I neither know nor care if “Miss” is indeed the proper title; it just fits.  Miss Warrene is what Flannnery O’Connor would have called “colorful,” and I think she’s a peach. She’s immaculate, yet casually attired with matching personality. She spots her “glass” – an insulated mug – atop a pantry shelf.
    “Ah there it is! Well,” she says, raising the mug, “it’s five o’clock somewhere. Cheers!”
Miss Warrene, late of Tampa, grew up in Memphis, a town famous for Elvis, Beale Street jazz, barbecue and an odd ritual involving ducks at the Peabody Hotel.
    “I used to go to Leonard’s [Pit Barbecue] when I was a girl.  I just loved it.  My father used to take me.” She sips at her beverage with a wistful sigh. “Of course, it’s not as good now.”
Not only is Miss Warrene living proof that Southerners still abide in South Florida, she’s a bona fide barbecue fiend, even totes around her own sauce – her friend, John’s secret recipe.  John once co-owned a barbecue joint in St. Louis called Noah’s Ark, complete with “a real ark and real live animals.” While I ponder the irony, Ron’s son, Brent recalls visiting the place as a child. It’s a tiny little barbecue world, and yet, all things change.
    “He let his brother buy him out in ’75. It went downhill pretty quick after that,” says Miss Warrene. “Oh well.”
    Tonight’s meat is off the grill and Miss Warrene wanders off bearing a liter bottle of sauce to port, beverage to starboard. Outside, a breeze stirs the moss. Storm clouds mass in the east, towers of billowing grey sails like an approaching armada. Fall is coming.

Palm Key Part I

Originally published in The Lowcountry Weekly  9/30/08

Part One: A Sense of Place
The earthworks of the abandoned railroad trestle split the marsh for more than a mile before ending abruptly in the dark tidal currents of the Broad River. The tracks are long gone, a rough washboard road remains flanked by scrub and brush and volunteer oaks tall and thick enough to form brief canopies. The trestle itself, or what’s left of it, looks like the victim of an air strike, whole sections missing, toothsome pylons jutting up out of the black water all askew.
    The full moon hangs bright and yellow just above Palm Key to the west. Beyond the ruined bridge a glow builds on the eastern horizon.
“We’d better get in the water.”
    A soft breeze blows in, cooler than it has been, almost chilly. We pull the kayaks off of Judy’s pickup, snap paddles together, clip on life jackets.
“Watch where you step,” warns Judy, “it’s a little tricky.”
    Somehow I make it down to the oyster shell beach toting my end of the boat without exhibiting any hint of my usual cat-like dexterity. In the gray half light I get the impression that the beach is moving. A carpet of tiny crabs flee before us over shell and drifts of cordgrass in a unified sideways scuttle. They make a sound like rain drops on palm fronds as they fade into the marsh.
    We climb into the boats and paddle out into the wind and soft chop of the rising river, the first lipstick smear of sunrise silhouettes the ruined trestle. I back paddle for a better view, turning the bow into the current, port side east, starboard to the west. The sepia moon fades behind the key as the sun breaks the opposite horizon in a searing red arc. A dolphin breaks the surface just yards off my bow, spouts and briefly eyes us as if to say “tourists” before slipping back beneath the surface.
    For an instant – a deeply, nearly indescribably sensual moment - we are suspended between night and day, floating between sun and moon, inundated with the perfume of sweet grass and salt air.     There is no man-made noise, no sirens, no cars, no lawn equipment or power tools only the sound of water, the wind on the river and the shore birds heralding the fresh morning. This is a perfect moment, like a June snowstorm in Yellowstone or a fall sunset on the Oregon coast - sunrise at Palm Key.
Art and Symbiosis
    Judy Rigg sums up Palm Key in two words, “good energy.” Judy and her husband, Emil, stumbled upon the 350 acre island as newly retired residents of Hilton Head back in the early 1980’s. After years in the D.C. rat race (where Emil spent 3 decades at the National Institutes of Health) they were pondering the future with friends when the question of “what to do with the rest of our lives came up.”
    Disillusioned with what was happening to Hilton Head, the Riggs knew they wanted to create something that didn’t exist in the Lowcountry, a place where people could experience nature, explore, discover, heal and create.
    “So, we made a list of things we wanted,” says Judy, “and we wanted a marsh island and we wanted to be able to get to fresh water, we wanted a road to it, and blah, blah, blah – just talking. And this woman came up behind us – she was catering the dinner – and says ‘my ex-husband has an option on a piece of land just like you’re talking about.’ And this is it!”
More than two decades later Palm Key is an eco-friendly colony of modern cottages and meeting facilities clustered among moss-covered oaks, surrounded by vast savannahs of salt marsh and wildlife. Hundreds of heron, egrets and ibis nest in a nearby rookery. Eagles and hawks prowl the river. Raccoons stroll the grounds at twilight. This is a “green” retreat for individuals, families and groups “just five minutes off I-95,” laughs Judy, mimicking her famous public radio ad. Palm Key is also something of a grand experiment in symbiosis. While most of the cottages are individually owned, most are also available for rent and only a few have televisions or phones. A Property Owners Association and Board of Directors hold the enclave to the highest environmental standards, and higher standards are always being sought.
    “Development is death,” says Judy. “This is about giving something back – creating energy rather than consuming it.”
    Judy’s brother, Ron Toole, is hosting an Elderhostel event of his own invention, “Barbecuing in the Lowcountry.” The average size of these groups runs about a dozen. Twenty eight people, mostly retired couples, have flocked to Palm Key from as far away as Seattle for five days of what I refer to as ‘Cue U . This essentially means the preparation, slow cooking and consumption of mass quantities of meat day after day after day. Another group is here to study meditation. Most, if not all of them, are vegetarian. Serenity abides, nonetheless.
   Ron bought the first cottage back in ’89, number 31.  He’s been a devotee since the beginning, echoing Judy’s thoughts. “It does seem to ignite peoples’ creative juices,” he says. “There’s a peace and serenity to it. No TV. No Phones. [Some] People have to get used to it but once they do they enjoy it.”
    Kathie Torgison is out from Seattle with a friend. She’s just retired after thirty years flying the world as an instructor for a major airline. “Why Palm Key? Why the Lowcountry? And why barbecue?” I ask. She shrugs, “Why not? I spent thirty years learning all about other cultures all over the world. Now I want to learn about the cultures in my own country.” And the ‘cue?’ “It’s something I didn’t know how to do and wanted to learn,” she smiles, “so why not come to where they know how to do it and learn from the best?”
    Why not indeed?
    The non-profit Institute at Palm Key is just part of the Rigg’s dream fulfilled. The Institute is education-based with curricula rooted in “the unique ecology, art and history” of coastal South Carolina. The IPK’s nature programs include everything from professionally-guided marsh and river tours to bird watching expeditions, dolphin spotting and some of the best fishing in the ACE basin . Corporate and group retreats are mainstays at the Institute, and wellness – of both body and mind – is a mission. A Palm Key Wellness Center is in the early stages of planning. And Judy’s quite proud of the Boys and Girls Club Art Program. Forty youngsters from nearby Ridgeland attend classes at the Institute twice a week, studying painting, photography and pottery. During this year’s Art on the Porches (Oct.11th) the students become teachers as they assist with the art activities geared for kids.
    “It’s all about providing a sense of place,” says Judy.

Adrift Among the Metaphors
Back on the water we glide through the winding tidal creeks as the full moon tide reaches its zenith. The sun is up now, white and bright, blasting away any notion of a breeze, any whisper of fall’s approach.  Judy’s paddled back to the truck.  Her friend, Sheila, guides us through the labyrinthine waterways. We’re both former desert rats - Vegas residents - although my time there was but a blink compared to hers.  I make the lame observation that this is as far from the Vegas experience as one can get. I am nothing if not a master of the obvious.
    The marsh is awake now, and most of it is hungry. Tiny silver baitfish burst from the water like explosions of silver coins, fleeing the ubiquitous bigger fish. The metaphor is not lost. Spottail bass smack the surface with the force of a fourth grader’s cannonball at the county pool. Something that looks suspiciously like a small shark corners its unseen prey against a mat of grass, half out of the water for a split second, a crescent dorsal fin, the sleek brown body, an eruption of spray, then froth on the water and stillness. Another metaphor within a widening circle of rings.  Majestic Snowy egrets fishing the creek edges rise at our approach. The big white birds are luminous against the shimmering green grasses and the sparkle of sun on the water. They croak and chortle their annoyance looking back at us, cursing – like old men at a secret honey hole. We round another bend and the process repeats itself. During this paddle we annoy a huge segment of the indigenous population of Egretta Thula .
    I hang back a bit to fumble with the camera. Sheila and my wife, Susan, float by, Sheila in her cherry red kayak, Susan in bright blue. Their faces are serene, contemplative. Susan dangles her feet in the water, smiling. A flock of red-winged blackbirds cling to the stalks of cordgrass like hand-drawn notes on a sheet of music.
    After a few futile attempts to capture the previous impression I give up on the camera. Someone once said “there comes a time to put away the camera before you miss what you’re shooting.” I believe it was my wife. Besides, the next few days should offer ample opportunity to indulge my inner shutterbug.
    I paddle my lime sherbet craft to the others. We drift for a while in the stillness, listening, watching, smelling, senses fully engaged, moving at the whim of wind and water.
This must be that “sense of place” I’ve heard so much about.

To be continued…

Coming up:
Barbecue Gurus and beer butt chicken.
Miss Warrene briefly loses her beverage.
And the seasons change at Palm Key.

Find more information on Palm Key at www.palmkey.com or phone 843-726-6468. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

A Work in Progress

Note from the Home Office:
Welcome to The Lowcountry Weekly's blog-in-progress/spin-off site. Since we're so technologically savvy, this is going to take a while to get right... or close to right. In the coming weeks/months we'll be re-posting and updating previous features as well as adding fresh content exclusive to this site.

In the meantime we'll test drive this thing with a look back at some of our favorite pieces, places and people. Enjoy.