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.