Posted by: dharmabeachbum | May 13, 2013

Hemingway’s description of the sea something to behold

Hemingway's 1923 passport photo

Hemingway’s 1923 passport photo

Ernest Hemingway is among my favorite writers and I especially love when he describes the ocean in his works. He did so in a book that was published posthumously, “The Garden of Eden,” which I borrowed recently from Chapin Memorial Library on 14th Avenue North.

I was hooked before I finished the first paragraph.

“In the evenings and the morning when there was a rising tide sea bass would come into it and they would see the mullet jumping wildly to escape from the bass and watch the swelling bulge of water as the bass attacked.”

Oh, how I’ve seen those mullet and menhaden jumping wildly just off shore along the Grand Strand when being chased by larger fish. The big boys go crazy fighting for the same prey and the water’s surface becomes a choppy battlefield. Glorious.

The “it” to which Papa referred was a canal running straight to the sea, which he had explained in the book’s opening sentence.

Reading about the canal reminded me of the Intracoastal Waterway, which runs not straight to the ocean but parallel to it as it circumvents our little Eden. The waterway empties locally just to the north of North Myrtle Beach and into Winyah Bay near Georgetown. Our section of the waterway was opened in April 1936 with dedication ceremonies held in Socastee. I think of the fishes that bigger fish chase “into” either end of it.

By the time I finished the second paragraph of “The Garden of Eden,” Hemingway’s trademark lean, tight prose once again had me mesmerized.

“A jetty ran out into the blue and pleasant sea and they fished from the jetty and swam on the beach and each day helped the fishermen haul in the long net that brought the fish up onto the long sloping beach.”

The Master tells a magnificent story in one sentence and he conveys images to the reader without using syrupy adjectives. Brilliant.

The beaches here on the strand are often long and sloping as is the sea’s floor as it drops gently for miles and miles away from shore.

Anyone meeting me on our beaches best not make the mistake of getting me started on Ernest Hemingway. “The Old Man and The Sea” has long been my favorite book and I love to talk about Santiago and the boy and the lions on the shore across the big pond.

Papa was one adventurous cat and he spent a lot of time in Europe. So, I’ll close this tribute to him and to the Grand Strand and to the ocean with a salutation that Hemingway surely used many times.

Adieu.

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | May 8, 2013

Bum lauds person who made others feel special

LoraIf ever a woman was born into her name, it was Lora Ann Greene. She had a magical touch with flowers and she always had her homestead adorned with them. Her marriage to the late Gary Linwood Green left her with the most fitting name of Lora Greene Green. To make matters less complicated, she went by Lora Green until her death.

Lora was surrounded by her loving family when she passed away on Sunday, April 28, 2013.

She was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 15, 1954, moving to Myrtle Beach in 1980. She worked for many years as a beautician.

She is survived by her daughter, Emily, and by her beloved granddaughter, Jada, who reside in Socastee. She is also survived by a brother, Paul Greene of Davidson, North Carolina. She was predeceased by a brother, who was killed in Vietnam.

Lora, who lived the last few years of her life in Conway, would chastise me if I failed to mention her lifelong friends — two women she regarded as sisters, and vice-versa — Candace Travis and Sherrie Pemberton.

I’ll always remember the tenderness with which Lora nurtured her flowers, talking to them as she navigated her way through her daily watering routine. “Y’all better pep up now. Ya hear? It’s gonna be gettin’ hot real soon.”

As great as she was with flora, she was even better with people. She was such a caring woman. She looked after everyone, including me, when we first met nearly 14 years ago while living in small monthly rentals on the south end of Myrtle Beach.

“When I think of Lora I remember her ready laugh,” wrote Patsy, a friend of hers who left the most loving of tributes on an online memorial guest book. “Her love for her family. The way she was quick to enjoy a moment. How she made me feel like I was special when she was the one that was special.”

Lora and I used to sit at her living room table near a sliding glass door overlooking her second-floor apartment balcony, admiring hummingbirds that visited her flowers and hummingbird feeder. We laughed at woodpeckers sorting through the seeds in her birdfeeder until they got what they wanted before flying to nearby trees and telephone poles to store their bounty. Carolina chickadees, cardinals, finches, wrens, juncos and a wide variety of songbirds visited her daily.

I sit here now and laugh through tears as I recall her chasing squirrels away from the feeder, shouting at them in her trademark southern drawl, “Git. Git out of here now. Y’all are thievin’.” She loved them, too, even as they taunted her by scampering just far enough away, turning around, and staring back at her defiantly.

Lora’s friends became my acquaintances. One of them was John Lawrence Smith, who knew Lora for roughly 50 years. He had this to say in tribute to her.

“Lora, I will miss you more than I can ever express. You have been a true friend to me since I was 18 years old; we have been through so much, happy and sad. But now you can rest while I cry.”

Well said, John. There are so many of us crying now and words escape us when we try to put Lora’s impact on our lives into perspective. The world has lost a good, good person.

Lora and I had a tiff and we hadn’t spoken, at least with any civility, in nearly three years.

Nevertheless, I’m shattered by her passing. Shaken that we hadn’t told each other from our hearts what we really meant to each other. Stricken with pangs of guilt that I wasn’t strong enough to rise above the pettiness that put our friendship on hold. But Lora would have been the first to reach across that table by the sliding glass door, grab my arm, and tell me that everything will be okay. “It’ll be alright, Rob,” she’d say, elongating my name into two syllables the way she always did. “Everything will be okay. I’m going to a better place.”

Jada. It was a great privilege for me to watch you grow from the time you were knee high to a grasshopper. Your Grammy is watching you from that better place. She’ll always be watching over you. So talk to her whenever you feel like it. She’ll listen and she’ll even answer sometimes. You’ll hear her in the wind and in rustling leaves. You’ll see her in blooming flowers and in the reflection of the sun off ponds.

In closing, I need to mention another of Lora’s passions. Candles. Especially tealights. She often lit them after the sun went down to enjoy an ambience that spoke to her persona. Soft, yet glowing.

Lora, the fire that is your memory will forever flicker in my very being. You were — and will continue to be — a flame to which so many of us look for comfort.

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | May 6, 2013

Kudos to the men and ladies in blue

Kudos to the Myrtle Beach Police Department.

Local law enforcement officers did a fantastic job defusing a potentially lethal situation last week.

Last Monday, police arrested a 34-year old man after finding him in possession of gunpowder and two PVC pipes. The pipes were approximately six-inches long and had end caps. Police had stopped the man near 5th Avenue North and Chester Street in Myrtle Beach after recognizing him as someone against whom there had been a bench warrant issued.

A second arrest was made — that of a 55-year-old man — a day later. Police allegedly found bomb components in a search of the second suspect’s home. Police said the search was conducted after the first suspect told them that the second suspect gave him the pipe bombs that he was carrying when arrested.

Now. I’m not going to post the mug shots of the suspects. They look like two guys who might have been planning to blow up a trash can to snort the ash and refuse. If we learned one thing from the Boston Marathon massacre, however, it is that the most crude of devices can lead to widespread devastation. Myrtle Beach police officers should be commended for disarming the putrid, alleged perps before anyone was injured.

The arrests reminded me once again that law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day. Even traffic stops that start as routine can end in tragedy. On Dec. 29, 2002, Myrtle Beach Police Officer Joseph McGarry, 28, was shot and killed in a parking lot on North Kings Highway.

I shouldn’t have needed reminding of the inherent dangers of police work. My grandfather, Gordon Hufnagle — then a public safety officer in Lewsburg, PA — drowned in 1972 while trying to save others from flood waters during Hurricane Agnes. He’d been the chief of police in the same town for 28 years before being demoted, in part due to age discrimination, to the public safety position.

Yes, I’ve been known to criticize those sworn to protect and serve us — often for good reason. Journalists have a job to do, and it doesn’t always involve writing glorified public relations articles like the majority of those published in our local paper, The Tidal Eyechart. Journalists are watchdogs of democracy.

But sometimes you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. This time it goes to the men and ladies in blue. Thanks.

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | April 30, 2013

Pretentious Pagans at Patrick’s Place pathetic

Burt

Burt

“May Day. May Day. This is the S.S. Myrtle Manor. Our ship is taking on water. She’s sinking fast.”

I heard the distress call on my imaginary ham radio and responded accordingly. “Don’t reach out for me,” I said. “Can’t you see I’m drowning, too? A rogue wave of idiocy known as Welcome to Myrtle Manor has hit my town, endangering lives.”

Oh, this is all too real. Three cast members of TLC’s Welcome to Myrtle Manor — aka, Pretentious Pagans at Patrick’s Place — were arrested this past weekend after separate incidents. At this rate, Myrtle Beach will have to build a hoosegow annex out on Highway 15.

TLC producers came to town to document drama in a resort trailer park. They got just want they wanted. Thanks, assholes. And congratulations for prostituting a once-glorious network. Sadly, as we’ve learned from trashy shows like Jersey Shore, the more controversy the cast stirs up, the better it is for ratings. So, I don’t expect TLC to cancel Myrtle Manor any time soon. That doesn’t mean some us won’t continue to protest its putrid broadcasting.

“This is the S.S Myrtle Manor. May Day. May Day. Morality has already been tossed overboard. May…”

“Yes, tomorrow is May Day,” I answered, somewhat bitterly. “There was a time in this country in which we spent May Day celebrating our innocence, dancing around the maypole and crowning the May Queen. Now days, we offer our innocence and it gets repaid with scorn by people who would sell their souls for 15 minutes of ‘fame.’ Infamy, in this case.”

“S.O.S. Please, call the Coast Guard. Please.”

“Nope. I have better things to do — like watching shadows on a wall — than helping save rats from a doomed vessel.”

Mercifully, my ham radio went dead.

Here’s the skinny on what went down this past weekend. And I’m not talking about the Myrtle Manor grandmother who went skinny dipping in one of the show’s first episodes.

Cast member Amanda Lee Adams, 26, was arrested for DUI early Friday morning after her vehicle hit a utility pole near U.S. 501 and Broadway. Her blood alcohol content was 0.20, police reports said. The legal limit in South Carolina is 0.08

Lindsay Brooke Colbert, 21, was arrested Sunday morning on charges that include DUI and driving more than 15 miles-per-hour over the speed limit. She was stopped near Highway 501 and Fantasy Harbour Boulevard. Her blood alcohol content was 0.15, according to police reports.

She reportedly asked Myrtle Beach officers if they were giving “them” a hard time because they were on the surreal show. Worse yet, she apparently insulted officers while being transported to the city jail.

Some locals questioned online whether the arrests were publicity stunts. No, I responded, publicity stunts of this nature would take far more intelligence than these two girls could muster. Driving around town while marinated in alcohol isn’t cool, girls. You could have killed innocent people.

In the meantime, Taylor Jonathan Burt was arrested late Saturday night on charges that include criminal sexual conduct with a minor. The 15-year-old victim’s mother took her to Grand Strand Regional Medical Center for medical evaluation after learning of her daughter’s alleged involvement with Burt. Burt was incarcerated on a $25,000 bond.

Let the conspiracy theories emerge. I’ve already seen people defending Burt online. Some say he was set up because the powers-that-be in Myrtle Beach don’t like the negative publicity Myrtle Manor is generating and they want the show cancelled.

In reality — pardon the pun — this city’s elected officials have bent over backwards (possibly forward, too) for Myrtle Manor. In late March, the city council approved a resolution designating Patrick’s Mobile Home Park as a “film district.” The designation permits commerce in an area previously zoned as residential, meaning the Patricks can sell souvenirs and concessions on the property. A hair salon is also allowed to operate from April 1 to June 29; the Patricks can re-apply for special events permits after 90 days.

Folks, a rhinoceros could have seen disaster looming when the council passed that resolution. A reality show based on a trailer park? And the city is going to allow them to set up shop? Come on. Who’s running this town? Mr. Magoo and his kin? I’ve always heard that morality can’t be legislated. But I reckon it’s okay for a local governing body to condone immorality.

Let me make this clear. Many good people live in mobile homes. I’ve known many of them in my nearly 14 years in town. I know a decent dude who lives in Myrtle Manor and he wants nothing to do with the drama, or, as I’ve described it before, the contrived, sensationalized, somewhat-scripted, highly-manipulated portrayal of day-to-day life in a mobile home park. Many upstanding citizens live in trailer parks. They are different to what is commonly referred to as trailer trash. Trailer trash is a term I save for those who spend their lives lost in substance abuse while avoiding responsibility, those who thrive on using foul language and insist on acting in ways that are far outside the norms of society.

To the Patrick family: I saw the newspaper article in which one of your family members bragged about selling t-shirts. He was so giddy as he said something about not being able to keep them in stock. I almost choked; I’m one of those guys to whom morality means something. I hope the money that you’re getting from the show and souvenirs is worth the embarrassment that you’ve brought to your family name. Not to mention Myrtle Beach. That money can’t buy back your soul.

Here’s hoping TLC’s Welcome to Myrtle Manor is headed for Davy Jones’ locker like the Titantic did so many years ago. Casualties optional for any alleged man who “allegedly” sleeps with minors.

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | April 28, 2013

Waging heavy peace can be tough

(This is Volume VIII of the Seagull Saga. Volumes I through VII can be found under Archives or Categories.)

“So,” Jon Seagull said. “You wrote that you walked away from society.”

“That’s not what I wrote. I wrote that my obsession with hunting sharks teeth led me as far away from society as I could get.”

“Same difference. You walked away from society.”

“First of all, you’re a seagull. You can’t read…”

Jon interrupted me. “No, but you can.”

“Okay, you’re right. I walked away from society.”

“Tell me something, genius,” said Jon. “If one is trying to escape society, the last place one would go, seemingly, is to the beach of a popular resort town. You could have disappeared in the thickets bordering the marshes and settled for wrasslin’ alligators.”

“I guess I didn’t plan out my flight very well. I didn’t make it very far before I decided to turn around and confront things head-on.”

“So, now you take cheap shots at everyone. Local government. The good ol’ boys. Builders & Crashers Inc…Even us.”

“Tough love,” I responded. “Or, to borrow a phrase from the great Neil Young, I’m waging heavy peace. With the city I love. With myself.”

“Aren’t you going to write about the city services employee who looked right at the overturned trash barrel at the 67th Avenue Access and just kept driving? Remember? You picked the potato chip bag and the plastic cup from the sea oats and stood the barrel up, beer cans and all. Aren’t you going to…”

“Nope. Not right now.”

“What about the two cops you saw making turns without using their turn signals — one maneuvering from 65th Ave. onto Somerset Drive and the other from 63rd onto Somerset. Two routine-patrol incidents within three days in your neighborhood. Come on. They’re not above the law.”

“Wait a minute. You didn’t see those traffic violations. You weren’t even there.”

“Wasn’t I? Now quit avoiding the subject. You’re not going to write about those two officers failing to lead by example?”

“No. Not now. I need to back off a bit.”

“What happened to tough love?” Jon asked, shaking his head in disgust. “You’re still an idiot.”

“Yeah, I am. I’ve always said that the world is full of idiots and I’m one of them.”

Jon stretched his wings and paused. “You know. We’re alike in a lot of ways. Self-loathing and hyper-critical.”

“That’s better than being a hypocrite.”

Jon sqwauked in the hilarity of the moment. Then he got serious. He spoke solemnly — almost as if he sincerely cared. “I’m always here if you need to chat. If you need the company.”

“Thanks Jon. Back at ya.”

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | April 25, 2013

Woody Woodpecker brings bum luck

My latest find -- on the right -- compares quite favorably to the great white tooth that I've been wearing around my neck for quite awhile. Photo by Dharma Beach Bum correspondent Terri Hufnagle Ackley

My latest find — on the right — compares quite favorably to the great white tooth that I’ve been wearing around my neck for quite awhile.
Photo by Dharma Beach Bum correspondent Terri Hufnagle Ackley

The machine gun-like rapping of a Red-bellied Woodpecker in a wood lot not far from my apartment door proved to be a good omen. It was 9:30 a.m. and I’d just started my hike to the beach. In general, it takes an hour for the surf to ebb far enough down the foreshore for shells to be exposed. The tide had peaked at 8:30 a.m., so I was right on schedule.

I smiled upon hearing Woody doing his thing. The cartoon character, Woody Woodpecker, was much like a Pileated Woodpecker, not a Red-bellied Woodpecker, but my new pal was getting the name, Woody, anyway. Friends of mine and I had seen him flying through the neighborhood and into the trees. How could I not be in a good mood upon hearing his hollow knocking? Woody made my trip to the beach enjoyable.

I paced a six-block area of the beach after accessing it at 67th Avenue North, finding ten small teeth along the surf over the course of an hour. After speaking briefly with Butch, a fellow collector, I staggered to a shell bed in front of lifeguard stand 70. A wave pushed a nearly-perfect, two-inch great white tooth onto a mass of bigger shells right at my feet.

Butch is a real fossil enthusiast and a heck of a nice guy, so I knew he would appreciate examining the specimen. He congratulated me.

“I guess I have to stop my bellyaching now, at least for awhile,” I said to him. He laughed.

Finding a big, nicely-shaped shark’s tooth is a rarity along the Grand Strand. It’s a matter of being at the right place at the right time.

One must consider the odds of a fossilized tooth making it to shore intact.

First, they must be buried beneath the ocean floor for tens of thousands of years. That’s where permineralization occurs. A tooth exposed on the ocean floor would be devoured by all sorts of organisms.

Once fossilized, the teeth move about in underwater currents and are often reburied several times. Who knows how many times a tooth knocks into coral, rocks and shells before gracing the shores?

Many of the sharks teeth found along the Grand Strand are dredged with sands a mile off shore during beach renourishment projects and pumped onto the existing beach through big pipes. How a tooth survives that leg of the journey is beyond me.

So, I got lucky upon making my latest find. Real lucky.

On my way home, Woody or one of his pals was pecking away in that same wooded lot.

“Thank you, my fine feathered friend,” I said. “May you fill your stomach with many insects. And your next wood-boring beetle is on me.”

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | April 22, 2013

Compassion and care could help cure society’s woes

Walking down the beach, I wish people a good morning or a fine afternoon. I think of it as my 20-foot civility rule. I feel rude passing anyone that near to me without acknowledging them. I wave to people farther away if we make eye contact.

Sure, there are times that I’m lost in my own little world, concentrating too hard on my beachcombing hobby. I forget my manners and don’t greet strangers.

If I were a member of the zealously conservative Roman Catholic order Opus Dei, I’d find a thick rope, tie a knot in it, and practice self-flagellation. Kidding. I’m kidding. I’ve been on the opposite side of the equation too many times, offering salutations to passersby that go completely ignored, to resort to radical self-discipline.

Sometimes I think people walk with their heads down and refuse to make eye contact because they are living their lives in fear. Living in fear won’t get anyone anywhere. Biases also account for some deliberate discourtesy.

Our society would benefit if people paid more attention to one another. We need to be more courteous to one another. We need to show passersby more respect and more compassion. Sharing greetings and smiles might just help end some of this craziness.

Newtown, Connecticut.

Aurora, Colorado.

Too many people were killed. For what? Why? I get teary-eyed when I think about the children who will never get to live out their natural lives. Sickening. It’s all sickening to me.

I wonder if the shooters would have followed through with their mass murders if someone, anyone, had truly cared about them.

I’m not offering excuses for those wingnuts. I could have pulled the electric chair switch with a clear conscience if they had been found guilty in a court of law. I could march them down the courthouse steps and put the noose around their necks. No, I’m not God, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.

I’ve lived with bipolar disorder for 15 years, but I don’t believe mental illness is a legitimate legal defense. Murder is murder.

But I do believe, if we approach those people with the vapid eyes and with those crazy grins on their faces, we can tell them that the world isn’t such a bad place, that there is HOPE, that there are others who care. Embrace them — perhaps in ways that their parents and acquaintances didn’t — and maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t opt in the end to kill innocent people to compensate for the pain they feel, their inner rage, the wrongs they perceive to have been done to them.

Being polite to and showing sincere concern for our fellow human beings won’t solve all our societal woes. But it just might lift one’s spirits from the hellish abyss into which they have dropped.

See ya on the beach. And let’s acknowledge each other.

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | April 15, 2013

A reunion too long in the making

Terri Hufnagle Ackley posing near some local flora. A little fuzzy, but y'all get the picture.

Terri Hufnagle Ackley posing near some local flora. A little fuzzy, but y’all get the picture.

My blog has been clogged. My brain, drained. Apologies to my faithful readers for my negligence. I haven’t been writing much of late. I wish I could say, “I’m sorry,” in person to all five of you.

I hate making excuses, but allow me to profer a possibility. My sister, Terri Hufnagle Ackley, is in town. She and I recently saw each other for the first time in over seven years. We hadn’t had any big disagreement prior to our separation. Our lives have just taken different paths.

She was spending her time with her kids and with her carpet business in southeastern Pennsylvania and at the beaches in Maryland. I had deserted the north and moved to Myrtle Beach, where my obsession with hunting sharks teeth led me as far away from society as I could get.

At 53, Terri is a year and nine months older than me. When we were younger, she did what older sisters do to younger brothers. She antagonized me. Okay, I even antagonized her sometimes. Our relationship is much different now.

We have had a blast for the last eleven days! We’ve been doing a lot of beachcombing. That’s what Hufnagles do when in Rome. My grandparents and parents first brought my sister, brother and I to Surfside Beach in 1970. Hunting sharks teeth has been a family tradition since then.

Having spent most of our childhood living along the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania, Terri and I always shared a love of nature. She especially enjoyed the live oaks, the ocean, the serenity of the beach, and the gulls and terns on her Redneck Riviera vacation. She didn’t get to see any dolphins, but Mother Ocean sometimes keeps her treasures hidden.

Terri and I also spent a few days with friends, still managing some beach time. We listened to a lot of classic rock and roll. Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, The Traveling Wilburys, CSN&Y and Led Zeppelin. Much of the music, including videos, was downloaded from the internet. I listened to a lot of Terri’s music when we were teens, so music long ago formed a bond between us. Her Fleetwood Mac and Stones albums rubbed off on me. I listen to both groups to this day.

Over the last week and a half, she and I have also shared a lot of memories and Memorex (DVD player) — catching up on old movies, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?, The Postman, Legends of the Fall, The Bourne Ultimatum, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, et al.

In short, it had been too long since we had seen each other. The waves and the winds helped restore balance in our relationship. The undying love of a brother and sister took care of the rest.

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | April 8, 2013

Take a hike, Mr. Sanford

Mark SanfordMark Sanford was governor of the great state of South Carolina when he played hide-and-seek with his constituency by running off to South America to visit his mistress. He did so with the selfishness of a child, disappearing for six days in June 2009.

Marco…Marco…Marco…

Members of his staff were told that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Neither Lt. Governor Andre Bauer nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provided security for Sanford, were informed of his true whereabouts. His wife, Jenny, certainly didn’t know that he had flown south of the equator.

During his unnannounced absence, Sanford reportedly ignored 15 cell phone calls from his chief of staff Scott English. There was state business to be conducted, and Sanford wasn’t holding himself accountable to perform the duties for which he was elected.

Marco…Marco…Marco…

Mark Sanford had vacated his post. In the military, that kind of irresponsibility is called dereliction of duty.

…Polo…

He was “tagged” by a newspaper reporter in an Atlanta airport upon his return to the northern hemisphere. He learned that the media was amassing incriminating evidence against him. He subsequently held a news conference, admitting his affair.

It was time for Sanford to face the consequences for his betrayal. He conducted an apology tour with the media — the perfunctory type so common now among our fallen politicians and celebrities. The state legislature started impeachment proceedings in the fall of 2009. An Ethics Commission formally charged Sanford with 37 violations. Ultimately, most charges against Sanford were dropped.

The legislature, severely disapproving of Sanford’s actions, chose censure over impeachment, essentially slapping Sanford on the wrist. Sanford resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, but finished out his term in January 2011.

In the meantime, Jenny Sanford started divorce proceedings with her estranged husband. The divorce was finalized in March 2010.

The national media went crazy with the scandal. Newspaper headlines shouted all the sordid details of the affair, the governor’s disappearing act and the state legislature’s weak response. Television’s talking heads were dizzy with breathlessness from endless dissection of the story. Internet comment boards were loaded with derogatory remarks about my adopted home state.

The citizens of South Carolina were humiliated.

Most thought Mark Sanford’s political career was over. Many, including me, just wanted him to go away.

It would serve him well to go hiking, right? Perhaps a ten-year trip around the foothills of the Andes Mountains with his “soul mate” at his side. He’s a religious man. He would surely show some humility and step away from the political scene, right?

Well, politicians are a different breed. Most are supremely confident. Most crave power. Some are self-centered — like children.

Marco…Marko…Mark?

Sanford announced in early 2013 that he would run for the same 1st Congressional District seat in the House of Representatives that he held from Jan. ’95 to Jan. 2001. The district includes the Grand Strand, Charleston and much of the low country. The seat was left open when Representative Tim Scott was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Nikki Haley. The former governor’s announcement was stunning, but it wasn’t long until his arrogance was rewarded.

In April, Sanford defeated Curtis Bostic in the GOP runoff election. He faces Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the May 7 special election.

It’s among my greatest wishes that my fellow citizens hold themselves to higher standards on May 7 than the state legislature did when it slapped Sanford on the wrist with its “censure.” For God’s sake, this isn’t a children’s game of tag. A vote for Sanford on election day is a vote against ethics. The least we could do is hold our politicians to the same standards to which men and women in the military are held.

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Posted by: dharmabeachbum | March 28, 2013

Society of convenience leads to trashiness

The ocean lay relatively flat and its green surface was littered with glitter and sparkle borne from afternoon sunlight. Hundreds of sea birds floated on her, bobbing like Styrofoam fishing net weights atop the slightest of waves.

The foreshore had just the slightest pitch, slanted much like your average building access ramp. A winding, yellowish-orange trail of crushed shells lay where the slope of the beach leveled off into flat sands.

“Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road.”

That’s what I had done earlier in the day. I’d followed that shell path and found 12 sharks teeth in an hour and a half. That why I opted in the afternoon to search the beach’s backshore (the plateau nearest the dunes).

On three successive days the previous week, I’d come across at least 15 teeth on heavily-trampled sands while searching parallel to the dunes and erosion fences. Why not try it again?

So I did. Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as successful on this hunt. I spotted just four tiny teeth in an hour. During that same time, I picked up two pen casings, a plastic fireworks component, two bottle caps and a tattered packaging label, while ignoring several other pieces of trash.

Bummer. It was a real bummer, man.

After changing strategies and following the surf’s edge, I picked up a boogie board nylon cord, two dampened cigarette butts, the soul of a beach shoe and a plastic water bottle. No sharks teeth. Again, I walked past more garbage. Hey, I’m getting old. I have to pick my battles these days.

Call me stupid (been called much worse), but I just don’t get how people can be so ignorant. Our society of convenience has rendered us lazy and indifferent to nature. Some things shouldn’t be tolerated.

And speaking of…

Locals will tell you that we had a rather cold, windy winter here. Twice within a two-week span, we had steady winds of 20 or so miles-per-hour with gusts twice that strong. The blue trash barrels that normally sit near our beach accesses were blown all over the place. Garbage was strewn everywhere.

Beaches are windy. That’s going to happen. The only way to avoid that kind of trashapalooza is to empty the barrels more often. Mornings and nights instead of just mornings. That would be mighty costly.

It might behoove the city, however, to respond more quickly to wind storms. I walked long stretches of the beach both times, pulling barrels from the surf and gathering a few pieces of trash. I did what my geezer bones allowed me to do; then I was left standing like the Native American in the 1970s anti-pollution commercials. There weren’t ANY city trucks out on that beach before 8:15 a.m. on either morning.

(Fill in your own profanity-laced tirade here — or guess at mine.)

I’m trying real hard to be a good boy. So, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, that’s all I’ll say about that.

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