Good old fun on Folly
By Smoky Weiner
As a concerned ex-patriot of Folly Beach and former member of its Planning Commission, I’ve been watching the recent goings on with horror and amusement. I lived on Folly from January 5, 1987, until my divorce in 2006, which divorced me from my house as well as from my wife. Homeowners complain about young people. All those dang young people! The unwashed youth, the overly washed youth, the youth that have washed moderately but applied excessive cologne. Surfboards sticking out everywhere, litter and beer cans on the beach, men urinating while secretly jealous females look away in horror! And then there are the thousands of cars an hour making the road impassible, necessitating careful time management techniques by the year-round residents who must leave in the morning and return in the evening like the helpless inhabitants at the end of H.G. Wells’ “Time Machine”. Strained Council meetings with weary embattled Councilmen who try hard to look patient and
Just like in the good ol' days...
understanding, yet not condescending as certain over-wrought residents who possibly have some time on their hands give impassioned speeches about the permanent damage to their beloved Island due to the unyielding greed of developers and politicians … well, anyway, that was 1987. One can plainly see how much has changed.
Folly is marching on like it always does; doing what it can in the face of difficult problems. Luckily, Folly has the right Mayor for the problem and I mean that seriously because I like the guy. In fact, he is the first Folly Mayor that I have actually liked! He’s a can-do military dude who knows what must be done. C’mon, deep down, we all know what must be done. Yes, three or four of these litterbugs and perhaps an errant dog owner or two must be shot, or at the very least, tazed. You wouldn’t have to taze the dog or anything that drastic. Sure, there’d be some criticism in the press (although it is South Carolina), but then some famous person will take a hike, kick the bucket or marry out of their species and “poof!”, all gone! Not only would this solve the litter problem, but you could probably cut the police force in half. Now that’s real savings.
I got a ticket for jaywalking in L.A. once. The cop was six foot six and I could tell he wanted to throw me to the ground. I am dead certain that if I threw an empty beer can on the beach in front of Johnny Carson’s house in Malibu I would have been shot through the heart by a policeman and they would have called it justifiable homicide. It is this kind of thinking that attracted Schwarzenegger; and he is a superhero after all.
I joined the swarm last Friday night and I was walking down Center Street when I heard a duo on a patio playing an old song. The song was “The Weight” by The Band. I walked a little further down the street until I was at another bar with a patio and another act, this one a solo, was playing a song. It was also “The Weight” by The Band. This scared me. They were about thirty seconds apart in the song, although they couldn’t hear each other. These guys were too young to have even heard the song when it came out. In fact, they weren’t even born yet! There must be some kind of young people “Band” cult where they communicate with their IPhones just to freak us old guys out. The actual “old” musicians can’t even get a gig playing the old songs. We’re just too old. Maybe I’ll pull my boxers outside of my pants, cross my arms and make some bi-labial fricatives with my mouth. Or maybe not …
You can find old guys a plenty and also some of the more intelligent younger ones at Bowens Island every Wednesday night from 8:30 until 11:30pm. It’s a jam, so bring your thing. Hosted this week by Tommy Thunderfoot, Smoky Weiner, Stevie Kent and Steve Padgett. Come play with us or just listen. We have good old fun.
