Beyond and Beneath the Tourist Information Center

As all well-informed tourists and most residents are aware, Charleston’s reputation as a virginal reservoir (though perhaps a little stagnant now) of singular beauty (albeit, frequently brick deep), unparalleled graciousness (unless one becomes too aggressive at White Point Gardens), and superlative achievements (though nothing particularly noteworthy—other than the celebrated horse-diaper/manure controversy—has occurred since 1861) is not longer the well-kept secret of Civil War (“War Between the States”) freaks, antique hustlers, Citadel alumni and aficionados of the regatta circuit.

Charleston is now visited regularly by people who previously had gone to the Catskills, Williamsburg, New Orleans, Key West, or even to sleep, perhaps. These multitudinous pilgrimages began about two years ago, and, of course, the Spoleto Festival has acted as a phenomenal catalyst.

Of our city’s manifold attributes, I feel its lengthy list of notable achievements is possibly the key to maintaining its now burgeoning growth rate as a super-tourist Mecca. People (and tourists as well) are always impressed by superlatives. For after all, it is the American credo to extol being successful, winning, and being Number One—and, by God (or without Him), no matter how one gets there.

Without a doubt, Charleston can claim some very impressive achievements and statistics: 1. The oldest city museum; 2. The oldest municipal college; 3. The most churches per capita; 4. The fort whose siege signaled the beginning of the Civil War (“War Between the States”); and on an on.

However, in looking to the future (a word which many Charlestonians recoil from as Dracula did from daylight), I fear the day may come when the tourists’ appetite for these achievements, and the landmarks which represent them, may become cloyed. They may one day reflect upon the historical and architectural significance of the Nathaniel Russell House’s flying circular stairway and say, “Who the hell cares? I’m never coming back to this place again!”

Not wishing to witness this mortifying turn of events, I have taken it upon myself to preclude, or at least delay, its occurrence. After assiduous research and lucubration, which resulted in my missing “Hogan’s Heroes,” “the Virgil Ward Show,” and “Scream Theater” five weeks in a row, I have managed to exhume some heretofore unknown bits of “Charlestonia” that well may serve to whet the appetite of the most mercurial tourist and, perhaps, even enlighten and impress many Charlestonians as well.

My investigation revealed the following information:

1. Charleston hold the record for having the largest number of people with interchangeable first and last names in attendance at a single social event (24 at the Bachelor’s Society Ball in 1961): Legare Moultrie and Moultrie Legare, Townsend Pringle and Pringle Townsend, Jenkins Mikell and Mikell Jenkins, Rutledge Prioleau and Prioleau Rutledge, Hastie Stoney and Stoney Hastie, Drayton Ball and Ball Drayton, Bissell Middleton and Middleton Bissell, Rhett Gibbs (male) and Gibbs Rhett (female), Manigault Johnson and Johnson Manigault, Whaley Bailey and Bailey Whaley, Thomas Pratt-Wilson and Wilson Pratt-Thomas, Barnwell Buist and Buist Barnwell.

2. Charleston (this actually occurred on James Island; my study included the entire metropolitan area) has recorded the greatest number of people attending a single sporting event with the sobriquet, “Bubba”: 16 in a slow-pitch baseball game between the “Ram Room” and the Uncle Bunny’s Supper Club” on July 11, 1975. The previous record, incidentally, was nine at The Summerville Speedway in 1963.

3. Charleston is the city which recorded the greatest number of people receiving orthopedic and/or spinal cord injuries as a direct result of somnambulism during a public event (11 at the Charleston Pirates/ Gastonia Rangers baseball game on July 22, 1977).

4. Charleston the city which has the largest municipally owned inner-city lake having central fountains less than ten inches high and less than eighteen inches in diameter.

5. Charleston is the city having the most practicing attorneys per capita.

6. Charleston is the city have the most attorneys practicing on the same street (Broad).

7. Charleston is the city having recorded the greatest number of attorneys simultaneously out of their offices before 11:30 a.m. (439 on Broad Street, June 24, 1977).

8. Charleston is the city having recorded the greatest number of attorneys at the scene of a two-car wreck (413 on Broad and Meeting streets, June 24, 1977).

9. Charleston boasts a furniture store which recorded the greatest number of end-of-the-month sales within a one-week period (8).

10. A North Charleston, Mr. Eddie Camshaft of 102 Grits Lane, Creosote Estates, established a new distance record for tire marks in a business zone by scratching of and burning rubber for a span of 3 ½ city blocks on August 18, 1973. This record was thought to have been bettered in February, 1977, by Mr. Camshaft’s uncle, Fireball Ferguson, when he burned out a startling 7 ¾ blocks. Mr. Ferguson was disqualified, however, when a school safety patrol member was found wedged under his rear wheels, giving him extra traction.

11. The Charleston area also holds a number of records in the musical category, such as: a) the most nonconsecutive plays of a single 78-rpm record in a twelve hour period (490, “Sixty-Minute Man,” The Platter, at the Seaside, on Friday, July 7, 1958); b) the most consecutive plays of a record of a patriotic nature in a twelve hour period (601, “Dixie,” at American Legion Post 110 on Saturday, June 10, 1968). An attempt was made at a 24-hour record. However, this was aborted after seven hours, when twenty-two year-old Marine Lance Corporal Wendell Suggs of Biloxi, Mississippi, was accidentally thrown by his dancing partner, “Big Betty” Bouffant, against the juke box, thereby rendering the machine inoperable. Nevertheless, the night was one of no mean accomplishment, as Corporal Suggs, who received a permanently debilitating back injury, became the first person to be awarded V.A. disability benefits based on injuries caused by a Wurlitzer product; and still another record was established for the most Rebel Yells given in a 12-hour period (1,208). The old record, 1,701, had been set at the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, in 1863.

12. One of Charleston’s TV stations bas the distinction of producing the only known film footage of a man taking picture of a pile of horse manure, followed by an investigative interview with the photographer. Actually, although this was, of course, a nonpareil happening, it was not totally unexpected, since local TV news shows are often forced to furnish their viewers with an abundance of meaningless crap in one form or another.

13. Another Charleston TV station diligently shrouds the uniqueness of having a sports announcer who has never attended, much less played in, an athletic event. This same sport also established an “inarticulation” record by being unable to pronounce a one syllable category proper name (Bert Jones) on seven successive tries on October 10, 1975.

14. Charleston also holds the record for having registered the greatest number of nonmilitary males in a three block area, not marching in a parade, and not belonging to the same society or organization, but who were all dressed the same: 302 with blue blazers, khaki pants, and regimental stripe ties on March 22, 1978, on Broad Street, between East Bay and Meeting.

15. Charleston also holds the record for the greatest number of females with identical hair adornment, driving cars valued in excess of $14,000, within a two-hour time frame: 183 with white-patterned blue scarves in Mercedes between the hours of 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. on June 7, 1977.

16. Charleston possesses the greatest number of Jeeps, Jeepsters, Jeep Wagons, Landrovers, and station wagons with plantation names on their sides. This practice, as well as those referred to in Numbers 14 and 15, are some of the city’s myriad, distinctive contributions in the category of emblems of social status. Gaillard Pinckney Cheves VI set an Atlantic Coast record in 1976, when he had Patricians’ Point emblazoned on all six of the family’s vehicles, not to mention bicycles, tricycles, skateboards and, finally, his wheelchair (he had become temporarily disabled in an accident when he lost control of his Country Squire, while admiring its reflection in a King Street store window). Though most of the plantation names have regrettably been profoundly unimaginative and typical (“Tara Hall,” “Shenandoah” and “Trade Wind,” for example), some of the more recent appellations have shown a definite inclination toward originality and a more degage attitude: “Basil Hall,” “Dawn Hall,” (which before some remarkable restructuring—interior and exterior—had been known as “George Langley Hall”), “Huntz Hall,” and “Break Wind.” It is perhaps even more significant to note that a Cadillac wagon bearing the name, “The Kunte Kinte Manor and Sweetshop,” received an award from both the NAACP and the ACLU for making an important contribution toward the achievement of racial harmony.

17. The city’s morning newspaper will corrall a record when in the very near future it becomes the first major southern paper not to have a comics section. The paper sagaciously decided to discontinue the comics when a survey indicated that 84% of its readers rated the editorial section far above the comics in humorous content. Unfortunately, another more recent poll, which the paper was obviously not aware of, also showed that this same group of readers felt that the comics (with the exception of “Dick Tracy”) were intellectually and morally superior to the editorial section.

18. The International Benne-seed-cookie/She-crab Soup Sculpt-off was claimed for the 32nd straight year by the same Charlestonian, 82-year-old Minerva Lowndes Townsend Rutledge Buist Gibbs Barnwell Smythe Johnson, who sculpted a very graceful and intricate piece entitled “God Blessing the ‘Holy City’, as Seen Through the Eyes of the Historic Charleston Foundation.” The materials used in this prestigious contest, for those who are not artistically knowledgeable, are authentic Charleston She-Crab Soup (congealed) and genuine Charleston (of course) Benneseed cookies. Lamentably, the event was blemished somewhat this year, however, when, due to a defective air-conditioning system at the awards ceremonies, Mrs. Johnson’s 32nd masterpiece completely dissolved, revealing to the shocked and somewhat nauseated audience the faintly smiling remains of her pet Angora, the late “Roxy of Lamboll Street,” who, the venerable dame forlornly admitted, “was quite fond of she-crab soup, to the last.”

Of course, I could continue this Charleston braggadocio indefinitely, but I think the information I have unearthed is sufficient to pique the curiosity and interest of the most cynical tourist or the most apathetic resident. And that is my purpose for writing this: to reveal to these people the multifarious but rare charms and achievements of this extraordinary city—to reveal the Charleston beyond and beneath the Tourist Information Center.

(Originally published June 1978)