Undoing the Charleston

Maybe I've lived here too long (49 years).

Maybe I'm upset because nobody told me about the Calcutta Ball.

Maybe I feel disenfranchised because I don't have a jeep wagon with a Wild Dunes decal and frustrated because even if I stole a decal, it would only inspire sniggering on my Toyota.

Perhaps, I'm just feeling sorry for myself because I know that even the most accomplished genealogist couldn't find a Pringle, Rutledge, or Middleton in my family tree without divine intervention.

Or, this whole thing could be a delayed post-traumatic stress reaction to learning that I could never join Charleston Society.

Whatever the reason—I could put this more delicately, but I'll just blurt it out instead—"Charleston, you're really starting to annoy me."

I feel better just having said it. But, there's the real possibility that very soon I'll be covered with she-crab soup and ridden out of the city on a joggling board.

Twenty or thirty years ago, only the Chamber of Commerce proclaimed Charleston to be "America's Most Historic City," no one above Columbia referred to us, even derisively, as "the Holy City," and only the aristocracy and a smattering of surging parvenus whore expensive, traditionally styled clothes (Ivy League), drove luxury cars (Cadillacs, Chryslers, Country Squire Wagons), dined frequently at haute monde, restaurants (Perdita's, Henry's, The Cavallaro), and had beach houses (Sullivan's Island or Isle of Palms) for the summer.

But now, Charleston is touted in international magazines as "America's Most Historic City." It's "quaintest," it's "most charming," not to mention its "most livable."

We have an international art festival, scores of chic restaurants, fashionable clothing stores, boutiques and antique shops materializing overnight, and swarming hordes of local artists mass producing enough pictures of Rainbow Row to cover the ozone hole.

People in Butte, Montana, are wearing "I love Charleston" t-shirts.

And thousand of affluent newcomers have poured into the city, overflowing into Mt. Pleasant and the surrounding islands where they've renovated historic homes, contrasted walled, but so far moat-less subdivisions, and are fighting valiantly to wrest the standard of self-aggrandizement away from the ruling class and established Charleston as a world ego center.

It is a very curious battle. The competitors all wear similar uniforms designed by Ralph Lauren, drive the same kinds of cars, live in the same kinds of houses, and, in general, pursue identical lifestyles, often interrupted by instances of one-upmanship: "Oh God, look honey, the Martins have added a St. Tropez decal to their BMW."

Of course, there is a name for these people, the Nouveau Charlestonians, the medial love to continuously describe as upscale, fashionable, upwardly mobile, movers and shakers, and I had earnestly hoped to avoid the most familiar term that describes this ever-increasing population of "the Great Washed"—the dreaded "Y word," the word that has the same effect on me as a tongue depressor gone too far. Yuppie.

Thirty years ago, an evening walk down Market Street would be an adventure, admittedly not always a wholesome one. One would come upon B-girls, lust-consumed sailors, and an assortment of "Charleston Characters," sober and otherwise, as they tripped back and forth between Henry's, The Owl Club, The Cove, and the Carriage House.

There were no unnaturally glistening rails, furbished bars, and ferns, and any male uttering the word, ambience, would probably engender suspicion about his sexual persuasion.

People drank Pabst Blue Ribbon or Budweiser—even Schlitz. No one ordered white wine or Stolichnaya neat.

There were no expensive, room-illuminating light fixtures or chandeliers ("Y People" like to be noticed by other "Y people"). The bard were always dark. The people and the roaches like it that way.

No one had ever heard of a boutique and most of the antique shops looked like Twilight Zone sets, heavy with hallucinogenic strength mustiness, run by people from another century, and viewed only as weird museums by occasional visitors.

There were no imperiously pointing "Y women" exclaiming, "I must have this for the drawing room, Brett," or "Y husbands" mock-scolding, "Oh Megan, you know that will just never fit n the Jag. Why don't I call Biffer on the 'celly' (car telephone) to bring the rover?"

Obviously, the old days in Charleston were devoid of some of the even more basic niceties, but in nostalgic retrospect, I prefer them to today's Disney World for the Self-important.

Arguably, Charleston has always had a reputation for quasi-psychotic vainglory, but fortunately, not many outside of our state were affected by it.

Now that it is world renown, we are in very real danger of becoming the municipal equivalent of Barry Manilow ("We are the town that makes the whole world sing.")

The best treatment might be an injection of humility. Someone needs to provide proof:

--that Moline, Illinois, is actually America's Most Historic City
--that a key secret ingredient of benne seed cookies is horse manure
--that a Hell's Angel is buried in St. Philip's Church cemetery
--Mayor Riley has a pair of fuzzy dice on his car's rearview mirror
--Gain Carlo Menotti has one Country Western

Hey, Charleston. Lighten up!

(Originally published July 1989)