Myrtle Beach: Where I Call Home

A sea of brake lights gave me time to absorb the spectacle sprawled out in front of us. There was Hard Rock Cafe’s pyramid, Planet Hollywood’s house-sized blue ball that appeared to be sticking its tongue out at me, and a three dimensional billboard featuring a larger-than-life great white shark for Ripley’s Aquarium hovering above Rt. 17 Bypass. We had come to an abrupt halt, and were now part of the traffic headed for Broadway at the Beach. Unlike the rest of what we would later learn is called the early bird dinner traffic, we were in Myrtle Beach on a house-hunting trip.

I didn’t know much about Myrtle Beach, but from the stories I’d heard it was not the kind of place people really lived. I had vague recollections of tales told by a friend or two of the resort community usually involving weekends of youthful revelry where a few hours were spent in jail over offenses such as stealing watermelons or jumping into pools off of hotel balconies. As far as Southern towns go, in my mind Myrtle Beach Johnny Laws had quite the rep of enthusiastically throwing your drunken ass in the slammer for the night, not giving a rip who your daddy was.

This was just one of many corporate house-hunting trips we’d been on, but had quickly turned into the strangest. Our real estate agent kept insisting we look at condos and single family dwellings called patio homes. We’d pull into these vast, new neighborhoods called “gated golf course communities,” their parking lots either eerily empty or packed with cars from the Midwest. I was in the middle of a serious “attitude is everything” phase, but still, I’d go back to the hotel and dream each night of being at the gate of my new gated community with a gatekeeper refusing to let me out. Our agent had never heard of National Public Radio. Frankly I had concerns.

You may just have heard all the Myrtle Beach stereotypes, punchlines and paradoxes. Baptist churches across the street from strip clubs, and golfers, so many golfers. I have to tell you, they’re pretty much all true. It doesn’t matter how open your mind is, it’s impossible to ignore stereotypes when they hit you in the face, or they’re running on the next treadmill. Two months later there I was, regularly running on a treadmill next to a woman who was definitely a stripper. She was stacked to such a degree that I questioned whether we were even the same sex. She wore a full face of make-up and had big bleached hair that she had made a half-assed effort to pull into a ponytail, but like her breasts seemed to be spilling all over the place. In the end it was obvious she was doing absolutely nothing to contain any of them. Men would saunter by, tossing gym towels over their shoulders trying to look casual, literally tripping over themselves. Heck, more than once I tripped over myself.

Myrtle Beach’s best kept secret isn’t July; it’s October and April. There’s less heat and humidity and more parking. Beach walks of all kinds are something to behold. Except for winter weary Canadians the water is too cold to swim, but there is nothing like a 75-80 degree day in a beach chair and toes dug in the sand. Pelicans fly in formation like fighter pilots effortlessly overhead, while dainty sandpipers scuttle back and forth with the waves. Even on those most touristed sections of strand, during these special months, the clean smell of beach isn’t squelched beneath summer’s distinct essence of brine, Budweiser and Hawaiian Tropic. As an added plus no Frisbees fly freelance endangering you or your children.

Yes it’s fun every now and then to go see what’s happening on a Saturday night in the summer on Ocean Boulevard just a few blocks away. But truthfully summers for us people who live here, are planned around avoiding tourists. Some nights I like to go out in our backyard and swing around for a while in the hammock and listen. In the distance Margaritaville’s foghorn cartoonishly moans just like the real thing, and the bass of a rock band pulsates in the humidity. Just beyond the tips of the loblolly pines, an occasional splay of firework still manages to thrill me with its pops and booms following momentarily behind. It is fireworks night down the road from my non-gated community;it is ten o’clock and Tuesday. I know exactly where I am.

Margo Millure is the editor of The Travel Belles

Why I like this story: Because it’s got a well expressed sense of place, loved because of or in spite of its flaws.