The Real Beaufort
Downtown Beaufort, South Carolina (Henry C. Chambers waterfront park) at sunset
This evening, as I drove down Bay Street, I took note of all the visitors who come to our sweet little town. They were sight-seeing and shopping, snacking and strolling and swinging. Making memories.
But the Beaufort they were enjoying really isn’t Beaufort. Not at all. It’s a version of it, of course, but they will never know the real Beaufort - the Beaufort of my childhood.
I wanted so much to take them by the hand and say look over here - this is Lipsitz Department Store where my feet are measured with such care for school shoes, and Schein’s where I once bought a dress with $5.00 I won under a Sprite bottle cap.
And this is Fordham’s - the hardware store on the corner, rich with hardware store smells and bags of nails to take home for Daddy’s latest project.
Down this way is Edwards, where we can look at the little turtles for sale, and not far away is Koth’s, where we can pick up an Icee.
Luther’s will sell us a postcard and some penny candy, and if we have time we can walk down to the Breeze theater and watch the matinee.
On the opposite end of the street we can say hello to the tellers in People’s Bank, and then cross the street and buy an LP at the record store.
If you’re up to it and want to go for a little walk down Carteret Street, we can stroll down to the library where my Aunt Emma Ellen will let us set behind the big desk and stamp the cards for people checking out books.
And in the evening, when it’s so quiet, we can sit on the sea wall and watch the twinkling lights reflected from the bridge on the river. Bring someone you love because it’s so much nicer if you have someone to hold hands with.
How I would love to show them the Beaufort I know and love; to let them feel, for even just a moment, how everything about the place we call home is part of who we are.
The rhythm of my breathing is the rhythm of the tides. The beat of my heart is the beat of pelican wings gliding across the river. The weightlessness of near-sleep is the floating of my body in the creek on a hot summer day. The full moon over the marsh is my first love.
They will never know. They can’t know. But how I wish I could show them.