Sprinkle a bit of memory dust on your graying or balding brains, self-proclaimed “locals,” be you Island or Beach people, and speak up if you recall a yellow Model A parked along a three-digit block of Palmetto Boulevard on Edisto Beach. Oh, the year would be 1974 or 5. The owner, John F____ , was a real local in that his mother lived on the island near a “county” road that no longer exists. In fact, island tours of the day included a stop at her home, where tourers could, for no extra fee, fondle a dollop of long staple cotton for which Edisto had gained notoriety long “befoar the Woar.”

“Cut the antebellum antics,” warns the assistant editor. “You’ll not get paid a whit for old wit.”

John had taken residence on the beach, declaring independence from home fires and curfews. He had either made acquaintance through my sister, Beth, a one-summer striker on a Fontaine shrimp boat, or through Retta, another island staple. My, in later years to be long-suffering, wife and I were visiting Retta at her home near the west end of the beach on the sound side. The Mrs., that October 1975 afternoon, was medium heavy with our soon-to-be first-born and needed no unnecessary shock to her system.

John, either attendant or happening by, suggested a ride in his Model A, which seemed to me a capital idea. First, John took a rifle that for some reason he kept under the back seat of his “A” Model and deposited the rifle in a bedroom, and we were off. Turning left at the dirt road extension, John drove a coupla’ hundred yards before turning left again by several parked cars just inside the sand dunes. Remember, surviving readers, this was before Fairfield bought up the west end and sprinkled the beach with time-shares. The Model A chugged along between dunes and onto the beach. Yet another left and we could see a bonfire and several men silhouetted in the dusk ahead.

These fellows were engaged in gill-netting, part meat fishing, part sport. The meat fishing part consisted of a gill net stretched from shore out 100 or so feet and anchored at the deep end. Every so often one guy would wade out, drag the extended end back to shore, and his cohorts would extract whatever mullet, croaker, sand shark, whiting or other shallow-water denizen unlucky enough to be entangled in the net.

The sport part was the consuming of all the alcohol they could have lugged from their cars back at the sand dunes before the tide ran in or the firewood ran out.

This was the scene upon which we chanced, and John, being in good spirits, or from spirits enhanced, drove the Model A right over their campfire, scattering gill-netters, firewood and overturning beer cans, most disconcerting to the campfire boys. Gratefully, we didn’t stop to inquire as to their catch.

One hundred yards on down the beach, the latter spirits took hold. John turned the “A” around and headed back for the sportsmen, now loaded for bear. I reckon John figured we’d have to run the gauntlet, the only escape being back through the break in the sand dunes. On the second pass, one of the more agile fellows jumped on the running board and began trying to extract John through the window, or at least John’s head. We were able to push him off the running board before John lost that vital appendage, and pointed the Model A toward the break in the dunes. In his excitement, John misjudged the “break,” and dead ahead, in the semi-darkness beyond the sand dunes, sat the gill netters’ cars. Fear overcame relief; I opened the passenger door and fell into a hedge of chainey briar. On my feet and running, I tripped over an old barbed wire, yes impatient reader, barbed wire on the sand dunes. Making it to Retta’s, bleeding from thorns and barbs, I bounded up the steps, through the living room and into the bathroom, with no explanation to much-surprised wife and hostess.

Very shortly, John came breathlessly in, shouting, “They’ve got Johnny! Where’s my gun?” His relief at finding me unkidnapped was short-lived in that deputies came to call. Fortunately, the deputies didn’t have the double duty of baby delivery that evening.

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Johnny Roland grew up in Boykin and now resides near the Four Holes Swamp. Johnny plays trumpet with The Reflections band in Camden and occasionally sits in with The Edisto Gumbo band. Contact him at jcroland3@aol.com

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