Courtney’s Thoughts
The older I get, the less time I spend doing things that annoy me. Frankly, going to the beach here can be annoying. Without a parking pass, one is forced to rise early to get a spot, gambling that the day will indeed become a “beach day.” You’ll want to have a roll of quarters at the ready and be prepared for the agony of standing in line at the meter.
Something odd happens to tourists when faced with a parking meter. A paralysis forces them to fumble and renders them unable to function quickly or efficiently. They are thrown into such a tizzy that the start of their (and my) beach day begins with frustration.
Just put the quarters in the slot, people.
Eventually you set up your beach chair, after consulting the tide chart, to maximize equidistance between ocean and dunes, and ensure that you will not be washed out – only to have a family from Ohio, with a minivan’s worth of beach paraphernalia, sit right next to you. Struck by the majestic beauty of sea gulls, they begin to feed them. Given that sea gulls will poop where they eat, you know how this beach day ends.
I didn’t always feel this way. I come by my love of the beach honestly. I was born and raised at the Jersey Shore. I loved waking up in the summer when school was finally out, peeking through my blinds, seeing the sun and shrieking, “It’s a beach day.” Each year, as locals, we purchased our “beach badge,” and wore it like the honor it was. The smell of ocean air and Coppertone (mixed with a hint of cigarette smoke) is forever imprinted on my brain.
I grew up in a town called Brick. Brick was to Point Pleasant Beach as Bluffton is to Hilton Head Island. From the mainland, we crossed a bridge to get to the beach. If timed poorly, and the bridge was open so boats could pass, you sat waiting, sweating, sticking to the plastic seats of your mother’s 1980 Impala. Once I got my driver’s license, I realized the hassle that it was to drive to the beach.
It is no different now, decades later. Different beach town. Same issues. Traffic. Parking. Tourists. Once a year I gamble and park in a Hilton Head Island resident spot justifying that the potential fine is worth my peace of mind. Under the new parking rules, my peace of mind will now cost me more than I am willing to wager (if I get caught). And with hourly rates tripling at some parking lots, this is now a different scenario altogether.
Why would our closest neighbor essentially charge us an inflated tariff to access something we have been enjoying for decades? I would gladly pay $100 a year for an annual parking pass. I bet that many Blufftonians would.
If you ask a legitimate local, they’ll tell you that when they were growing up, access to Folly Field Beach was a narrow walking path through the dense woods. And “parking at Coligny” meant jumping the curb of the “Holiday Inn Circle” and literally parking your car in the middle of the circle. They will also lament that they wish their grandparents hadn’t sold their second-row from the ocean home in the 1980s when it got “too crowded” on the island.
Times change. Things change. But keeping your allies close seems the wise decision.
Courtney and her sister in matching bikinis… a few years ago.
Barry’s Thoughts
I have to be, for once, very delicate in what I write here. I’ve been burned before.
You see, back when what I did for a living could be construed as “journalism,” I worked for a newspaper that published a somewhat open secret. And boy, did we pay the price for it.
Let me take you back to the early 2000s. The Bluffton Parkway was still under construction at that point, but folks in Bluffton had found a pretty ingenious shortcut around the work zone, through a power line easement that ran parallel.
It wasn’t something anyone was trying to hide, either. When I say everyone in town already knew about this shortcut, I mean that sometimes traffic on the shortcut could get as bad as traffic on 278. One time I followed a cop down the whole thing. This was by no means a secret.
And yet, as soon as we published a piece about how everyone was using the shortcut, all the cranks came out to vent their gin-soaked spleens about how we’d ruined the shortcut. The thing is, the piece was supportive of the shortcut! It was a celebration of Bluffton’s ingenuity and community spirit. Yet by publicizing something that was ostensibly a secret – even though it was public knowledge – these cranks complained that we had somehow ended the party for everyone else.
So, there’s a reason why I’ve stayed quiet while all of Bluffton has lost its mind about paying for beach parking on Hilton Head Island.
Listen, I get people’s frustrations. For years, we’ve enjoyed a tacit status as “local adjacent” when it comes to the island. We don’t live there, but our friends do. A lot of us work there, or own businesses there. We might not have the address on our mail, but we’re pretty close to being local.
So, when Hilton Head Island jacked up its fees for beach parking, applying them to Blufftonians and tourists alike, we as a town were understandably upset. We thought we were cool, Hilton Head. We had a deal. We come to you when we want to go to the beach, and you come to us when you want good barbecue.
Tensions have already been at an all-time high between our two communities ever since you stole Tin & Tallow from us. And then you go and jack up the rent on us like we just rolled in from Cuyahoga Falls with all our crap strapped to the top of a Chrysler Town & Country. It’s rude. It’s disrespectful. And frankly, it’s a shock, given the close relationship we’ve enjoyed in the past.
But that’s on Hilton Head to fix our relationship. I’m not here to talk about that.
I’m here to ask one question. Keeping in mind that there are sometimes ramifications to publishing open secrets, I ask my fellow Blufftonians: Have you guys seriously been paying for parking? Why?
Bluffton’s a small enough town that everyone is within at best two degrees of separation from everyone else. Someone you know owns a business on the island, or knows a guy who manages a condo complex, or has an office there. Much in the same way Hilton Head locals find a way to get Heritage tickets, Bluffton locals find a way to park on Hilton Head.
Let Hilton Head charge what they want for their beaches. They paid for ’em. If you’re worried about paying for parking, start looking at it like a Blufftonian. When they block off traffic, we find a power line easement. When they raise prices, we find free spots. We ruined the grass in the Promenade parking our golf carts there until they said “to hell with it” and gave us a parking lot.
The point is, we as Blufftonians will always find a way. If you’re really that upset about having to pay for parking, maybe start looking at the situation with the right state of mind. Ask your neighbor. They’ll tell you where you can park.
I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.
