Happy 50th Anniversary Charleston Magazine. Your anniversary inspired a little time travel back to 1975 with you. What was this “come ya” girl doing in Charleston in 1975? From what I can remember, it was a blast. I was doing the Crocodile Rock with Elton John, Olivia Newton John was every high school boy's dream girl, singing "Have You Ever Been Mellow," Freddie Mercury was belting out "Bohemian Rhapsody"with Queen, and I was rocking with Donna Summer under a disco ball at Stonehenge on Rivers Avenue singing, "Love to love you baby."
The 70's were pretty chill, the hangover decade following the peace, love, sleep in and smoke out Hippie era. Can’t say that I or my friends were hippies, but we were hippie-ish. As per usual, fads that start in California take a while to get to South Carolina. Even longer in my case, because there were only two channels that came in through the rabbit ear antennas and my Dad claimed both of them. One was for the news and the other for Gunsmoke or Hee Haw.
Happy Rain was the closest thing to a hippie that I knew of. It was however rumored that there were real hippies in downtown Charleston, but — they slept all day and only came out at night.
It's all well and good though, my friends and I did our part to contribute in the early 70's. We colored peace signs on our book covers and wore bell bottoms, hip huggers, halter tops, Maxi's, mini's, embroidered and painted jeans, chevron shirts and dresses, floppy hats, sizzler dresses, and clogs.
We thought we were "Far Out" and knew it all, then a stray would move to town from California and show us something that we were missing, like reciting Poe at parties.
As outliers, living in Dorchester County, Charleston was our destination long before Conde Naste put it on the map. We would feign fright at having to traverse the narrow Cooper River Bridge to get to one of our favorite date night restaurants, The Trawler on Shem Creek. I can still taste the crab dip on club crackers they brought out with your drinks.
On a hot summer morning in 1975 you would find me stuffing my VW Super-Beetle with a friend or two, an ice filled Styrofoam cooler holding a six pack of Tab and pimento cheese sandwiches. Destination — Folly Beach. After baking in the sun for 4 hours on a shiny aluminum beach blanket covered in baby oil, we would head over to the Atlantic Restaurant for a beer. I always thought that place was going to fall right into the ocean with me in it. I swore I could feel it moving with the tide. The pier was still there then as well, but it was graffitied out and kind of sketchy.
If our beach day was at Isle of Palms, we would head to a gas station afterwards to spit shine ourselves off in the sink and spray down with Windsong perfume before heading over to the Windjammer to hear a band. I remember putting my makeup on in the mirror while customers banged on the door threatening to get the manager if we didn’t come out.
The Flying Dutchman on Dorchester Road was the best music venue around. I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd perform there in 1974 for $5.
Mostly, we did a lot of "hanging out" in 1975. Charleston, Folly Beach, Isle of Palms, parks, river banks, cooling off in, or floating the Edisto, crabbing the creeks on Johns Island, fishing in country ponds until it got too hot to fish and then peeling off our clothes to go swimming. Some evenings caught us hunkered down behind a sand dune or in a cornfield watching the sunset with a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry wine.
The ride to our Charleston destinations was half the fun. We’d fumble through what looked like a tackle box of 8 track cassettes to find a selection we could sing to. Sometimes the tape would break, which induced baby boomer road rage. I’ve seen a tenth of a mile of cassette tape strung out on 1-26 before the plastic casing was released.
Thanks for the road trip Charleston Magazine. I'm glad we could "hang out" together. I wish that I could provide pics of the era, but only a few of us had cameras back then. THANK GOD!
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