Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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When you say you've been to see "The Doobie Brothers", that's almost as uninformative as saying you've been to see "The Drifters" given the convoluted group histories involved. Suffice it to say that the current incarnation of The Doobies hews to the original concept, and includes founders Pat Simmons and Tom Johnston.

I've seen several shows at the North Charleston Coliseum complex, including most memorably The Eagles and Blondie, but I believe those shows were in The Coliseum proper, a much larger venue than the Performing Arts Center. The center reminds me of the Koger Center both in size and the awful European style bank seating. It seemed that never more than 5 minutes went by before some portly person or another was making way across my seat towards the far distant center. I would say the show was about 80% sold with the crowd being entirely middle aged and white..

Lack of aisles aside, the sound was very good, and the security was just as casual as Newberry. I had emptied my pockets of all nail clippers and change in expectation of being herded through metal detectors, or at least being wanded, but no such eventuality occurred. In fact, many people were taking pictures and recording the show on their cellphones. If I had know that in advance, I would have taken the closing-cam in and gotten some very nice shots and videos. At any rate, I expect some to appear on youtube and elsewhere over the next few days.

The frontman for Charleston's Blue Dogs opened with an acoustic set which was generally well received. I thought he was pleasant, but frankly didn't hear anything which would make me seek out a Blue Dogs album.

After he finished, the Doobie roadies finished setting up the stage, which took about 15 min and then the band came out. They had an interesting configuration, one that I don't think I've see a rock band use before. Of course the classic rock band setup is lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass and drums. The Doobies have three guitarists and *two* drummers as well as bass, keyboards and sax.

So how were they? Well, I won't bury the lead too deep: They were excellent! Given the revolving door history of the band you have to start off a bit worried, but then Tom Johnston starts to sing, and well, they sound like The Doobie Brothers and if you get the chance you should go.

The setlist was what about what you would expect with all the hit singles up until the start of the Michael McDonald era (and they did do a very credible version of "Takin' It To The Streets").

The audience started a little skeptical but we were won quickly over. It's always a risk for a legacy group to try to sell new material, but the three songs from the new album were well received, mostly I think because they sounded like classic-era Doobies, not some new and evolved tangent. When they started a long blues jam with solos all round, they got their first mainly standing ovation as I think we largely came to the simultaneous realization: Hey, these guys are good!.

For me, the best moment was the encore set. When they came back out, they started a sort of non-descript mid-tempo rock where you were thinking yeah, that's ok, but what is it? and then Johnston started into the "China Grove" riff..

Woah ho, listen to the music!

I made a bit of a road-trip on Labor Day, and noticed this place between Camden and Hartsville. Beaver Dam Trading Post sat just up the hill from an old mill pond. While the mill was never in operation (that I can recall) while I was growing up, it sat there idle for years and years as the pond water rushed over the spillway. In general my parents didn't want us going near it for fear that something would collapse, but I recall getting up to the windows at least once, and seeing all the works and millstone still inside the place. Of course, despite driving past the mill at least a dozen times every year, and despite fancying myself as a shutterbug with my 35mm constantly at the ready on these family trips, I never thought to take a single picture of it until after it was gone.

Also at the side of the lake by the mill was an unlabelled upside-down "L" shaped pipe which was the outlet for an artesian well. This flowed 24/7/365, and we would always make our parents stop there so we could drink from this marvel. Once our dog got into the spirit as well, and jumped out the car window to join us at the pipe, managing to break her leg.

The small spurt of development that brought the Trading Post seemed to have put paid to the old mill and well. This is complete speculation but I suspect that people locating around the lake were distrustful of the old spillway, and that increased septic usage made a potable well somewhat iffy. At any rate, the mill went first, and the well a few years later.

After the route from I-20 through Bishopville to Hartsville developed, we travelled this stretch of road much less often, and in my case usually at night. To me it seemed that Beaver Dam Trading Post was doing neither better nor worse than you would expect for a convienience store in what was still a pretty sparse and rural area. It wasn't packed, but there were always a few cars there. This Administrative Court decision shows that they were apparently owned by a former Lee County Magistrate and got a permit to sell beer & wine to go in 1999. This set of game-day driving directions shows that they were closed by 2009. Judging from the growth of the tree around the gas island, I would say maybe 2007 or 2008, but given that the interior is still intact, probably not much earlier than that.

UPDATE 21 Sep 2010: I should probably note that although most google searches list this spot as "Hartsville", it is actually well outside the town limits and is much closer to the unincorporated little community of Kellytown.

Welcome to visitors from the www.city-data.com forum! If you want to see more grand strand area memories and pictures, click this link. There are posts on The Pavilion, Waccamaw Pottery and a number of other Grand Strand institutions -- Ted

[22 Jan 2010]

[12 Aug 2010]

Oliver's Lodge (pronounced as one word Oliverslodge) is the first seafood restaurant I can recall eating at.

Now, if you've read this blog for a while, you'll know I don't like seafood and never have. Nonetheless, as a kid I was always eager to go whenever we were at the beach. At that time (the late 1960s), they served a lunch menu until 5pm, and that menu had spaghetti, something I would always eat, so my folks usually tried to arrange for us to arrive just before 5 so I could have my spaghetti and the grownups could have "supper". The timing was usually touch-and-go since the place drew tremendous crowds, and getting there before 5 was no guarantee of being seated before 6.

Waiting for anything with kids is always dicey, and if there were cousins as well as my sister and me, things could very easily get out of hand, but the location worked towards letting kids "free range". As you can see from some of the pictures, Oliver's sits on a large lot fronting on Murrells Inlet itself. There were several huge trees (which are still there) and a derelict john-boat or two (now gone) as well as a dock going out into the marsh where the fresh fish were brought in each day during the time when the place was a working lodging house. In addition, the lot next door was a church which was generally vacant on weekday afternoons, so there was plenty of room to race around, and plenty of things to fool with. Best of all, the lodge's big back porch always had a low-country "joggling" board -- a long flexible plank suspended between two rocker-edged saw-horses. You could get a crowd of cousins on that going back and forth and up and down until the grownups would eventually get alarmed and tell us to take it easy.

My memory is that when we first started going, dining was mostly on the back porch which was, at that time, screened, but not air-conditioned. Aside from my spaghetti (or baked-potato or whatever I ended up having ot get if we missed the 5pm deadline), the food was basic Calabash Style fried seafood with piping hot delicious hush-puppies.

The building was always a bit ramshackle. I don't know when it stopped being a boarding house and went to restaurant only operation, but the big upstairs area was largely unused in my memory. When we started going, there was still a customer restroom available upstairs, and I always liked going up there and looking around -- by the 1970s I believe the upstairs was wholly closed to customer access.

Also in the 1970s, the owners tacked up plastic sheeting over the screen porch. And I do mean "plastic" and not plexiglass or anything solid. Whenever anyone would open a door or the air conditioning kicked in, the sheeting up over all the walls would billow in and out.

It seems to me that as the 70s went on, we went to Oliver's less and less. It's not that anyone stopped liking it, but more that other options became available as the coast commercialized. The last time I recall going with a large party of cousins was probably in the late 1970s just as my generation was heading to college. We ate inside rather than on the porch, and my cousin Mike stuck his nose in a big sawfish nose hung on the wall -- a picture that I'm sure will surface eventually. I think we also played name-that-drink charades with the bar menu.

After that, I believe the next time I ate there was the last. I think it was the early 1990s, and I was either alone or with a very small party. We (or I) was on the back porch, and I noticed that the plastic sheeting had been replaced with plexiglass. The menu was also radically different, and it was evident that Oliver's had undergone a change in ownership. The defining moment for me was when they brought out the huspuppies and I found they were served with raspberry butter. That might be good, but it wasn't Oliver's.

After that, and after I started spending a lot more time at the beach I thought of going back a number of times but somehow never got around to it. Last winter I actually made the effort, but it never worked out. I would find that it wasn't open weekdays during the off season, or that it was only open for lunch, or not open Mondays or -- that it was apparently never open.

That last was a conclusion I flirted with, but never quite committed to. After all the website was still up [try this archived version once that link goes dead] , I could see the tables set through the window, and there was no note on the door..

Finally I went back on 12 August this year, and this time it was obvious that the place was closed: There was a big bar across the front doors, Coke had put a sticker claiming the fountains inside and the place was seriously overgrown. All these photos except 2, 3, 4 & 5 come from that visit.

So when did the place actually close for the last time? That's hard to say, but look at photos 2, 3, 4 & 5. These were taken on 22 Jan 2010. In particular, look at the place settings on the back porch table. Although a chair has been moved, it is clear to me that the napkins, plates and silverware in the 22 Jan photos are exactly the same as in the 12 Aug photos. So, sometime before 22 Jan, the bus staff laid out all the place settings -- and never came back.

As I was taking these photos on 12 Aug, two different cars pulled into the lot looking to eat, and both parties took their own pictures and shared stories of eating there as kids as well.

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The climate of Columbia is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere

Time for Summer Vacation Phase-II, folks. I'll try to keep the spam in check and may respond to comments, but don't expect any new posts for the next three weeks or so.

This mysterious billboard is on the South side of US-501 in betwen Galivants Ferry & Marion. If I'm reading google maps right, it would be at the intersection of US-501 and SC-41. At any rate, it's before you get to Sparky's Fireworks. The sign has been up for at least two years, and was always a bit mysterious to me.

For one thing, there is no indication of what it's for. I mean, sure it says "Web Site of The Year", but that's not really an explanation. Is there a contest? Web site of the year according to whom? Why would anyone driving through the most rural and un-webby parts of South Carolina care? What's more, it's not pithy. Invariably by the time I got home, I never could remember exactly what it was: Um, bestwebsite.com? Yearsbestsite.com? Finally I took this picture to help me remember to check it out.

The first time I did -- it didn't help. I duly went to the site, but it was obviously the text provided by the hosting company. Stuff like

Insert description of your site here.

Insert URL of your logo

Write a few paragraphs describing your products and services. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus ligula lorem, consectetur ut mattis eget, varius at justo. Aliquam sodales gravida arcu. Etiam a viverra metus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Nunc tincidunt nunc nec augue volutpat eget venenatis lacus pharetra. Donec mollis, leo auctor molestie placerat, eros ante tristique lectus, in accumsan enim nibh quis purus. Curabitur eget enim quis ligula fermentum faucibus eget tempus tellus. Etiam dignissim, augue non tristique fringilla, urna nibh viverra felis, vitae commodo eros urna et ante. In et odio erat. Nunc consectetur volutpat sagittis. Ut eu elit nisi. Nam accumsan sapien pulvinar elit pretium egestas sit amet nec elit. Phasellus mattis dapibus accumsan. Suspendisse egestas, justo ut imperdiet vehicula, dui eros tempus lorem, vel molestie dolor tortor vel dui. Vestibulum odio metus, tempus vel auctor sed, commodo nec leo. In sit amet magna et mi hendrerit vehicula vel et neque.

(OK, I used the Lorem Ipsum generator for that last paragraph..)

Anyway, I never got around to doing a post on it then, and now there is something of an explanation, if not a great one. Apparently someone is now using it to sell generic domain names, and push various small coastal oriented sites. It kind of has the feeling of an I might as well do something with it sort of project.

OK, indulge me on this one!

Al Stewart's 1976 Year of The Cat, is one of the best albums of the 1970s. It's not always the case that very popular albums are good, and it's even less often that very good albums are popular, but in this case, Year of the Cat was definitely both. Stewart seems to have always thought of himself as more of a "folkie" than a rock star, so pairing him with producer Alan Parsons was something of a stretch, but in retrospect, it seems impossible to imagine anything else.

There's not really a weak song on the album, and "Year of the Cat", classic though it is, isn't even the best track, an honor won by the haunting "Flying Sorcery". I used to play "If it Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It", as an audio argument against a particularly ill-starred project which was stomping us into the ground, and as I get older "On the Border" with its

In the village where I grew up, nothing seems the same, though you never see the change from day to day..

lyric seems more and more apt.

So anyway, I was very happy to see that Stewart was coming to Newberry last week. The Opera House is very easy to find from I-26, and seems to be run entirely by pleasant, retired women. It's quite a small venue, and Stewart brought only one other person on stage with him, guitar player (and Phd..) Dave Nachmanoff. Now, why Al Stewart, with one of the best known albums of the rock era is playing small town South Carolina with a one man band, I can't say. I'd like to think that it's because he's really more into the "folk" thing than the over-the-top "rock tour" thing, but you sometimes hear about how famous people were locked into bad record contracts, had expensive divorces or crooked managers, so who knows. The key thing is that he was in good voice and seemed happy to be in Newberry. The set list was pretty eclectic, and while he did hit a number of "Year of the Cat" tracks, he opted out of most of his other radio hits, so I heard a good number of songs that were new to me.

Afterwards both Stewart and Nachmanoff sat in the lobby chatting and signing autographs. It was quite an enjoyable and low key evening, and I could still hear the next day, and my sinuses weren't clogged up with smoke..