Area beaches worth keeping clean

Having once been young myself (and refusing to accept that I'm no longer the same), I can certainly understand the lure of beach parties and know how fun they can be. The alliterative combination of beach, boating, Bud and bikinis is irresistible to most young men, and I would imagine a similar list of ingredients is appealing to the young ladies.

As a group of people, I'm sure we weren't perfect and left a few beer cans and wrappers strewn about. But now this business of going to a pristine destination such as Morris Island (or parts of Folly Beach) over the Fourth of July weekend and absolutely trashing the place just seems kind of weird. What's going on?

I can understand doing that to a fraternity house. In fact, not doing so would seem about as weird as desecrating a place like Morris Island. A fraternity house doesn't feel right unless it is trashed. But why go to a beautiful physical locale, toward which one is presumably drawn for that very reason, only to jettison everything brought along, including coolers, various fabrics, cans, bottles and other assorted junk?

Back in "my day" — and I say this without meaning to place a halo over my head — I believe we at least made the effort to conduct satisfactory cleanups so that the beach would remain appealing for future events. Who would want to return to a junk yard for another party? Who would we expect to clean up? The wind and tide?

One thing is certain: I know a lot of young people, and most of them are responsible and wouldn't do this sort of thing. So I imagine the perps are transient and don't treat their own beaches or backyards as they do ours. Either that or a bunch of trashy, redneck yahoos from anywhere who don't care one way or the other — the worst possible sort. Or maybe too many underage kids who don't know how to drink or behave themselves.

Either way, as I say, the situation is confounding and destructive.

In addition to increased environmental/historic concern and patrolling of these areas, I think responsible young people — out of respect for the brave soldiers who died on Morris Island, for example, if nothing else — ought to call out those people who are flagrantly trashing these hallowed grounds, which are their historic legacy.

If some bestial slob should threaten in response, just do what I'd do: Run like hell. But at least the point will have been made.

I don't know why I should have been thinking about this the other day. Must have been all the recent advances in civil rights and the fact that we now have an African-American president. But one of the biggest "I'm black and I'm proud," "I am somebody" events that routinely took place summer weekends in Charleston for more than a decade, from the early 1980s, is rarely discussed anymore.

It seemed to start quietly but grew with time to the point of creating traffic jams. Joggers had to alter their routes slightly due to crowd congestion. But the participants weren't disorderly. I used to run around the periphery of the congregants all the time and never had a problem.

It's unclear to me whose idea this was or how publicity was spread. At any rate, crowds of African-Americans would head down to The Battery on weekend evenings and just sort of hang out.

And it wasn't just The Battery (i.e. White Point Garden), but the better parts of Murray Boulevard and East Battery. These were large crowds and one obvious purpose was to let it be known that this was their city — all parts of it, including the fancy areas where the rich, white people live — and that they would use it recreationally as they pleased.

It certainly made a statement which, in fact, was orderly. There may have been some minor incidents but nothing as I recall that amounted to anything serious. I think the residents handled it all with relative aplomb and found that they really didn't have that much to complain about except the size of the crowds.

On Sundays, the city's police department would set up barricades that prevented U-turns and kept the traffic moving, but this did little to dampen the spirit of the gatherings.

These public affairs down at The Battery remain the largest groupings of peaceful assemblage on the lower peninsula to have taken place in my lifetime (excluding parades or other types of entertainment, which aren't comparable). I wish some of the actual participants would send me their recollections and historic clarification.