Showers aside, area beaches likely to remain quite dry

Regarding the Folly Beach 60-day alcohol moratorium: Isn’t it remarkable that not a single local beach will allow reasonable people to imbibe reasonably?

But what was city council to do? The relatively few people who ended up ruining it for everyone else on neighboring beaches would do the same to Folly.

The problem is that the numbers involved at “The Edge of America” are not “relatively few.”

Why? Well, clearly be-cause all the revelers who were dispersed from elsewhere ended up there, at Folly, and it’s gotten unmanageable.

A critical mass of people abusing the privilege of alcohol consumption has been reached, which further appeals to a criminal element and the fostering of mob-like gatherings.

Folly Beach City Council had no choice but to do what it did, although I have mixed feelings about it.

Now, thanks to the council, we’ll find out through a referendum in November how the majority of Folly voters feel.

Obviously, this debate will go on right up until the polls close.

If the ban isn’t made permanent it can be argued that the beach will otherwise develop a terrible repu-tation and deter people who matter the most: families and those who spend dollars that actually amount to something.

Others might argue that if all the beaches relaxed the ban on alcohol while ramping up enforcement, then maybe there will be a diluting effect on inappropriate behavior and a lessening of the tendency for it to concentrate in one specific locale.

But then you’re back to Square 1, which is characterized by a recipe of too much sun, heat, thirst, temptation and incidents of overly vigorous hydration with adult libations, which is what led certain beaches to enforce their bans in the first place.

So, unless they’re be- ing rained on, expect all Charleston area beaches to remain quite dry into at least the foreseeable future.

Tale of two patients
There’s a story sent to me by friends who just can’t wait for the full impact of a nationalized, single-payer health care system to take hold, if it ever really comes to that.

It seems two individual patients limp into two different doctors’ offices with the same complaint.

Both have difficulty walking and appear to require hip surgery.

The first patient is examined in short order, gets an X-ray the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The second patient sees his family doctor in about three weeks, the first available appointment.

He then has to wait about two months to see the orthopedist, who schedules the surgery six months hence (pending approval).

Why the difference in treatment?

The first patient is actually the family dog who has been taken to the veterinarian. The second is the dog’s senior owner.

More on malaprops
Thank goodness readers always write.

On the subject of malapropisms which appeared in this space some time back, my loyal correspondent Walter Duane says he doesn’t “want to become a gadfly or, for that matter, any other kind of fly, but I believe many of the malapropisms and mistakes in English are made by those who are more rogue than fool: A type of well-re- hearsed improvisation, perhaps, or a humorous way to thumb one’s nose at elitists.

“One of my favorites is by P.G. Wodehouse: ‘He may not be disgruntled, but he is not very gruntled either.’

“A friend of mine actually says, ‘He runs around like a chicken with its legs cut off.’

“A club habitue acquaintance of mine one night was heard to say, ‘The meat is so tender you could cut it with a knife.’ ”

Mr. Duane concludes his remarks by redefining malapropisms through the following riddle: What do lady psychiatrists wear for petticoats?

Answer: Freudian slips.

Edward M. Gilbreth is a Charleston physician. Reach him at edwardgilbreth@ comcast.net.