Now … talk this way
Hi, y’all! Welcome to Charleston, home of aristocracy by proxy and hubris by mail. We know you’ll like it here, in fact, we insist. If we let you in at all, that is. Here in the birthplace of the hamburger, the ice cream cone, the zeppelin and the unnecessary Caesarean section, you will find the world’s widest main street and the finest collection of original Mozart manuscripts in the world, as far as you know. Charleston, undaunted by earthquake, fire, Sherman and Hugo…Charleston, home of the New York World’s Fair…Charleston, still alive and well, even after being destroyed by a terrorist’s nuclear device on a network television special (or is that “nucular?”…”new-clear?”…or is that “terrorvision?”).
For those of you moving into our Holy City, our editorial staff would like to offer, FYI-ish, a little background, a brief historical retrospective of Charleston. So settle in for a bit of…
-~- CHARLESTON…NOW AND THEN -~-
Charleston, South Carolina, was founded in 64 B.C. by a wandering group of Trappist monks who set out of Newark, New Jersey, in search of the elusive grit tree. Of the 1600 monks, monkettes and monkees who were thrown ou…or, rather, who voluntarily left Newark, only 1599 ever reached the expansive pluff mud farms that formed the pristine peninsula of Charleston. The saddening story of the lost monk is better left untold in this article, mostly because I need something about which to write in the next article.
Chronologically speaking, Charlestonians were the first to use the phrase, “Chronologically speaking.” The city of Charleston was originally named “Chuckville,” in honor of Chuck L. Loudley, the first man ever to walk into a southern bar without wearing a “Cat Diesel” baseball cap on his head. However, public pressure, combined with intense lobbying on the part of the Baseball Commission, forced the name of the foundling city to be changed to Charleston, in a move that documented another American First…the first time that the word “town” had ever been mispelled. ..misspeled…myspel…spelled incorrectly.
In 1491, a Spanish freeloader landed on the shores of Charleston in three rented Portuguese ships, named the Nina, the Pinko and the Ave Maria. Three ships-ful of European sailors descended on the streets of Charleston, notably in the North Meeting Street area, setting a precedent for generations of sailors to come. Due to an unfortunate incident involving fourteen bikers and a Spanish sailor named “Teencie,” the entire flotilla was politely but firmly asked to leave town by Charleston’s acting police chief, Robin Greenburg, future founder of the city of Mobile, Alabama. The humiliation of this turn of embarrassing events infuriated the captain of the Spanish expedition, and he never mentioned these visits in any of his memoirs.
In 1533, Lizzie Borden cut through Charleston on her way to do a little turbo-clearing on an orange grove plantation in Orlando, Florida. Though she was in Charleston only a short time, she managed to open a successful dairy, which bears her name to this day. In a bold advertising move, she coined the slogan, “You damn right, it’s good.”
In 1544, a small john-boat ran aground on a beach south of Charleston, and many of the Johns stayed, naming their new island home appropriately. Two weeks later, a bunch of guys named James had a similar experience. Just a bit further south, four men, inexplicably all named Eddie “Prince” Haskell, founded a new community, but since “Prince Edward Island” was already taken, they collectively changed their names to “Kiowah.”
In 1589, eleven escaped convicts from the principality of Georgia crossed the border into South Carolina and settled in Charleston, thereby creating the first law firm in the state. Most notable among their fairly long and nearly distinguished list of legal reforms was their “Less Rappe” tort, which guaranteed a free shrimp dinner to any vehicle drivers whose mufflers remained consistently louder than their car stereos. Two years later, this innovative law firm instituted the first land reform statutes in Charleston, collectively known as the “Highway Hideaway” Principles, which decreed that no public thoroughfare in Charleston should exist for more than six consecutive months without being completely re-routed. Furthermore, the Principles mandated that any given street in Charleston must never be allowed to have the same name at the beginning of the street as it had at its end. Additionally, provisions dictated that any highway official caught putting directional signs pointing “north” on a road that actually went north would immediately have all the skin flailed from his body.
This envisioned law firm finally broke ranks when the junior partner, one Cirius “Buck” O’ver Byte, lost his retainer.
During the summer of 1669, a team of eccentric visionaries, Gerry Chasey and Wesley Wiles, discovered television. Unfortunately, after jump-starting the new device, they soon realized that they had inadvertently created All-Star Wrestling and Tractor-Pulls, so they rushed to destroy all their blueprints and kept their mouths shut.
The following summer of 1670 proved to be extremely humid and muggy, so everybody in Charleston took a nap. Nobody woke up for 130 years. In many respects, some residents seem to still be asleep, even now. To be fair, however, 1670 was an election year.
One hundred and thirty years later, in 1801, as much-needed coffee brewed in the many fine homes of Charleston, word spread like a wild fire that South Carolina had been sold by the French government to some demented prankster in Washington, D.C., as part of an arrangement known as the Louisiana Purchase. Six days later, Washington sold it back to France in exchange for the theoretical right to theoretically fly theoretical American fighter planes over theoretical French airspace, in the event that America might someday execute a theoretical attack on a theoretical African nation-state, theoretically named Libya. Unbeknownst to America, France immediately proceeded to coin the word “reneged,” which means the French can’t spell any better than can Americans.
In the 1860’s, Charleston came to feel the far-reaching effects of a Yankee president, who shattered convention by freeing Oprah Winfrey and allowing Eddie Murphy to cuss. In a bizarre and prophetic incident, this president soon was fatally wounded at an all-Mexican production of “Porgy y Bess,” causing some deranged anagram freak to calculate that the words “Lincoln” and “Kennedy” have the same number of letters.
In 1889, many disturbed and confused residents of Charleston reported sighting of the ghost of Elvis Presley, despite being informed that he had not yet been born. Undaunted, as usual, by such trivial details as truth, a squad of locals erected an obelisk as a monument to the non-event, and they drafted a newsletter which was delivered one evening to every household in Charleston, regardless of the fact that nobody was home at the time. This obelisk came to be known, in later days, as the Evening Post.
In 1893, King Street was carved out of the downtown dust. Not to be outdone, a group of nomadic mimes from San Francisco promptly founded Queen Street. The soon-forgotten Hermaphrodite Alley no longer appears on any map.
In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt, on a drunken binge, took a big stick and knocked down the Evening Post. Someone promptly stole it.
In 1910, the Army Corps of Engineers descended upon Charleston, Charles Lindbergh descended upon France, and an unknown midshipman descended upon a waitress at a local dance club, not realizing that the dancer was his mother. Nine months later, Sigmund Freud was born.
Sometime in the heat-ravaged early autumn of 1922, someone said, for the first time, “Good-to-Go,” thereby doubling the working vocabulary of Charleston sportswriters.
Although documentation is sparse, it is believed that the Comet Halley made a brief pass over the homes along the Battery sometime in 1931, causing all the residents to crane their necks for a good look. For some unknown reason, all their necks suddenly locked up, and they’ve been looking down their noses ever since. They’re not snobs. They’re stuck.
In 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, thinking it was Folly Beach. Enraged Hawaiians responded by selling Vietnam to the French.
In the same year, the first comedy venue opened in Charleston. Headlining on opening night was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who brought down the house with his nonsensical routine entitled, “The New Deal.”
In the late 1950’s, Charleston’s city government mandated that all clocks be destroyed. Although this slightly unpopular law was eventually repealed, a brief excursion to many of Charleston’s night clubs will convince the doubting historian that this repeal was generally ignored.
Well, I hope this treatise will prepare you and yours for your venture into America’s classic city. Of course, nothing in the above article is true.
As far as you know…
Welcome…