Good morning, and welcome to the first full week of Autumn.

This week we take a break from our daily routines to enjoy some of the best beach days of the year and learn why Myrtle Beach has famously been called the “Redneck Rivieria”.

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- Wayne K.

The name didn't start here.

In 1978, a New York Times reporter named Howell Raines, an Alabama boy himself, wrote about a stretch of Gulf Coast where Alabama football boys spent their off-seasons. Some wag down there called it the redneck Riviera. Raines wrote it down. The name stuck to the sand between Mobile and Panama City like a sunburn that won't peel.

That's the Redneck Riviera. Original recipe. Florida panhandle and lower Alabama.

Myrtle Beach borrowed it.

Borrowed it, wore it proud, and by now half the guidebooks list it as one of the place's nicknames right alongside "The Grand Strand" and "Golf Capital of the World." Nobody in South Carolina bothered checking the paperwork. They just liked how it fit.

And here's the thing.

It fits better on Myrtle Beach than it ever did on Gulf Shores, if we're being honest about who's actually standing on that sand.

Because Myrtle Beach isn't the closest ocean to Appalachia by accident. It's the closest ocean to Appalachia because generations of us drove there on purpose.

West Virginia claimed it outright.

Not figuratively. Literally. 1985, a state treasurer named A. James Manchin — man had a flair for theater that would've made a good newspaper columnist — waded ashore off a boat waving the West Virginia flag, planted it in the sand in front of a condo a West Virginia company built, and declared two hundred and twenty-five feet of South Carolina coastline to be the Mountain State's "only access to the sea."

Nobody in Columbia signed off on that. Didn't matter.

By the 1970s, if a family from up a holler in West Virginia said "we're going to the beach," there wasn't a second beach to specify. Under five hundred miles from most of the state. Cheap. Nobody looking at you sideways for your accent or your cooler full of bologna sandwiches. That's not a marketing campaign. That's just what happens when a place is close enough and kind enough that it becomes the default.

Same story runs through Kentucky, Tennessee, western Virginia, western North Carolina. Ask around Berea who went where growing up and Myrtle Beach wins in a walk. Virginia Beach is closer to some of the Appalachian counties on paper, but Myrtle Beach is closer in spirit, and that matters more than a map.

Now, the place has changed. Lord, has it changed.

There was a stretch — the nineties mostly — when folks started calling it Dirty Myrtle behind its back. Not affectionate. Dance clubs on every downtown corner. A crime rap it never fully earned but never fully shook either. The brown water didn't help, though that's just the Atlantic doing what the Atlantic does up here — you want Caribbean blue, you're in the wrong ocean.

That version's mostly gone now.

Walk the boardwalk today and you'll find mini-golf courses stacked three deep, a Ferris wheel that lights up the whole Strand at night, sixty miles of beach built for a family with kids and a budget, not a bachelor party. The strip clubs that used to define the reputation have mostly closed up or moved on. What's left leans family-friendly and still leans affordable, which in this economy is nearly a miracle in itself.

Seven billion dollars a year that town pulls in now, and it started out as a developer in 1900 selling oceanfront lots for twenty-five dollars, throwing in a free lot if you spent five hundred building on the first one.

Sand dunes and wax myrtle bushes. That's all it was.

So call it the Redneck Riviera if you want. It's borrowed, sure, lifted clean off the Gulf Coast and never given back. But there's an honesty in the theft. A stretch of South Carolina sand that a bunch of mountain people adopted, defended, planted a flag in, and dragged their families to every summer for sixty years has earned the right to wear whatever name it wants.

Alabama started the joke.

Appalachia's the one who kept showing up.

Wayne Knuckles is a veteran of the newspaper industry and publisher of The Wayne Train. He began his career as a sports writer for his hometown weekly newspaper, The Pineville Sun.

The Wayne Train visits all 423 Appalachian counties, one week at a time.

County seat: Hayesville. Population: a little over 11,000, and getting grayer every year — third-oldest median age in the state.

Start with the name, because it'll tickle a Kentucky reader. Clay County got christened in February 1861 for Henry Clay — Lexington man, "The Great Compromiser," the fella who kept the Union patched together with baling wire longer than anybody had a right to expect. North Carolina borrowed our man for their county line.

The county seat's got its own horse-trade story. A state legislator named George W. Hayes promised the folks in the southeastern corner of Cherokee County he'd push a bill splitting off their own county if they'd vote him into the legislature. They did. He did. The bill passed that same February, and they named the new seat after him out of gratitude. Politics worked different back then. Or maybe it didn't.

Before any of that, there was Quanassee. A Cherokee town built on ground the Mississippian mound-builders had already been working a thousand years earlier — a trading hub several hundred strong, sitting right where Hayesville sits now. A Creek war party burned it down in 1725. And in 1837, Tennessee militia built Fort Hembree on that same ground and held roughly a thousand Cherokee people prisoner there before marching them west the following year. That's not a footnote. That's the ground everything else got built on.

Fast forward to 1942 and the Tennessee Valley Authority shows up wanting to dam the Hiwassee. Chatuge Dam went up that year — tallest earthen dam in the world, a title it held until Egypt finished the Aswan Dam in 1964. To fill the lake, TVA moved 278 families and dug up 532 graves. Whole communities went under so the rest of the valley could get electricity and flood control. Every mountain lake in this range carries some version of that story. Clay County's is one of the bigger ones.

What's left above water is mostly national forest — Nantahala covers something like 60 percent of the county, and the Appalachian Trail clips the southeast corner on its way to Georgia. The mountain names up there sound like a fever dream: Chunky Gal Mountain, Jack Rabbit Mountain, Standing Indian. Fires Creek runs wild enough that the Forest Service built a whole rim trail just to show it off.

The economy's made the usual mountain-county rounds — corn and cattle, then a lumber railroad hauling timber and kaolin clay to Andrews until 1951, then small manufacturing. Here's the one that'll surprise you: a plant in Clay County made film resistors for the Saturn V rocket. Somewhere on the way to the moon, there's a little piece of Hayesville riding along. These days it's trout fishing, craft tourism, and — as of this year — an Amazon distribution center, which feels like exactly the kind of ending Henry Clay himself would've tried to compromise his way out of.

If you want the place's soul, though, go to Brasstown. The John C. Campbell Folk School's been teaching woodworking, weaving, and blacksmithing there since 1925 — oldest and biggest folk school in the country, built on a Danish idea and filled with Appalachian hands. Reader's Digest named Hayesville one of the ten nicest towns in America back in 2017. For once, an outsider got one right.

Sources:

The sound of the waters and watching the waves come in over and over again is so relaxing.

As I sat on the balcony and people watched for a while, it was quite interesting.

My mind was brought back to a time before the internet and technology had such a strong hold on our everyday lives.

There were families enjoying time together in and out of the waters. I saw babies lying under tents to be protected from the sun.

There were toddlers digging in the sand; some were making sand castles.

There were grandparents with their grandchildren strolling along just having their toes in the waters.

There were teenagers playing games, drawing a volleyball court in the sand,  laughing and yelling as if they were in a competition of sorts.

Then there was the guy who had his fishing poles cast out into the waters. However, I never did see him catch any fish. I’m not saying that he never caught any, I just didn’t see any.

Then there were those who were in the pools and lazy river; one could tell they were having a good time with all the jumping and squealing that I could hear.

At night, there were plenty of couples setting around the outside fire pits. They seemed to be in no rush, just enjoying some downtime.

I’m actually in awe to see that people can still have a life outside the internet and being online for just a short while.

A big part of the time, it seems almost everyone is indulging in technology of some sort. Children come home to visit parents and spend a lot of time on their phones, instead of taking time to really connect with Mom and Dad.

Grandparents sit and watch as the grandkids play on their phones, probably wishing they could just talk with them for a while.

As we all well know, there are changes happening all around us, and technology is changing at a rapid pace. Some for the good, and in my opinion, some not so good.

As I wrap up and take time to watch the sunrise on the beach, what magnificent beauty can one see from the balcony? Oh, the mighty handiwork of God’s creation never ceases to amaze me.

I’m thankful that technology and the internet allowed me to write again.

Until next time, I hope you enjoy this old song that I have sung many times.

Wading Through Deep Waters

Verse 1
As Peter went to meet the Lord a walking on the sea,
He looked around and saw the waves and he began to sink,
But God heard his cry for help, oh Lord please save me,
He reached down his hand for him, he'll do the same for me.

Chorus
I'm wading through deep waters trying to get home,
The waves of sin they dash so high, sometimes I think I'm gone,
But when I think I'm gonna sink, I'll raise my hand up high
That great big hand of God comes down and takes a hold of mine.

Verse 2
As Moses and all Israel fled Pharaoh and his men,
It looked as if they all would die and fear came over them,
But God spoke unto Moses stretch your hand out over the sea,
He reached down his hand for them, he'll do the same for me.

Bible Verse of the Week

“When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭43‬:‭2‬ ‭KJV‬‬

THE SKY ABOVE

The Harvest Moon already had her night. Full and fat over the ridges last Saturday, the 26th, right around lunchtime by the clock — though you know she looked best after dark.

Now she's coming back down. Waning gibbous all week.

By Wednesday she's still throwing better than 80 percent light, bright enough to read a seed catalog on the porch without a lamp. By Saturday she's slimmed down to a half-moon, third quarter, and won't clear the treeline till around midnight. Sleep in if you want to catch her.

Venus is the real show right now, low in the west just after sundown. Dazzling. The kind of bright that gets people pulling over asking if it's a plane. She's at her peak this week and starts slipping toward the horizon as October wears on, so don't put it off.

Saturn's the one to watch after dark, though. She hits opposition Sunday, October 4 — Earth parked square between her and the sun — which means she's up the second the sun goes down and stays up till it comes back. Biggest and brightest she'll look all year. Rises in the east. No telescope required, though one sure don't hurt.

Early risers get Jupiter and Mars keeping company in the east before dawn, Mars perched above Jupiter and closing the gap by the day. No meteor shower worth losing sleep over — the Orionids just start stirring Friday and won't amount to much till the 21st. The Taurids are simmering in the background too, and that bunch throws fireballs, so if something streaks bright enough to spook the dog, that's likely your culprit.

THE GROUND BELOW

Persimmons are starting to give. Won't be sweet till a real frost gets to them, but the early droppers are down and the possums already know it.

Black walnuts too. Coming down green and heavy. Go gathering in gloves you don't care about — that hull will stain your hands the color of a courthouse floor, and it won't come off with soap.

Ginseng diggers are out working the hollers. Season opened September 1st and runs to December, and this stretch of cool mornings and still-green cover is about as good as digging gets before the leaves drop and give away every patch on the mountain.

Watch for something smaller than a planet, too — monarchs are pushing through on their way to Mexico, riding the ridgelines south. Butterfly bush or goldenrod still blooming, you'll see them stacking up to refuel.

Garden's on borrowed time. No hard frost yet for most of the region, but it's close enough to start pulling green tomatoes before a cold night makes the decision for you. Sweet potatoes are ready to dig once the vines start looking tired.

And keep an eye on the blacktop for a woolly worm making his crossing. Old-timers still read those bands like a forecast. I've never once seen it be right. I've never once stopped checking.

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Grace

The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.”

- Wendell Berry

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