Just Another Tourist Trap

(Sunday March 12th, 2006)

I left Orlando very early for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "Why would you go to Myrtle Beach?" you might ask. And that would be a very good question. There really isn't much there except for a golf course and beach. There REALLY isn't much there if you're a gay person. It's basically a big tourist trap. The answer to the question is: I used to live there.

I was 6 when my father was stationed there at the Air Force base. We left when I was 7 and moved to upstate New York after my father was transferred to Korea. I'll be writing all about upstate New York in a later blog.

The drive to Myrtle Beach would've probably been a lot better if I hadn't missed the entrance onto US 17. Instead, I ended up on US 17A and ended up driving through BFE. There was little town after little town after little town. It was "pretty" but boring. I eventually ended up back on US-17 and my travel time started to improve.

On my way into Myrtle Beach I happened to spy an old memory from the past: Brookgreen Gardens. It's a large horticulture and sculpture garden park that I went to on a field trip when I was in first grade. You can check it out at http://www.brookgreen.org. I stopped to check it out. It's funny, the only things I can remember about my first visit are that there were a lot of foliage and a specific statue. It was a male nude and I remember thinking the penis looked funny. Now I realize it was because the penis was uncircumcised. This time of year, however, much of the foliage is gone and I didn't recognize anything there. The statuary is beautiful and it is definitely worth checking it out if you're ever in the area.

My hotel was on the beach and I had a nice view of the ocean from my 6th floor room. It was pretty windy outside and a little chilly so I didn't go out onto the beach itself. There were some buff guys tossing around a football out there. It was nice to look at but wasn't enough to entice me to go out onto the beach.

I had a couple of goals in mind while I was here. To find the elementary school I went to and the mobile home park that we had lived in. They were right across the street from each other, so finding one would find the other. If I could find another house that we had lived in, that would have been an added bonus. Unfortunately, neither of my parents could give me enough information to find the house. I suspect that it had been torn down and turned into a hotel or shopping center. It was only a couple of blocks from the beach and it seems like pretty much anything within three blocks from the beach has been developed as some kind of tourist trap.

With a little luck and some help of the locals, I was able to track down my old elementary school and the trailer park across from it. Neither seemed particularly recognizeable. Of course, they've probably changed quite a bit in 33 years. I did also see the old Air Force base. It has since been shut down and turned into a golf course and a small municiple airport.

My visit to Myrtle Beach turned out to be more emotional for me than I had anticipated. It was here that I realized that I was "different". I didn't know why or how, but I knew I wasn't like all of the other kids in school. I was being teased a lot for the first time in my life (at least as far as I could remember). My uniqueness was driven home on my 7th birthday. I decided to have a birthday party and my Mom and I made up a lot of invitations. I invited everyone in my class and no one came. The only person to come to the party was the next door neighbor kid. I was devistated and it is still a very sad memory for me today.

Otherwise, my visit to Myrtle Beach was pretty uneventful. Like I said, there really isn't much there, especially for a gay person. I chatted online, worked on my blog a bit, and got ready for my trip to Washington DC the next morning.