Spillin' the Tea...Tales from the Lowcountry: Walter Greer Jr. and growing up on the island
By Paul Tollefson
Contributor
The year was 1960, and Hilton Head had not quite taken off with the “Boom” from tourism yet. Sea Pines was in its beginning stages of development and Harbour Town was still eight to nine years away from being built.
Walter Greer Jr., along with his brother, sister and parents moved to the island from the rural Greenville area for his father to live out his dream of becoming an artist. Walter Sr. left his family chemical business and purchased a small lot in Sea Pines on Snowy Egret Road and built a small, 1200 square-foot house to call their new home.
Soon enough, Walter Jr., along with his brother and sister, started school in Bluffton. In those days the older kids of the schools were the bus drivers, and at that time, Walter remembers that his bus driver was Jimmy Richardson, whose father owned the Red and White Supermarket.
“I remember the long drive to Bluffton on that bus in the very early hours of the morning. Most of the streets were still oyster shell, and I remember there were so many winding roads to get from Sea Pines out to Bluffton school.”
“Some days, on the way back home, the bus would stop at Mr. Abe Grants small convenience store around mid-island. The store couldn’t have been much bigger than a small garage, but I loved when we got to stop after school! We’d pull off, and everyone would go inside to buy something, if you had any money of course. I’d always opt for a moon pie and a cold RC Cola!”
Life was simple for Walter in those days. The kind of days where when you got out of school for the summer, the shoes came off, and they didn’t go back on till school was back in session. Most days were spent fishing, hunting, playing on the beach or pretty much whatever else they could find to do on a still very unpopulated Hilton Head.
“We used to do a lot of hunting in those days. There was no Palmetto Dunes yet, and that whole area was the North Carolina Hunt Club. We of course weren’t allowed to hunt in there, but we found ways around that,” laughed Walt.
“I remember that me and my buddy Johnny Whitten used to climb to the top of the light house that was there in what is now Leamington. Well, it was pretty much the best deer stand there was! We used to be able to see everything from up there. If we got a deer, we would just field dress it right there and pack it out and walk the beach back home. “
“Because we were so close to the hunt club, the game wardens in there, or the land managers, didn’t like us to say the least, especially for hunting from the lighthouse. I remember one time they chased us through the William Hilton Inn! Here we are, two teenagers with rifles and full camouflage, running through the lobby of this hotel being chased by these game wardens! Once we hit that beach, we were gone!”
“During that time on Hilton Head, there were all sorts of animals in those woods. Deer, wild pigs, rattlesnakes, you name it, Hilton Head had it. My brother John shot a bobcat right outside the main gate of Sea Pines when he was about 12 or 13.”
“One of my favorite hunting memories beside the lighthouse story had to do with a 400 lb. wild pig. One of our favorite spots to hunt wild pigs was near to where the intersection of Cordillo and Pope Ave. meet. Well, me and my buddies shot this huge pig. The only problem was it was so big that we didn’t know how we were going to get it home. One of my buddy’s family owned the Exxon that was down near the beach. His name was Brother Roller, and he was just getting ready to close shop for the day. Well, we decided that we were going to drag this 400 lb. pig down Pope Ave. to that station, which we did! We talked Brother Roller into letting us hoist this thing up using the grease rack, and we ended up butchering it in the station that night. Of course, being teenagers, we didn’t clean up our mess all that well, and the next day, Mr. Roller comes into the shop and was pissed at the mess we left!”
It was only about three years before Walter’s mother decided that Hilton Head Island was not for her, so she packed up the kids and moved back to the rural Greenville area, while Walter’s father stayed to live out his dream of being an artist, which he did. Walter would come down to visit on the weekends, but those three years gave him memories that 60+ years later, he can still smile and laugh at.
Walter did confess to me that if his family would have moved to Bluffton and not Hilton Head, they probably would have stayed. “I’m a country boy, through and through, and Bluffton was more of our kind of people at that time than Hilton Head was. Nonetheless, I had a great time!”
Paul Tollefson is the Director of Tennis at the Hampton Hall Club in Bluffton. He found his love for the Lowcountry in early 2002 after graduating high school and unsure of what career path he was destined towards. After moving from Hilton Head to Bluffton he became enthralled with the history of the town and the people and cultures that called it home for many generations. He has found a passion in writing and enjoys being able to share the stories and pictures of long-time locals. He is the co-creator of the Facebook page “Bluffton Then and Now”.
