Year after year, Edisto Beach gets more and more visitors. Some of these are newcomers just starting out on making a lifetime of memories. Some are day-trippers finally checking out the best beach around. And some are a solid group that’s been coming for generations.
Within that group of generational Edisto visitors, there is the set that started coming in the early 1980s. Check out this list to see if see any of the 4 signs that you’re an Edisto 80s baby.
1. You’ve panicked about the Dawhoo Bridge
Driving onto the island before the current bridge was built meant visitors (and locals) had a certain sense of terror that the Dawhoo Bridge, which was a rickety drawbridge, would topple over into the water.
With my family, by the time we got to the bridge we had been in the car for close to 12 hours, and I can remember thinking that it would really suck to get so close to the beach only to plummet into the water from the bridge.
My dad, always great at inciting panic in children, would tell all of us kids to take our seatbelts off just in case we were going down. I would grab my blanket and Garbage Pail Kid cards and pray that I would manage to hold onto both if we did sink into the water. Thankfully, that never happened and by the time the 90s rolled around, the new bridge went up.
Granted that was more than 20 years ago, so if you still call the McKinley Washington Jr. bridge the “new bridge” and clung to some fantastic toy from the 80s, then you’re definitely an Edisto 80s baby.
2. Whaley’s was a convenience store
Back in the 80s, my family would stay down around The Point. That meant I’d get up early in the morning and go with my siblings and my dad to Whaley’s. He’d get me an ice cream and an orange juice and sometimes a toy, while my brother and his friend were off looking at dirty magazines.
My sister and I generally fought over some cheap toy that we would lose by the afternoon, yet our dad would somehow still buy one every day.
Now that Whaley’s is the place to go for delicious bar food and cold drinks, its fun to remember what it was like running around the store bouncing a ball around while ice cream melted down our faces. That excitement and happiness is only matched now when the staff at Whaley’s cards us before serving drinks.
3. You remember being fully disconnected
It wasn’t until recently that Edisto leapt into the modern world of technology. There was a blissful period of time when going to Edisto meant that you could remember a simpler time as there was hardly any cell phone coverage and even dial-up Internet connection was far too high-tech for Edisto.
Sure, our chatroom friends in the 90s probably thought we were dead, but there was no way to check in while spending time at the beach.
This was a great time as it allowed us to turn off the world for a week or two. Now, we have to hide our phones in a dresser and try to fight off the urge to update Facebook with a status about how great vacation is.
4. All you wanted was to get older
There’s this weird realization now that any Edisto 80s baby is definitely a fully-fledged adult. For instance, instead of being the young ones on vacation, we are now the parents (or awesome aunts and uncles) and our parents are now the grandparents. This seismic shift somehow sneaked up on everyone; after all, it seems like just yesterday that we were underage and dying to be able to drink with the older kids.
Now, being at the beach means we’re finally taking a break from work, enjoying a paid vacation, reconnecting with family and friends from far away, and reminiscing on the Edisto of days gone by.
Are you an Edisto 80s baby?
If you can relate to any of this and have possibly found your first gray hair and lived with a bit of regret over all that sun you got in the 80s, 90s, 00s, etc. then you’re definitely an Edisto 80s baby.
