THE SUMMERVILLE LIGHT

The Summerville Light.  Anyone who has grown up in the lowcountry of South Carolina has heard of this mysterious phenomenon. And if you are brave and curious, you might have ventured out to  Sheep Island Road around midnight, to discover for yourself if the whole thing is fact or fantasy. From what I understand, some have even lived to tell about it :)

According to legend, the whole thing started when a railroad engineer lost his life in a train derailment. His death caused his widow to go a little loco, and she began wandering the tracks at night, lantern in hand, searching for her lost husband. Even after her death, people swear they still see the light of her lantern around midnight, moving eerily up and down the tracks and the roads near them.

Not sure if any of this has its basis in reality, considering the way Lowcountry folks love to spin a good tale that gets taller as the years go by. But one thing is for sure: something is going on in Summerville around Sheep Island Road that defies explanation.  

Here’s a first-hand account that I found online of what it’s like to find yourself face to face with the Summerville Light from a former member of the U.S. Air Force:

While stationed at Charleston Air Force Base in 1969, a few of my fellow airmen were sitting around the barracks rec-room watching the local TV. There was a story broadcast about a strange occurrence being reported by some people in the nearby town of Summerville. The reporter called it the Summerville Light.

Five guys with nothing to do and all with a relatively normal sense of curiosity quickly decided to jump in one of the groups GTO and go to Summerville to check out what we all just heard about on the TV.

We followed the brief directions given by the reporter to a dirt logging road that ran parallel to interstate 26 through a stretch of partially cleared pulp wood (yellow Pine) stand. We drove about a half mile down the road (as reported by some of the people interviewed in the broadcast) and waited. We left the car running with the air conditioner blowing because it was still hot and humid. Our attempt to put the windows down while we waited was quickly thwarted by an onslaught of mosquitos.

We waited about 30 minutes but we didn't see a thing and our patience was running thin due to the boredom of just sitting on a dark dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We were about to turn around and leave when we spotted a small dot of light that seemed to be about a mile away.

To our surprise, the small dot rapidly got larger and larger as it appeared to approach our car. As it got closer we could tell it wasn't on the dirt road but seemed to be just off the roadway. We could also begin to distinguish the color as a greenish glow very similar to what you get if you activated one of those chemical light sticks.

Within a few seconds, the green ball of light had approached to about 100 feet of the front of the car. It hoovered off the ground about 3 feet or so and the light pulsated slowly at first, them began to increase the pulsing to 2 or 3 times a second. Suddenly it shot forward and stopped right at the front of the car. At that point we all were about to dirty our pants. I was sitting in the front passengers seat and one of the three in the back yelled to the driver to get the hell out of there now !

About the time my friend put his hand on the gear shift lever, the ball of light moved forward so that it looked as if it was embedded in the hood. Suddenly, the motor stopped running, I remember looking over and seeing the red alternator light on and the "CHECK ENGINE" light. It couldn't have been a half second later and all the electrical power in the car died. No dash lights, no engine warning lights and the radio went silent.

The light edged forward very slowly at first. As it got closer to all of us inside, the cars interior took on the color of the ball and the temperature inside the car began to get very cold. So cold that the moisture that had accumulated on the inside of the windows from having the A/C on began to freeze and within a blink of your eye, all the windows were completely covered over by frost. Not exactly what you'd expect on a hot, muggy South Carolina night in the middle of August.

The ball of light was nearly at the edge of the windshield and still moving forward towards us. I scooted out of it's apparent path down the middle of the car and watched scared stiff as the green pulsating light moved into the passenger compartment. It was extremely bright now that it was just inches from our horrified faces. I don't remember hearing anyone saying anything but I do remember that all my friends looked like they had been painted with glow in the dark paint. Also, it seemed funny that everyones breath was fogging as if we were sitting in the middle of a giant walk in freezer . The ball of light proceeded to pass through the car rather slowly at first. It stopped just aft of the front seat and directly in front of the back seat.

All most immediately after it passed through the car , the frost on the windows vanished and a full display of ignition warning lights and the dashboard lights illuminated. We saw the ball of light stop about three feet from the trunk, and reverse direction, heading right back toward us again. This time as it entered the passenger compartment, the temperature inside the car remained comfortable. The frost on the windows had disappeared and the cars headlights came back on.

As soon as the ball of light exited the car, The engine cranked up without anyone touching the ignition . The ball stopped directly in front of the car again and for no apparent reason, the pulsating light stopped as well. With one last blinding flash of light, the whole thing sped off in the same direction if first appeared from. As soon as it disappeared back into the distant darkness, the radio blared to life again.

It didn't take long for our driver to shift into gear and turn the car around to make a hasty exit! not a word was spoken between us for the entire ride back to the base. For that matter, we didn't tell anyone about our experience except to call that reporter who did the original story to report what we had experienced.

Scientists have tried to explain this phenomenon away by claiming that it is nothing more than swamp gas. Really? I’ve never heard of swamp gas acting the way this person described or the way others have described the Light.  So what is really going on here?

All I can do is shrug my shoulders and wonder like the rest of you. And maybe, just maybe, one night when I work up enough courage to venture down Sheep Island Road at midnight, I might have my own personal experience to share with you.

Of course, if anyone else would like to volunteer to give us a first hand account …. well, be my guest.  I will be glad to feature an interview with you in one of my future blogs. That is, if you live to tell about it (can you hear Vincent Price’s laughter in the background?)

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The Folly Boat

One of the ‘main characters’ of my most recent novel, Savannah Grace, is a boat. Not just any boat, mind you, but a very special boat affectionately known as the Folly Boat.

Anyone who has traveled to Folly Beach, South Carolina in recent years has more than likely seen the boat. It sits on a narrow shoulder of land just past the Piggly Wiggly, bordered by marshland on one side and a two-laned highway (Folly Road) on the other. If you’re driving down Folly Road you can’t help but notice the dogone thing since it will undoubtedly have a  brightly painted message written across its hull—a message that changes daily, if not hourly.

So how did all this get started? And why is the boat there in the first place? Glad you asked. Stand by to be enlightened.

The boat, about thirty feet in length, washed up alongside the road in 1989 during Hurricane Hugo. No one ever claimed it, so the locals decided to adopt it and make it a shrine to the storm. I suppose it was their way of saying, "You might have destroyed our houses and reeked havoc on our little island, Hugo, but we will survive just like this boat did.”

It didn’t take long for someone to get the bright idea to take a spray gun to the boat and paint a message across its hull, visible to all the traffic going up and down Folly Road. The idea caught on quick, and before long a different message could be found on the boat each day, mostly happy birthday wishes and spouses exposing their love of their better half on  wedding anniversaries. In fact, on summer weekends, it's not uncommon for a message to last just a few hours before someone else comes along and paints a new one. But woe to anyone who tries to paint a commercial message on the boat. If you do, the good folks on Folly will hunt you down and pour a gallon of whitewash paint over your head, then hand you another gallon and politely ask you to cover the message, pronto. It’s for anniversaries, birthdays, and ‘welcome homes’, and not to be used for profit. To do so would be an insult to the spirit of the boat.

Anyway, all this got me to thinking one day, and this little light bulb appeared above my head that whispered to me, “Hey, wouldn’t it be a cool story plot if one of your characters found threatening messages addressed to them on the boat? Especially if no one was supposed to know they were in town?"

A smile crossed my lips and I thanked the light bulb. Then I spent the next year writing Savannah Grace.

So next time you’re headed to Folly, be sure to take a look at the boat. You never know what kind of crazy message it might display. But also take a moment to remember why the boat is there: it’s a monument to all those who braved the fury of Hurricane Hugo’s killer winds and lived to tell about it -- and went on to rebuild their homes and lives and discover a strength they never knew they had. 

Long live The Boat!

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The Ghosts of Granby Mills

Although ghost stories abound in the lowcountry of South Carolina, there are many other locations throughout the state where you can find some mighty strange happenings. Today I’d like to tell you about one such place that lies a few miles from the sacred football grounds of Williams Brice Stadium in Columbia (not that I’m a huge Gamecocks fan or anything like that).

The place is known as Granby Mills. As the name implies, it used to be a textile mill, and from I understand it was something to behold. Built in 1897 (contrary to popular belief I wasn’t around back then), it was the first mill to be powered by an off-site source of hydroelectric power. But it also took people—lots of people—to run the machines. Believe it or not, a good many of those people were kids. Yes, I said kids, some as young as eight years old. Don’t get mad at me, I’m just the storyteller. Apparently child labor was perfectly acceptable back in Granby’s hey-day.

If that’s not enough to get you riled up, just wait until you hear the rest of this. Those kids had to work some really long hours, up to twelve hours a day. And if they showed any sign of slacking off, they got told that they would be shoved into one of the huge on-site furnaces and cremated live. Talk about negative motivation! Can you imagine being eight years old and told such a thing? I’d work until I dropped from exhaustion, and that’s just what the overseers were hoping for (I’ll reserve my opinion of the overseers because I want to keep this blog ‘G’ rated).

Anyway, there is no evidence that any of the children were actually fed to the furnace. Notice I said “no evidence.” There were plenty of rumors, though, and it is documented that many of the children went missing. Some say that those were the ones that died from exhaustion and the mill managers decided it would be better to ‘dispose’ of their bodies than to explain to the authorities what had really happened to them. Some speculate that the furnaces could have been used for this purpose.

Now, fast-forward to today. Someone came along and decided that the historic mill building would make a great place for nearby USC students to stay. So it was made into an apartment building. Bet you can tell where this is headed, can’t you?

Yep, the building is haunted. Residents often hear the sounds of children crying and furnaces firing. Feet can be heard running across the floors. Objects in locked places are rearranged. Even more frightening, images of small hands and faces are seen in the moisture of fogged windows. Gulp!

Don’t know about you, but the whole thing gives me the chills. Thank God we don’t treat our children like that today. They are the most precious gift bestowed upon us and deserve to have a happy childhood. Shame on those overseers for taking advantage of their gullibility and scaring the you-know-what out of them. I hope they found a few fires of their own to burn in when they gave up the ghost.

Coming up next: More stories to keep you from sleeping at night :)

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Why I Love Folly Beach

When I was thirteen years old, I suffered a traumatic injury on Folly Beach, South Carolina that left me feeling like I never wanted to return to the beach again. I suppose a psychologist would say that I was suffering from a dose of PTS, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which had me associating beaches, particularly Folly, with the bad experience.  It took the coaxing of my dear mother to get me to set my feet in the sand again, despite me kicking and screaming along the way. But I’m glad she did. For it was only after that horrible experience that I came to truly appreciate and love the place known as Folly.

Yes, I admit that I am in love with a beach. Fortunately, my wife is okay with me having Folly as my mistress because she shares my admiration for this tiny sea isle. So today I sit and ponder what it is about Folly that makes it so special to me. 

First of all, I love Folly because she is unpretentious. There’s nothing flashy or glamorous about her, yet she commands my respect, just as I would respect someone who says, “I am who I am and if you don’t like it you can take a flying leap.” I also love her because of her strength and fortitude. Just like her sister barrier islands, she stands guard against a sometimes ill-tempered Atlantic, protecting James Island and peninsular Charleston against the ravages of the sea. If it weren't for Folly those areas would have been devastated by Hurricane Hugo's storm surge, resulting in a flood that would have matched the one New Orleans experienced. Folly suffered horribly that night in September of 1989, yet she came back better and stronger than before, making her a heroine in my eyes.

Despite her toughness, though, there is a softer, seductive side to Folly. Just give her a chance and she will intoxicate you with her charms and whisper softly in your ear the words that she has spoken to me many times: "Come as you are and let your troubles melt away. Leave your shoes behind and feel my sand between your toes. I will comfort you and make you remember who you really are. Renourish your body in my warm, salty water. Renourish your spirit by letting the wind blow through your hair while you gaze out to where the sky meets the sea. Breathe in my scent and exhale slowly. Slow down. There’s no need to rush here. Take the time to talk to your family and friends. Learn to laugh again. Be free. Do things you wouldn’t otherwise do. Find the fun in your life again. I promise I won’t tell—what happens at Folly stays at Folly. If you do those things, I promise you will leave me with a smile and will love me forever. And I promise I will always be here, waiting for you. And I will wait for your children and their children and their children. For I am as ageless and timeless as the ocean that washes over me daily and renews my shore."

Could you resist a temptress like that? Not me. That’s why I’m head over heels in love with Folly. It’s okay if you feel the same way--I’m not a jealous lover and Folly has plenty of love to go around. So go ahead and let her embrace you and work her charms on you. I promise you will come away a changed person.

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