Like many places, South Carolina is divided into areas with unique names. These names reflect something or the other. One of them is The Lowcountry. This doesn’t reflect on the values of the people, although it could. It reflects on the fact that it is below sea level.

“Nah, we can’ be below the ocean! Thet ain’t possible”, Clyde told his buddy, Carl Ray.

“Wahl, et’s a true enough fact”, Carl Ray replied.

“Shoot, ya’ll mus’ think I’s stupid ta believes thet”, Clyde said.

Carl Ray didn’t reply to that. He never stated the obvious.

Ha, ha, ha. Below sea level next to the ocean. Very funny. No, it’s true. Downtown Charleston has a walkway where you can look out at the ocean or into the top floor of the mansions across the street.

“Jeez, honey, look at that!”, Boomer told his wife.

“Well, don’t get any ideas”, she told him.

Well, the ocean doesn’t change that much but the action in those bedrooms is well worth the admission price, which is free. The whole downtown is below the ocean. Try flushing a toilet and you see this right away. Toilets don’t flush. Don’t know what happens to the waste products. I know the lawns and flower gardens are lush. Very lush. Odd-smelling flowers though.

Here, when the tide comes in it comes all the way in. Don’t have to wash your car. You do have to anchor it in place if you want to find it later. Of course, if there’s a hurricane all bets are off. Your car could end up three counties away.

“Sir, we found your car”, the Sheriff’s office says when it calls.

“Okay, I’ll come and get it.”

“Yessir. Thing is, it’s up pretty high in the tree.”

The local sharks are a frustrated group. They also can see into the top bedrooms of the mansions. While they don’t understand what they’re seeing they do understand that dinner is just a wall away. Yea, there’s a wall keeping the ocean out. If the wall ever goes down, Charleston will become the New Atlantis. If it just gets a bad leak it becomes the New Venice. A small leak would just cause the lawn fertilizer to float.

The local Chamber of Commerce wants to put up a danger sign warning that the wall could collapse at any moment.

“Heck, that’d draw tourists from everywhere”, the President of the Chamber announced.