So long to the Pavilion

Yes, I know this is a group dedicated to celebrating NORTH Carolina heritage. But so many thousands of North Carolinians have spent their summers at and around the Myrtle Beach Pavilion that it behooves me to mention its sad demise.

In fact, the ASHEVILLE Citizen-Times talked with several mountain residents who are sad to see the Pavilion go.

On Sept. 24, after 58 memorable years, this 11-acre Grand Strand landmark will shut down for good.

Located directly on Ocean Boulevard, the Pavilion has always been a family favorite, a place to see and be seen. To ride the rides, eat footlong hotdogs and dance at Attic, a club right on the ocean.

“We’ve been going down there since our kids were small, at least 48 years,” said Betty Ann Young, whose family owns Mountain Air, an exclusive community of homes in Burnsville.

“That was the highlight of our trip,” she said of the Pavilion. “Sam (one of their sons) would beg from the time we left here, until we got there, to be sure we could go down to the carnival. That’s what we called it.”

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the biggest Myrtle Beach fan in the world, but it's hard to argue with the impact that the loss of the Pavilion will have on those who have grown up there.

Last March, park owner Burroughs & Chapin Co. Inc. announced the park would close for good in September.

No more funnel cakes. No more teen dancing at the Attic or carousel rides.

No meeting up with friends and taking spins through the Haunted House, the Mad Mouse or trying their luck at the game booths.

The news hit longtime Asheville resident Allen Boyd like a blow to the chest. “WHAT?” he yelled into the telephone. “No, no, no! That’s an institution, a sin right up there with adultery, lying and murder. That’s like tearing down the Statue of Liberty or filling in the Grand Canyon.”

A bit of a stretch? No doubt. But the end of an era indeed.

R.I.P. Pavilion.

Pavilion rides find new home

We've discussed previously that the demise of Myrtle Beach's Pavilion is not necessarily N.C.-related; however, it's important to realize that so many North Carolinians have fond memories of the now-defunct slice of Americana.

That's why it's a big deal that the Pavilion's rides have found a new home, according to The Sun News.

"Some rides from the former Myrtle Beach Pavilion Amusement Park will find a new home at Broadway at the Beach, Burroughs & Chapin announced today," said the paper.

"The new mini-park, to be called the Pavilion Nostalgia Park, is slated to open sometime this summer, be open year-round and feature the following rides from the former Myrtle Beach landmark: the historic carousel and German organ; the Pirate Ship; the Wave Swinger; Caterpillar; arcade and midway games; and a number of kiddie rides. A retail store and special historical section also are planned."

'Slice of Americana' going bye-bye

Again, I realize Myrtle Beach's Pavilion is in South Carolina, not North Carolina; but too many folks from the Old North State have fond memories of the landmark to not comment on it.

"On a fading afternoon as summer wanes, a small girl looks anxiously into the Haunted Hotel, trying to decide whether she will risk entering the ride where a sign promises 'Doom Service Available,'" writes the Associated Press.

"A cool breeze brushes in from the ocean as a middle-aged woman waves to a friend snapping her picture as she rides a zebra on the Pavilion Carousel. Down the way, past lemonade stands, the log flume and ring toss games, teenagers shriek as they spin on swings high in the air. And across Ocean Boulevard, older folks, seeking quiet and reliving memories, sit on a balcony overlooking the street.

"These are the sights and sounds of the final summer of a piece of Americana. After nearly a century, the Myrtle Beach Pavilion is closing, and along with it the amusement park that has been part of the fabric of this oceanside resort for more than 50 years."

R.I.P, Pavilion.

Back when the bright lights hit the lake

Back in high school in Harnett County, I would sometimes here my classmates talk about going to Lake Artesia. For whatever reason -- maybe I wasn't invited (thanks, guys!)? -- I never made it to Lake Artesia. I think, in my mind, I imagined it being a smaller White Lake.

Earlier this week, my mother -- a proud Sampson County native -- talked about Williams Lake and the great musical acts that would play there in the 1950s and '60s. "We would say we were going to a friend's house for the night, but we'd instead go to Williams Lake."

I just had to look up the history of these places -- hot spots that were quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

Like my mother, Michael Parker is a Clinton native. Parker has written about Williams Lake and Lake Artesia. It's pretty remarkable the acts that made the trek down these back roads to play for sometimes up to 700 rural North Carolinians back in the day. (But, to be fair, every North Carolinian was a rural North Carolinian back then.)

Williams Lake was located near Mingo Township, in the northeastern corner of Sampson County, closer to Newton Grove and Dunn than it was to Clinton ...  The club had been drawing teenagers from all over eastern North Carolina since the 1930s, when a pavilion was built on the lake and the swimmers asked the owner, Clayton Williams, to put in a jukebox for jitterbugging. After a hard day in the tobacco and produce fields, which were the primary summer jobs for teenagers back then, a night at Williams Lake was a just reward. But its heyday was in the ’60s, when the shoulders of the country roads leading to the lake were clogged with the cars of kids looking to shag to the music of The Tams, The Drifters, and Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs. ...

Lake Artesia -- or "Amnesia" -- was similar, but different.

The club itself — an A-frame flanked by two wide wings that resembled, inside and out, a rustic lodge — was a good ways off the highway, down a sandy lane dead-ending in a huge field converted into a parking lot. A booth was set up at the highway. They charged by the head. ... During the three or four summers I spent going there, the bigger-name bands — The Tams, The Drifters, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs — seemed to regularly change members. But no one cared if this was the “original” Drifters. We just wanted to get up on the roof or under the boardwalk. We wanted to be young, be foolish, be happy. We wanted to say to the security guards who accused us of climbing into and out of someone’s dank trunk, What kind of fool do you think I am?

 Of course, Parker asks the legitimate question -- the same question any logical person would ask: Why? And how? What was it that led to these small "bodies" of water to attract national touring acts?

It’s a mystery to me now how these two lakes — one of them not much more than a pond — in the middle of the middle of nowhere, both within a half hour of my hometown, drew national talent night after summer night. There must have been money in it, despite the revenue lost to trunk and wood, but surely these bands could have made more in conventional dance clubs in Raleigh or Wilmington, Charlotte or Greensboro, places we small-town, rural kids thought of as big cities.

I’m just happy these places existed, for even though I know one of them only by the aura it left in the memories of its patrons, if it was anything like the one I knew in my teens, it was magical. A sweet drive down back roads, past tobacco barns and head-high corn in field after field as the brutal summer sun finally cast shadows and brought shade. The thrill of entry, legitimate or not. The chance of meeting someone you did not know whom you’d like to get to know better. Most of all, the music, which — after a long day cropping tobacco or packing produce or, if you were lucky enough, basking in a plastic chair overlooking squealing kids splashing about in some swimming pool — took you to the place where music takes you, which has nothing to do with parking lots or ponds. Lovelorn lyrics, tight horn sections, thumpy bass, and chugging rhythm guitar — these sounds are what turn my time there into a field of dreams.

Any first-hand stories from Williams Lake or Lake Artesia you care to share?

Resurrection in Maggie Valley

I'm usually not one to reflect on the "good ol' days" or bemoan the fact that things aren't how they "used to be." Yes, I worry that North Carolina is losing part of its heritage if the beaches lose their piers, if Chimney Rock Park becomes developed, or even when the Myrtle Beach Pavilion goes bye-bye. But I do worry that crying about those things makes me look old, or if nothing else I come off sounding short-sighted.

Having said that, I am thrilled whenever I see things that I remember fondly from my childhood being preserved. In a few cases, such things have come back from the dead. Case in point: the Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park in Maggie Valley.

(Full disclosure: I'm not 100-percent sure that I absolutely loved the park as a kid; but I do have fond memories of it, which should count for something. Chalk it up as selective memory.)

The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that the "Dancers, music and staged gunfights silenced in 2001 when Ghost Town in the Sky closed may soon restart, as new owners bought the Maggie Valley property Tuesday and plan to reopen the theme park in May."

David Huskins, managing director of tourism marketing and development organization Smoky Mountain Host, said the opening would create up to 50 full-time and about 235 part-time jobs while also reigniting hope that tourists will again visit the amusement park and pump dollars into the local economy.

“Everything they do there will be an asset to the community,” said Monika Brackett, owner of The Chalet, a nearby motel.

Huskins helped encourage R.B. Coburn to sell the park’s nearly 255 total acres to a group called Ghost Town Partners LLC, for an undisclosed amount. The new ownership group is made up of Allen and Carol Harper, owners of the Bryson City-based Great Smoky Mountains Railroad and two partners in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., and Miami.

None could be reached for comment Tuesday, though Huskins said the group would make a $12 million to $13 million investment in the property over the next two years. That figure includes $4 million needed to refurbish the 99-acre park,
including installing a new chairlift and restoring the incline railway.

Ghost Town was a hokey, tacky part of the Western North Carolina landscape. And like Tweetsie Railroad, it was a destination for thousands of families from not just this state but from all over. Here's a cheer to it being re-opened.