Comedian Chris Rock talks about how America used to have small towns that had their own identity and were different from other towns. “Remember when you used to visit your Grandmother in her little town?” Rock would ask in his standup routine. “How her little town would have its own little stores?”, but now all towns have the same stores and restaurants. He’s talking about the homogenization of America. (Now you readers from the red states, like here in SC, I ain’t saying America’s going gay. No, I’m saying everything in America is becoming the same.) Every town you go to has the same restaurant chains and the same “big box stores”.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina has had it’s own identity since becoming a vacation destination. The “Redneck Riviera” it was called because of so many working class South Carolinians, especially textile workers and their families, that frequented its shores.

But that’s all changing at the Grand Strand, like it is everywhere else. Oh, I’m sure a lot of people think these new shiny and sparkly places are better than the old wooden, weather beaten places.

The very heart of Myrtle Beach closed its doors at the end of the summer. The owners of the iconic Pavilion have closed the arcade’s doors for the last season. How many of you readers, from the Carolinas to Canada, have played Skee-Ball at the Pavilion? Or ridden the historic old carousel? Or danced to a “beach music” band, or rocked out to some band, upstairs at the Magic Attic? As I type these words I can hear my cousins say the words “Magic Attic” and “Pavilion”. That place WAS Myrtle Beach.

But the property belongs to Burroughs & Chapin Co. Inc., who opened the place in 1948, and has always owned it, and they are free to do with it whatever they want. I just wish tradition meant something. Oh, they plan on saving the carousel and the old organ that played there. The organ was built in 1901 for the World Exposition in Paris. They may have the carousel and organ in the new place they will develop there at the oceanfront property on Ocean Boulevard and Eighth and Ninth avenues north. Or maybe they’ll be out at one of Burroughs & Chapin’s other places like Broadway at the Beach (which is a big part of the ruination of Myrtle Beach).

When my “linthead” family (I’ll call us that, but I’ll stomp your butt if you call us that!) used to go to the beach, we could get a house for a week for less than what you pay now for one day in a hotel down there. But everything’s going upscale. If they don’t have one already, I’m sure they’ll get a Hard Rock Café to go along with the other cookie cutter places.

And then Myrtle Beach will be all shiny and new. Don’t get me wrong, I know Myrtle Beach has been in constant change for a hundred years. Things are built, and like rising tides and sandcastles, things are torn down in the constant ebb and flow of beachfront real estate development. All of the old campgrounds are gone with condos and hotels now sitting on those properties. But no matter how many Barefoot Landings, etc. that were built, no matter how much Myrtle Beach changed, the Pavilion was always there. Was.