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Of course he had them rolling in the floor. Most people in today's buttoned-down Lowcountry would have trouble believing a word of it was true. Even if he skipped the tale of driving a tiny car through the snow in Germany hauling three midgets and a bass drum.
The fact that Farmer worked at all may have surprised some. His good friend Paul Devere told me, "Howard is one of those people who seemed to have retired when he was 26."
Farmer died on New Year's Eve in Beaufort, where he was born 78 years ago. His friend Ward Kirby said something that may be repeated at Farmer's memorial service at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Carl Anderson Memorial Chapel: "They only made one Howard."
Farmer was a WTOC personality in the 1960s, perhaps better known for his toilet seat commercials than his weatherman duties. He operated a record store in Beaufort until Hurricane Gracie wiped it out, and his job at WBEU in Beaufort led to this line in his "Up Close and Personal" interview in Island Events magazine written by his best friend, the late Jim Littlejohn:
" 'It all started in a 1,000-watt radio station in Beaufort,' he says, in an un-ashamed parody of television's Ted Baxter, 'and it should have ended there.' "
It didn't. Farmer moved to Hilton Head in 1967 and was The Packet's advertising director for its earliest editions. He was among the first salesmen for the new Moss Creek development.
Farmer could tell hilarious stories about rattlesnakes and country and western singers who practiced knife-throwing in hotel rooms, but he also loved to entertain on stage. He helped form the Beaufort-Parris Island Little Theater, and he and Littlejohn played the fathers in "The Fantastics" when some college kids produced it in the old William Hilton Inn. That was the forerunner to the Community Playhouse.
Farmer built a home on Folly Beach and was a faithful member of the Hilton Head Rotary Club from 1969 until his death. He was a charter member of its so-called "Patio Club" along with writer John Jakes, Bob Sullivan and the late Al Gnesin. They gathered about an hour before the Rotary meeting to solve all the world's problems.
He was a world traveler, taking memorable road trips with whimsical Lowcountry artist Walter Palmer. He was a veteran and a Savannah River tugboat dispatcher. And he and Devere were members of the "Folly Field Yacht Club." They'd race 10-foot boats, big enough to hold about two six-packs each, to Joyner Bank.
If the birds will allow it, a portion of Farmer's ashes will be returned to Joyner Bank, in the waters of a county he said was the most beautiful place man ever discovered. It will be a fitting rest after a so-called career for a Lowcountry legend.
