Bluffton’s new ‘reality’ might be ‘The Bachelorette,’ but some will recall plenty before that

This is not normal. It is not real.

But enough of politics.

Let’s talk about a so-called reality TV show called “The Bachelorette” filming in Bluffton and on Hilton Head Island this week.

The one reality I’m sure of is that my wife is addicted to the show. And for it to be coming to our town is the greatest thing since the Beatles touched down in New York, which was the last time she went into a crying frenzy.

That is, if you don’t count our drop-in at the SUR restaurant in Hollywood, where I was dispatched to casually snoop around with my cell phone to capture real “Vanderpump Rules” reality TV stars doing real things out back, like smoke cigarettes.

And now this.

I am committed to a hot date Thursday night at an oyster roast with shag dancing at the Bluffton Oyster Co., where we will see a bachelorette who is the daughter of a federal judge act natural, I suppose, on a televised date.

Well, as the Bluffton old-timers might say, it beats the mullet toss.

Reckon nobody told Hollywood about our real Lowcountry blind dates — the no-see-ums. That might be too real.

Years ago, I questioned out loud the sanity of my beautiful bride watching a bachelor or bachelorette pick a lifetime partner among strangers in front of a few million of their closest friends.

She then questioned the sanity of me watching Atlanta Braves games. Gulp. Never mind.

My theory has always been that if I want to see drama, I’ll look around the room. If I want to see tragedy, I’ll look in the mirror.

Now my reality is that a stage is being set up on Calhoun Street in Bluffton, not a tree-frog’s leap from the corner lot where a pickup truck once came to rest, and rested so long and well a tree grew through it and the sight was such a symbol of pride that it was immortalized on T-shirts and Polaroids suitable for framing.

Bluffton, mind you, had real reality TV. It was a television station beaming from the old school turned town hall. Behind the news desk was a clock labeled Hilton Head time and one labeled Bluffton time, and the Bluffton clock was 10 minutes slower.

The late Tommy Heyward had a show. He was a descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, if you ever had an hour to hear his story, and in those days we had an hour to hear stories. His show, as I recall, was called “The Town Crier.” Which he pronounced “The Town Cry-yuh.” I was a guest one night, and came away convinced it was so he could needle the newspaper live on a television signal bouncing off pine trees and 30 mph speed-limit signs from Confederate Avenue slap out to the Naugahyde easy chair at Morris Garage & Towing.

The mainstream media, pre-Hollywood, was a tabloid called The Bluffton Eccentric. For real. It was published by a man who ran Mister Label, the closest thing Bluffton had to heavy industry this side of the overweight Avon lady. I got that joke from a comedian on a reality radio show called the “Grand Ole Opry.” Mister Label was located in what is now Aisle 628 of the new Sam’s Club.

In case you haven’t noticed, our new reality is cruising well above 30 mph. As seen on TV.

This story was originally published March 28, 2017 at 10:08 AM with the headline "Bluffton’s new ‘reality’ might be ‘The Bachelorette,’ but some will recall plenty before that."