‘The classic Lowcountry boy’: Rufus Weaver, legendary character of Bluffton, dies
Rufus Weaver of Bluffton always said his boat was a dance floor.
In fact, someone snapped a wonderful picture of him shag dancing at the May River sandbar with his wife, Barbara Anne, in their 24-foot Carolina Skiff .
But today we can see that all the Lowcountry was Weaver’s dance floor, after his bigger-than-life life ended abruptly last week.
His was a dance with the waves as a surfer and paddle boarder. It was a run through the rivers, finding all the sharks teeth and fossils.
He went full steam, giving blood the old fashioned way, by playing 35 years on the Hilton Head Island Rugby Club.
He met Barbara Anne at the infamous Toadfish Festival of 1980. That was the last of these annual weekend celebrations ginned up by locals, held on Jenkins Island in the name of a humble and ugly fish, with irreverent T-shirts, music for the adults and games for the kids. Legend has it that an impromptu wet T-shirt contest and the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office led to its demise.
Rufus and Barbara Anne moved from Hilton Head to Bluffton when people thought that was a dumb thing to do.
Thirty-six years later, their daughter, Casey, was married to Buddy Brinkley at the Bluffton Oyster Factory at an altar made by her father. Our columnist Babbie Guscio called it a Bluffton fairy tale wedding with “Best Dog Ozzie and Dog of Honor Reilley looking very noble” and the bride and groom departing in Chris Shoemaker’s boat “with guests holding sparklers that lit up the amazing evening.”
In recent years, Reilley the 11-year-old golden retriever, could be found easing through Bluffton with Weaver in a golf cart.
Weaver’s conservative opinions ran strong and loud.
And he would hop on stage outside the Daufuskie Crab Co. restaurant and sing “Elvira” with so much enthusiasm they were dancing to it on River Street.
The garage at his home in Martin’s Place never once housed a car. It was “the clubhouse,” where he strummed his guitar, listened to the Allman Brothers Band from his hometown of Macon, Ga., and watched the Georgia Bulldogs on TV.
Football losses for the Dawgs kicked him in the face with a hobnail boot, but, my God, all those wins looked like sugar falling out of the sky.
Weaver turned 68 in a hospital bed on July 15. But he probably didn’t know it.
On July 4, he posted on Facebook: “Happy 4th y’all We just gonna sit on a dock in May River and watch all the new boat clowns.”
It was vintage Weaver.
He saw the clowns in life, and always called it as he saw it.
But something about this Fourth of July wasn’t vintage “Capt. Ru.” He wasn’t in the river.
He had been saying his back hurt, Barbara Anne said, and chopping through the river might aggravate it.
That Monday, July 6, she took him to the emergency room and he never came home.
The last two weeks of his life were a downward spiral fueled by sepsis and the rare discitis, she said.
When it was determined he needed back surgery, it took five days to find a hospital that could take him in, another side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, Barbara Anne said. He died at St. Joseph’s/Candler Hospital in Savannah.
The news was stunning in the Lowcountry because Weaver was so full of life.
“He epitomized the classic Lowcountry boy,” said Hilton Head’s Byron Sewell, who looked up to him as a seasoned and real fellow waterman.
“He had a heart of gold and would do anything for you. He could always tell stories. I really don’t know how to describe Rufus. It’s just a real energy.”
Sewell was born into the Hilton Head surfing scene, native son of local surfing pioneer “Hurricane” Hamp Sewell and Sissy Sewell.
He said, “Rufus paved the way for my generation, telling us to be who you are. Don’t sell out for a freaking desk job. Do what you need to do, but don’t give up on having a happy life doing what you want to do. Money isn’t everything.”
Bluffton
Rufus Weaver stories will long outlive him.
He took a lot of people to Daufuskie, even doing it professionally late in life when he chartered fishing and nature tours.
His brother, Charlie of Bluffton, tells that Rufus kept a truck on Daufuskie, which he’d crank with a battery from the boat. But the truck didn’t have brakes. Somebody in the back would toss an anchor out onto the sandy road to stop the truck.
One time Rufus got there and the truck was gone.
Turns out, it had been shoved onto a barge with a bunch of junked vehicles, and now rests somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean as part of a fishing reef.
Charlie tells about the time Barbara Anne got a sofa and love seat reupholstered in Ridgeland, and sent Rufus to pick them up. He insisted he didn’t need to tie them down on the trailer, and then stopped at Strawberry Hill on the way home and had a drink or two with friends before remembering the trailer didn’t have lights and he had rush home before dark.
He backed into the driveway only to realize the furniture was missing.
“He went back out and found it,” Charlie said, “but that was one of many times he came close to Death by Barbara Anne.”
Charlie said Rufus’ good friend Marcus McDougall once suggested a film crew follow Rufus for two months. That may have come up after the squirrel incident.
Weaver had a string of boxer dogs, the last one named Georgia Peaches, so beloved he named his Carolina Skiff “Georgia Peaches.”
Peaches cornered a squirrel and had it in its mouth. Rufus got Peaches to drop the squirrel, but when it lay there lifeless, he gave it a little kick.
The squirrel bit into Rufus’ big toe and wouldn’t let go.
So that was the day in Bluffton history that a grown man was seen spinning in circles in his front yard, kicking in the air with a squirrel attached to his toe, all while holding yelping Peaches at bay by the collar.
“The Nutcracker”
Weaver once told me he dropped out of college to spend a year following his hometown heroes, The Allman Brothers Band. He called them “the Brothers.”
In that era, he went to the University of Georgia to study journalism, and got a degree in construction engineering from Georgia Southern University.
He went to Yemen with an organization similar to the Peace Corps, but came home after an uprising and found his way to Hilton Head. It was 1978, when young people came to work hard and party even harder, and build the “world-class resort.”
Weaver had a long career as a home builder, specializing in framing.
Barbara Anne is from one of Ridgeland’s most respected families, daughter of the late “Doc” Fred Ducey. At one time, he was the only licensed veterinarian in three counties, when the only animals in the Lowcountry that got professional care were herds of cattle, hogs, horses and hunting dogs.
“He was bigger than life,” Barbara Anne said about Rufus on Thursday. “He knew everybody and never met a stranger. That was not my personality. I was along for the ride. It was never a dull moment.”
But there were quiet times as well.
Weaver wrote a touching poem for his best friend, shrimper Jimbo Lowther, when he died.
Weaver was named for his great-grandfather, Rufus W. Weaver, who was an artist.
His father was a forester dealing in pulpwood. He introduced the boys to hunting and fishing — and to the ocean waves on vacations to Fernandina Beach, Fla. They rented little Rufus a surf board and he stayed in the water all week, Charlie said.
His mother, Jean Evans Weaver, owned and directed the Dance Arts Studio in Macon for 40 years. She envisioned an annual production of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” ballet that would rival those presented by the country’s premier city ballet companies. That dream of humble beginnings in 1985 is now the entrenched Nutcracker of Middle Georgia, Inc.
The Macon Arts Alliance honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award for significant contributions to the arts and culture in Central Georgia.
Leon Uris
Hilton Head pharmacist Tim Burke was recruited by Weaver years ago to play on the island rugby team.
He said Rufus was legendary among all the teams they played, and they traveled the globe playing the game.
Weaver was fast, a quick study, and a valuable player, said attorney Ed Hughes, who co-founded the island club in 1975.
He helped a seven-man team of geezers win a tournament in North Carolina recently, playing as the Hilton Head Mullets.
Burke said Weaver might give the appearance of a backwoods guy, but “he was one of the most well-read people I’ve known. He was a voracious reader.”
Weaver read a book a week, and three newspapers a day.
He was especially fond of Leon Uris, and his historical-fiction novel “Trinity.” Rufus and Barbara Anne named their second child, Conor, after a leading character in the book.
Even though Weaver had strong political opinions, he refrained from constantly sharing them in letters to the Packet.
But he did write letters occasionally.
One is especially meaningful today as we look back on Rufus Weaver’s dance with the South Carolina Lowcountry.
The headline was: “Beachfront owner should chill and enjoy the view.”
He was responding to a letter-writer who complained that the Town of Hilton Head Island was not doing beach renourishment as fast as she needed it done.
Weaver wrote:
“As a local surfer and beach lover, I have been making frequent visits to all of our barrier island beaches for more than 30 years and have observed numerous renourishment efforts from Folly Beach to Hunting Island to Hilton Head to Tybee Island. Mother Nature trumps these fruitless, taxpayer-funded projects every time. Eventually, ocean currents carry sand from the north end of barrier islands to deposit at the south end.
“Renourishment alters the natural contour of the ocean floor, disturbing wave patterns and leveling sand bars and sloughs that are important for the ecosystem that supports the food chain for beach-dwelling marine life.
“I suggest that the letter writer relax, have her cocktail of choice and enjoy the beautiful view of Port Royal Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
“How fortunate.”
Memorial fund
In support of the family and in lieu of flowers, a memorial fund has been set up at Coastal States Bank. Donations may be sent to the Rufus Weaver Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 2105, Bluffton, SC 29910.
