Isle of Palms Magazine, Summer 2016

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T hough he
was born and
raised in the
North Carolina
mountains, Clay
Cable has lived
for nearly 60
years in a place where others spend
thousands of dollars to visit for a
week.
For this, the 90-year-old former
mayor of the Isle of Palms is grateful,
not just for the sunny joys of decades
past but for the simple, tangible
pleasures still enriching his life today.
A child of Depression-era Appalachia,
the everyday enjoyment of island life
continues all these years later to bring
him delight and satisfaction.
“I’ve got a dock across the
street,” he explained. “I’ve got a
little boat rigged as a shrimp boat.
I’ve got a flatboat I can use to fish
for flounder or redfish. I’ve got
my birds – my purple martins. I’ve
got a great vegetable garden. And
flowers. My wife planted about 500
of them today.”
Though the World War II veteran
and his first wife, Martha, didn’t
arrive on the Isle of Palms until he
was 31, few native-born islanders
have lived on IOP as long as Cable.
He and Martha purchased two lots
on Palm Boulevard from a young
developer named Arthur Ravenel
Jr. in the late 1950s. Facing the
Intracoastal Waterway, they cost just
$2,800 for both – and the couple
spent an additional $1,500 for three
lots across the street on the water.
“We didn’t have a lot of things
here,” Cable remembered.
Even the now-defunct Red and
White Market was still a coming
attraction; islanders shopped on
Sullivan’s or in Mount Pleasant. The
nearest drugstore was Bert’s Pharmacy
– later the legendary Sullivan’s Island
bar. And, of course, the Isle of Palms
Connector was still nearly 40 years in
the future.
“I worked in Charleston, as fleet
superintendent for the Van Smith
Concrete Company, so every day I
had to travel clear down Sullivan’s
and across the Ben Sawyer Bridge,”
Cable said.
Nonetheless, Clay and Martha
felt blessed.
“My kids had a wonderful place to
grow up,” he said.
Daughter Linda studied piano
in downtown Charleston, while
their son, Clay Jr., used to surf – or
sometimes ride his bicycle to the
old Isle of Palms airstrip and swim
across the Intracoastal Waterway to
Goat Island, where he’d meet a young
female friend.
“I told him he had better be
careful, or some tugboat was going
to run him over,” Cable said. “But he
promised me, ‘Daddy, I always look
both ways before I jump in.’”
Even today, the story makes Cable
laugh: “I’m pretty sure they were just
friends, but, once I saw what all the
boy’d do just to go over and meet
with that girl, I knew he was going to
do all right.”
The Isle of Palms offered little in
the way of civic services, but, along
with many of his pioneer neighbors,
Cable volunteered countless hours
helping to build the new community.
He assisted in the creation of the
playground and recreation center
between 27th and 29th avenues,
helped secure and clear the lot for
the Isle of Palms Baptist Church on
24th Avenue and served 20 years as a
volunteer firefighter.
In the 1950s and early 1960s,
Republicans also were scarce,
both on the island and in South
Carolina. After working side-by-
side with future Gov. Jim Edwards
of Mount Pleasant, fundraising
and campaigning for presidential
Photo by Margaret Burns.