Myrtle Beach memories
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA Travel

My view of Myrtle Beach is a little skewed, but in a good way. Most who visit recall a honky-tonk boulevard along the Atlantic, dotted with biker bars and fleabag hotels just one block off the beach. The sun and heat keep the place bright and alive, surely enough. With golf courses in abundance, a decade-new tradition of shows akin to those in Branson and a show-stopper of a beach known as "the Grand Strand," Myrtle Beach delivers to a diverse population of occasional, warm-weather-seeking tourists.

I saw Myrtle Beach from the seat of a 1982 Oldsmobile. My "Auntie Eleanor" had moved from Buffalo to South Carolina in the 1980s. Originally, she settled inland at a golf course town house, a two-bedroom place where we nieces would come and bunk whenever we needed an "Eleanor" fix … or when Eleanor needed us to "bus" for one of her grand soirees. You went because you wanted to be with Eleanor anyway, and a fun time was in store, even if you had to "work." Such was the magic of Eleanor.

She moved to Little River a few years later, and her unit had a view of "Little River," part of the Intracoastal Waterway. In 2003, my husband to-be and I stopped there so I could introduce them, and we viewed Myrtle Beach from the back seat of her 1982 Oldsmobile.

At that point, she was merely 81 and insisted on conducting the tour. Patience personified, she took her sprightly 81-year-old time to get us to what she wanted us to see. She sat in the Olds in early summer's blistering South Carolina heat while we shopped one of a gazillion T-shirt shops in that beachy section of the town. Then sat some more while we dipped our toes into the Atlantic Ocean. She insisted on paying for lunch at a specially chosen local lunch haunt, sitting at an umbrella table outside, pointing out local specialties on the modest - but tasty - menu. Eleanor

knew food. She knew about thrift, too, and wrote the book on hospitality.

A year later, I returned to assist in her posthospitalization convalescence. That week, I navigated local roads in her '82 Olds, running a variety of errands. I walked the Spinnaker Bay complex in the mornings, before the sun punished the macadamed parking lot. Mostly, we talked. Eleanor, with her benevolent growl and a look you could hear, told me what I needed to know. I heard what she wanted to say and what I needed to hear. She dished with equanimity, but ferocious opinion.

Myrtle Beach - Little River, more specifically - is a little poorer now. My tour guide, stalwart champion, adviser and indomitable aunt died Monday, nearing 86. She went the only way Auntie Eleanor would have it: quietly, expectedly, with only those closest near her and - of course - on her own terms. My next trip to Myrtle Beach could be my last. Myrtle Beach won't ever be "right" unless it's seen from inside that '82 Oldsmobile.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)