A day at the beach
With a resemblance to Santa Claus and a dedication to keeping the beach clean, Berkeley Electric Cooperative member Howard Hogue has become a local celebrity on the Isle of Palms.
Photo by Mic Smith
He scans the sand with twinkling blue eyes as his white hair and beard flow with the wind. He is supposedly on vacation, but his volunteer pursuit of picking up trash along Isle of Palms beach can keep him busy for hours.
Of course, he spends some of that time talking with fans. They don’t buy his cover story—that he is Howard Hogue, a 66-year-old, retired shop teacher and hardware store manager from up North who relocated to the Lowcountry. They can see the resemblance for themselves, and they want hugs and selfies.
C’mon, who wouldn’t recognize Santa, and especially in a cherry-red tank top and bathing suit? Truth told, Santa—or Howard, if you want to humor him—enjoys the attention and can’t resist using his celebrity to bring attention to the problem of coastal pollution.
“There’s a lot of people who walk the beach for trash, other than myself, but I think I stand out here,” he says with a wry grin as he chats near the Isle of Palms pier during a fall sunrise.
Not surprisingly, Santa likes to keep things light, and that plays well with tourists and locals alike. Isle of Palms resident and regular beach walker Sarah Parker Daniel stops to say hi and admits she can’t remember the first time she saw him. “You became a fixture really fast,” she tells him. “I just thought, ‘What a great citizen. It’s somebody else who loves the beach like I do,’ and we appreciate it.”
Santa took up residence in Moncks Corner and became a member of Berkeley Electric Cooperative at the end of December 2015. After a year of getting settled in his new place, he started visiting Lowcountry beaches regularly last spring. At first, he tried Folly Beach, then he decided Isle of Palms was a more family-friendly scene.
He walks to keep fit, as suggested by his doctor, and he finds it easier to keep moving with the distraction of trash collection. His weight struggles are real, so it’s mostly salads and low-fat yogurt before the holidays. A year ago, he lost more than 40 pounds, he says. “Some of the pounds found me back.”
Instead of a pack, he carries a large, white bucket and an extension tool that allows him to grab trash without bending down, especially helpful given his past knee replacements. On busy days, he will walk through crowds to attract interest. “What I do makes a small difference, and, you know, if everybody did something, it would help out. You get more done by teamwork.”
He’s Santa, not a scientist, but he welcomes the teaching moments that come when he talks with beachgoers about the dangers trash poses to ecosystems—for example, when a sea turtle consumes a plastic bag, thinking it’s a jellyfish. He’s also quick to point out safety issues for people, like broken glass and rusty bottle caps. While he shares his message with all ages, he notes that the children really seem to get it. “Young kids have open minds. They learn so fast.”
Now that the crowds and the trash have lessened, he visits about once a week. But during the hot months, he says, he came every day for three months straight, zigzagging back and forth on a popular stretch of beach from the Windjammer to two blocks past the pier and Isle of Palms County Park.
In spite of efforts by the city and county to keep things clean, he can always uncover trash here, and he has a real eye for it now. “I know certain shapes shouldn’t exist on the beach,” says Santa, who also likes to do puzzles. The morning sun helps illuminate items, he explains as he points to sparkles of “sippy-straw wrappers galore.” The light is different once he switches direction, so it helps to walk both ways.
As he wraps up, he throws away many pieces of trash in the covered receptacles provided by the county park, but he also takes home some items to reuse in his workshop. He plans to craft a sea turtle sculpture as a gift to the Isle of Palms County Park, where he has gotten to know many of the lifeguards and other employees.
This summer, when a hard rain exposed extra items, he made a list of all he brought back home—such a predictably meticulous Santa thing to do. “I sorted it and counted it, and I took a sheet and documented everything I picked up that day.” He pulls out a phone to show a photo of the haul and proclaims, “The proof is in the pudding.” About half of the 455 pieces he kept were plastic drinking-bottle caps. He also brought back 20 rusty beer caps, a bunch of hair ties, toys and a variety of other items.
He has found money, jewelry, two driver’s licenses, a cellphone and shoes, all clearly left behind, plus metal tent stakes, cigarette butts and more water-balloon remnants than he would care to count. He recognizes it’s impossible to get it all, and while he doesn’t let that get him down, he has visions of a cleaner future. “It would be nice to come down here and not find anything after a day at the beach.”