Rice key staple in the Pee Dee

In the Pee Dee, we have two seasons: football and waiting on football. And almost every plate on every table is decorated with rice or grits. We complain about the price of gasoline, but Armageddon may be just around the corner. Suppose the world ran out of rice, the poor man’s caviar? The only thing John McCain and Barack Obama are concerned about is immigration, Iraq and high gas prices. Neither has addressed the rice shortage, and this might be only the tip of the iceberg. What’s next, Vienna sausage, Moon pies, croutons or tattoos?

We no longer pick cotton by hand or cure tobacco with wood. Technology has changed the way we live. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the all-American buffet. It receives little respect, but it has many admirers. There is always chicken, macaroni pie and barbecue, but recently, the buffet has been getting above its raising. Now they are offering shrimp, deviled crab and crab legs. Do you remember when there was only one kind of cheese? It came in a wheel. We called it rat cheese. It was as sharp as the crease on an $80 pair of pants from Belk. Now, there are almost as many kinds of cheese as parking places at Magnolia Mall.

If everything changes, what will the buffet of the future look like? Will tacos replace macaroni pie? Tortillas replace chicken? Will barbecue become obsolete? And the only place you can see a hog is in the zoo. If this sounds like science fiction, how many of you would have ever dreamed gasoline would be approaching $4 a gallon?

What are the chances rice will ever sell for $4 a pound? Sam’s Club is already rationing rice. If you pay $4 at the gasoline pump and $5 for two ounces of popcorn at the picture show, what would you be willing to pay for rice? The Pee Dee without rice would be like the Gamecocks without, “Wait till next year.”

What will you do when rice can only be found in jewelry stores, when The Citizens Bank offers a rice CD if you deposit five pounds of rice for six months and you receive 4½ percent interest? Only Donald Trump and Bill Gates will be rich enough to throw rice at weddings, and I bet they’ll have someone to catch it before it hits the ground.

Your favorite buffet may have to hire the police to make certain you don’t exceed your quota of rice. There will be signs at The School House Restaurant in Scranton, Brown’s Barbecue in Kingstree and Cain’s in Florence saying, “One grain of rice with every quart of gravy.”

There are things for which there is absolutely no substitute. Rice is one. I leave it to your imagination what the others are. If rice should become as scarce as the demand for Peggy’s biscuits, you will have to show your driver’s license at Shady Rest in Johnsonville to get rice.

The only commercial rice grown in South Carolina is by Campbell Coxe at Plumfield Plantation in Darlington. I have never met Mr. Coxe, but if the price of rice keeps rising, I might invite him to visit Sandy Bay to observe the Floyds and the McKenzies in their natural habitat. Maybe Mr. Coxe will bring me some rice. In the meantime, be happy you can still get all the gasoline you want.
— Charlie Walker is a local newspaper columnist. He can be reached at P.O. Box 441, Kingstree, SC 29556.