Sullivan's Island Winter-Spring 2018-19

20 www.SullivansIslandMagazine.com | www.SullivansIslandHomes.com I f you’ve seen Sam Schirmer around town, there’s a good chance he had a wide-mouth mason jar of unsweet tea to sip on nearby – a habit that started some decades back when he worked on his father’s shrimp boats. With Sullivan’s Island roots reaching back to 1800, Schirmer was born in 1960 and raised in one of eight cottages his great- grandfather built in an area near the lighthouse that was known as Schirmerville. Schirmer spent his formative years shrimping with his father, who got into the business in 1966 after supermarkets eclipsed the local grocers. When he wasn’t shrimping, he and his friends would walk the ditches to collect glass bottles and exchange them for spending money or explore the forts that dot the Island, which had been converted into fallout shelters. “Dunleavy’s was a liquor store, then next to that was Ogletree’s Red & White Supermarket, then where High Thyme is was a gas station, then Bert’s Pharmacy – later Bert’s Bar,” he recalled, taking a mental stroll down Middle Street. “What’s my favorite thing about the island?” he paused, then laughed. “My favorite thing about the island is that I live on Sullivan’s Island. I could not live anywhere else on this Earth.” Photo by Jess Wood.