SFA | Oral History | Bowen's Island Restaurant

“One day I come over, and I asked [Robert Barber] if he want me to work for him, and he said, ‘Why, sure.’ That’s when I started and we been doing pretty good over here…But I was picking oysters for his grandmom [May Bowen] when I was nine. And then I quit and went on the shrimp boat; and I worked on the shrimp boat about six years, then I come back over here. That’s how I started again.”

– Victor “Goat” Lafayette

Victor Lafayette grew up on Sol Legare Road, just across the inlet from Bowen’s Island. His childhood friends gave him the nickname “Goat.” Growing up on the water, he took to fishing, crabbing, and oystering naturally. At the age of nine, he began selling his catch to May Bowen, owner of Bowen’s Island Restaurant. Over the years, Goat has held jobs shrimping and running a club on Mosquito Beach. When the shrimping industry began taking a downturn, though, Goat returned to Bowen’s Island. May’s grandson, Robert Barber, was at the helm by that time. Goat asked Robert if he needed an oyster picker for the restaurant, and he’s maintained a tight connection to the place ever since. At sixty-six, Goat has reached retirement age. Even so, he plans to work the water until his body decides to quit. When that day comes, he’ll still be a part of the Bowen’s Island family.

Listen to this 2-minute audio clip of Victor “Goat” Lafayette talking about May Bowen and picking oysters. [Go here to download the player for free.]

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NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Edited Transcript

Subject: Victor “Goat” Lafayette
Date: January 20, 2007
Location: Bowen’s Island Dock House – Charleston, SC
Interviewer: Amy Evans

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Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance on Saturday, January 20, 2007; and I’m out here at the dock house at Bowen’s Island Restaurant with Goat, an oyster picker for the restaurant here. Goat, would you say your name and your birthday, also?

Victor “Goat” Lafayette: I’m Victor Lafayette and my name—ah, birthday is May 23, 1941.

Were you born out here in this area?

Yeah, I was born right in South Carolina.

How did you get the nickname Goat? Have you had that all your life?

Yeah, we was playing one day, and all of us give up and give each other names and we used to play cowboys and all that, and that’s how we got the name.

So when did you first start picking oysters?

Well I was picking oysters when I was nine years old. That way back with my granddaddy and my uncle and all of them.

How far does your family go back in this area?

Oh my, I can't remember all that, but it’s way back. It’s way back. I know when I was nine years old, that’s when I start.

Has oyster picking changed much since you started doing it when you were a kid?

Well, it ain’t changed too much. You—it’s a little better now because you make more money now. [Laughs] Way back then we didn’t get but 50-cent a bushel—50-cent, some get a dollar—just like that, you know.

What are you getting for a bushel now?

Well we get twelve, thirteen dollars a bushel now, yeah.

And did you grow up over on Sol Legare [an African American community just across an inlet from Bowen’s Island]?

Yeah, I born and raised on Sol Legare Road, yeah.

How has that changed over the years? I know some people are building some million-dollar houses over there now. What was it like when you were growing up?

[Laughs] When I was growing up, there wasn’t much there—no electric, lighting—nothing’ like that. You just had water pump and outhouse, yeah.

And I know yesterday you delivered the oysters that you picked over there to Backman Seafood [on Sol Legare Road]. What can you tell me about that place? I know it’s been around a long time?

Oh, it’s been around a long time. I used to work there on the shrimp boat. I used to pick oysters for them. It’s good over there, too. Everywhere you go it’s good now, you know, yeah.

What about Mosquito Beach over there on Sol Legare?

Well the nightclub over the bridge right there. I used to run the club over there and that gone down to nothing, so I’m back at the oyster again.

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What kind of things would eat at home growing up?

Well we had a lot of seafood; we had oyster, mullet, [Laughs] flounder, whatever we’d get and mostly we killed our own hog and goat, whatever. We cut—put that in—and put it in the barrel and cure it like that. That’s when I was growing up.

When you were killing hogs, was that a community thing or was that just your family?

That’s—just your family that’s all. You put them up for the winter.

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Does anybody still do that over there?

No, they don’t hardly do that no more. Right now everybody buying food. But back yonder, when you eat that kind of food, you didn’t bother about no high blood [pressure] or nothing like that. Like now we hear about it now, you know, because back then, you know—and more people were to get something out of the woods and go and give you, and you wouldn’t know what happened; you’d feel better. And like you’d catch a cold, they fix you some nice molasses and all that, you know—mostly had all the ingredients to cure you, if you sick, yeah.

Did people have gardens over there? Is the soil good enough to raise vegetables and whatnot?

No, we have fields—fields and fields—sometime we rent somebody else field and plant—plant corn, okra, string bean, lima bean, see. They put all that in a jar, you know, and jar it, put—mix it together and—and when you want okra soup, you just opened a couple of jars. But now you got to buy it because people don’t farm no more because all the people—older people die out, you know, and these young generation—nobody don’t farm no more, yeah.

Did you eat a lot of rice coming up, too?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, lot of rice. When we—we grind we own grits. Yeah. We had a grinder, and you grind your own grits. But mostly you had to buy rice. When you buy rice, it wasn’t ‘bout 10-cent a pound like that [Laughs]. Three cents someplace, yeah. And we make it like that.

Did y’all make red rice?

We made red rice—anything you want. And sometime we have, you know, the conchs. We’d catch a lot of conchs, and we’d put it in the box; and when we feel like conch we eat—we eat that and keep on going, yeah.

How did you eat the conch?

We boil it. See, we put on neck bone, ham hock—what’s in—skin meat all that and mix it up and make a stew out of it.

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So tell me about picking oysters and how you got connected with Bowen’s Island here.

Well—well one day I come over and—and I asked him [Robert Barber] if he want me to work for him, and he said, “Why, sure.” That’s when I started and we been doing pretty good over here.

How long ago was that?

I’d say about thirteen or fourteen years ago. But when I was picking oysters for his mama when I was nine—grand mom—grand mom [May Bowen] when I was nine, and then I quit and went on the shrimp boat; and I worked on the shrimp boat about six years, then I come back over here. That’s how I started again, yeah.

What can you tell me about Mrs. Bowen and what kind of person she was?

Oh, Mrs. Bowen. [Laughs] She was a fine lady, now. We come from to pick oysters and there used to be a lot of people when we come from picking oysters, and she said, “Oh, here my oyster picker comes. Y’all get—come ‘round the corner. I got to feed them—I got to feed them because they the working people. I can catch up with y’all later.” And just go on like that, you know. Yeah, she was real nice. I ain’t had too much to talk with her, but I know she was a nice lady. And then I went off from here and I went up—went to Jersey—I went to Jersey and I started working in Jersey at the steel plant.

So when you go out oyster picking, can you tell me about where you go and what the landscape of the water is like here?

Well like this—when it real rough, we pick close around here, you know—close right around Bowen’s Island; we pick close around there. As we go more on Clark Sound, we—we got to watch the weather. If the weather good, we go that way; if the weather not good, we ain’t going. We have to pick right around Bowen’s Island.

And then tell me about when you’re out picking and you’re actually harvesting the oysters—what that’s like.

Well it’s nice to me because that’s what I love to do, and we be out there picking oysters listening to—we have a little jukebox we got there, and we hear that and just keep on working. That’s all we do, yeah.

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And you had, when you came in yesterday, what looked like a pretty big load. How many bushels did you have yesterday?

Yesterday I had twenty-seven. I had twenty-seven bushel. That was a good day. [Laughs] Yeah.

Not always that good picking, huh?

Well—well sometimes—according to how you feel, if you feel good, you’ll pick more. If you don’t want to pick more, you pick less, and that’s how we work.

Well and I know that Robert has—there’s an event here tonight and then his family oyster roast tomorrow, so are you usually always picking for an event, so you have to try and get enough for that?

We—well see, according to how much the amount of people it is we—we pick a certain amount, and we’ll have some for Robert’s family and the other party, too. Then we wait until next week—if something come up next week, then we go—go back and get some more. But when the restaurant opens, we have to work everyday. But see, now it’s closed. We can't work but couple days, yeah.

And then when you brought them in yesterday, you have to shovel them out of your boat and onto that platform to wash them. Can you describe that?

Well see, that’s where it is because we got to clean it. You got to take it out the boat, wash it, then put it back in the boat and take it to the cooler. That’s a lot of work.

I’m telling you. Yeah, because those oysters are heavy, and that’s a lot of moving them around.

You right about that; it is heavy. [Laughs] It wear your arm out, that’s all, yeah. Yeah.

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And I hear that sometimes you roast the oysters here for parties?

Yeah, I do it all the time. I got to do it tonight and tomorrow. [Laughs]

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And what—over the years, working parties and whatnot have you—what kind of stories do you have from working with people and roasting oysters at these events?

Well—well some of them—most of them are good now, but you could tell the fussy ones that they don’t know nothing, you know. But see we know the whole score, you know. Which are nice people coming down here and they have fun. Some have fun and some don’t, you know. But it ain’t but a few you could say the whole year, and some got to get an attitude once in a while, you know, but we don’t pay that no attention because we working, yeah.

And what about the community of people here like Jack [London] and all them and just kind of how everybody interacts?

Oh my, [Laughs] we just like family. He calls me brother; I call him brother. Robert call me nephew, and I call him uncle. That’s how we work around here. It’s some fine people around here on this island. Because I’ve been around all of them and they’re nice—mother, all of them. They good to me, yeah.

So how long you think you’ll be oyster picking?

Well, right there, I don’t know. If I keep the good strength in my body, I go keep on going, you know. I keep on going. But if I don’t have enough strength, I got to quit because that ain’t nothing to play with out there. You know, when the more older you get, the less you could pick, you know. See, I’m 65 now. I ain’t feel like those—them real cool days we used to go out there rain or shine. I can't do that no more because it bothers my arm a lot.

Are there many young pickers out there?

Yeah, got quite a few—quite a few young white guys out there picking. That’s all I know. And couple of older fellas picking like my age but ain’t too many now—ain’t too many. [Laughs] Ain’t none too much of we left. [Laughs] Most of them die out, who really was oyster pickers, you know. But these—the young fellas, they ain’t going to do that kind of work no more. They do something else.

Have the beds changed much, like where you find oysters and the quality of the oysters?

Well it’s like this, sometimes—some years oysters won't grow for nothing, and I don’t know why of that, but this year they grow pretty good—and it’s good bed. See, what about oysters grow—you grow in a good mud, the mud—mud not powerful enough for to keep them, you know, breeding and then some mud—some mud will kill out the oysters. You get black and they get stanked, and they get into the oyster and kill it, see. That’s why I don’t understand—they say oysters grow bacteria, but I was picking oysters all my life, and I ain’t never know it hurt nobody. And—and then that time we don’t never put it in the ‘frigerator. When it cold—oysters could live. But now you pick them you got to put in the ‘frigerator, take it out [Laughs]. It ain’t nothing but work—make you work.

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Do you ever eat an oyster raw when you’re out on the boat?

Yeah, sure. You know, sometimes you hit—you go to broke off some and you hit—broke up a big one and you say, “Oh, I ain’t going to throw that back. I’m going to eat that, yeah.” But I know one day we had been stuck and shoot, we find some clams. We roasted them right on there, and they was good. But lucky we had water because it make you drink a lot of water, you know. Yeah.

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When you’re out on the boat, what kind of wildlife do you see when you’re out in the marshes?

Well mostly you see seagulls and porpoise and shark. You see—and sometimes you see mullet jumping once in a while. You see all kind of things in there now. Sometimes it’s—then it gets cold you hardly see nothin’. You might see a seagull or two, pelicans, [inaudible], brown curlew [bird]—all that. See all that—it be on the bay and when we pull up the marsh they eating little crabs, you know, and they—they just like they’re picking oysters, too. [Laughs] Yeah.

Well what do you like best about oystering?

Well, what I like best about oystering is better money, that’s all. That’s it.

What do you like about Bowen’s Island here?

Oh, well I like to come down here because it’s nice people out here, and I could be out here all day, you know. That’s what I like about it. Ain’t no problem here. We could go fishing and we could—you could throw the line off the dock. You could do anything you wanted to do or find something to do. Sometime we don’t find nothing to do, we sit down and drink some beer. [Laughs] That’s it.

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What do you think about getting recognized for what you do here?

Well you know too much about that because I think everybody got to make a living and it wouldn’t matter who—as long as you making an honest living. You still—you didn’t do nothing wrong, so ain’t no problem with me, yeah.

Well I sure appreciate you sitting with me, Goat. It’s been lovely.

Well thank you, too. Ain’t no mind.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

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