For centuries, the ocean waters of the Atlantic have impacted the daily lives of those on the South Carolina coast. Beginning in the 1960s, those waves caught the imagination of young beachgoers who studied magazines and Super 8 films and refined their moves on rent-a-floats until the first surfboards became available in the area. The buildup to the Vietnam War brought GIs and their families from the West Coast and Hawaii to South Carolina, and their surfboards came along with them. Unbeknownst to each other, local surfers concentrated in the beach and military base areas of Beaufort/Hilton Head, Charleston, and Pawley's Island/Grand Strand began to conquer nearby surf breaks. When contests finally brought these groups together, a statewide sport was born.
Lilla O'Brien Folsom and Foster Folsom were in that first wave of surfing-aware teenagers. Lilla is a local freelance writer who failed miserably at surfing and went to work at a local surf shop. Foster grew up on Folly Beach and began surfing in the early 1960s. They were directors for the Southern South Carolina chapter of the Eastern Surfing Association for five years. Their life is best described as “surf-dependent.”