Hilton Head Island to celebrate the life of its ‘fixture’: our bartending philosopher
Chris Wagner might have been considered Hilton Head Island’s poet laureate, with his unprofessional verse making the paper every Christmas for more than 25 years.
But I think he was something more.
He was our philosopher.
Wagner’s rare life will be celebrated, outdoors of course, at Honey Horn from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 15. All are welcome.
Wagner was known for fishing, gardening, body building, bar tending – and for loving Hilton Head from his arrival in 1975 until his death from cancer on July 18 at age 69.
He came first as a Sea Pines intern at the William Hilton Inn before graduating with honors in hospitality management from Cornell University.
“He was one of those ones who came down, like so many people, and realized he’d found what he wanted,” said his longtime friend and fishing buddy, Fuzzy Davis.
“We all did. We just found something we liked to do. He became a fixture of Hilton Head.”
He was a fixture as bar manager at the Crazy Crab in Harbour Town for 30 years, where he knew when Payne Stewart walked in he’d take a dozen oysters on the half shell and a Bud Light.
He was a fixture at the Crow’s Nest, the iconic bar atop the oceanfront William Hilton Inn, where Presidents Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Bill Clinton all found a moment to take a load off in the sea breeze and jazz riffs.
He was a fixture at the Heritage Farm community gardens in Sea Pines, where he lived, planting and harvesting year-round with his mother, Rosemarie.
“There ought to be a statue of him in that garden,” Davis said.
Wagner was a fixture in fishing boats of every description.
He was on dozens of winning teams in tournaments, once reeling in a 76-pound cobia and on another day a 40-pound king mackerel.
Frank Fowler said twice they caught and released 10 tarpon in a single day.
Actually, Wagner became Mister Hilton Head – many times over – with his sculpted body winning the local body building contest.
“Power lifting is sheer strength,” he said of his strict dietary regimens and hours of daily workouts at the Hilton Head Athletic Club. “You build the rock. In body building, you chisel away the rock.”
He won scores of regional and national trophies, always competing as an amateur, and saying he inherited his perfectionist attitude from his father, a New York City advertising executive who gave the world an NBC peacock.
Wagner would typically arise at 4 or 4:30 a.m., then work out, drop a line in the water at a hushed Harbour Town, visit his mother and tend the garden – all before 9 a.m.
He might drop a bag of fresh vegetables off for friends, hours before they woke, maybe leaving a dog biscuit on top that Fuzzy and Kim Davis called “Chriscuits.”
Wagner always saw Hilton Head as paradise, despite all the changes, said his wife, Donna.
“He didn’t need a lot to make him content,” Davis said.
Wagner had plenty of philosophies about that, which he shared in the Christmas poems that he published in a book, “Island and Sea, Christmas and Me.”
Wagner told us that gardening teaches all you need to know in life: planning, caring, patience, hope, devotion, sharing.
He wrote:
“I don’t want glamour, gold or clothes.
Give me fruit – give me a rose.
Give me self-sufficiency,
Pride and peace … serenity.”
In his next-to-last Christmas poem, Wagner turned our attention to kindness:
“Be kind to everybody …
To every color, to every race,
Spread the sanctity of kindness
To make the world a better place.
If your heart would be a garden
Your thoughts would be its roots.
A kind word is a flower
And a kind deed is its fruit.
I’ve always pictured heaven
As nothing else but kind,
This constant thought enlightens me
And brings me peace of mind.”
David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com. Correction: An earlier version of this column had an incorrect name for Chris Wagner’s wife, Donna.
