Just meander your way into the Cloister’s main Georgian Room, where Billy - likely dressed up in Pharrell’s Arby’s hat or some such - holds court. The many catch phrases of Billy Bingo, the beloved super-star emcee of Sea Island’s infamous alphanumeric bloodsport, are just one of many reasons to dress to the nines and join in the bingo boarded bedlam every Tuesday and Thursday.

“Clickety click, O-66 ” “B-4 … and after ” “Elvis, love me B-10-der.” Here, the five must-dos once you arrive on Sea Island - ’cause it ain’t a party till it’s a Grand Old Party.

It’s an easy, breezy trek form the mainland just drive over the Sidney Lanier Bridge - a quasi twin of Scandinavia’s Øresund Bridge - where the Dirty South magically transforms into the Purty South. That’s just the kind of energy the place evokes. While these highfalutin types more or less merely sprinkled dirt crumbs around said oak saplings, Conservative Party Prime Ministrix Margaret Thatcher fetched herself a shovel and dug into the ground like a rabid honey badger when she visited in ‘94 - pink suit be damned. No worries, Dems, the fun’s bipartisan: Bubba, er, planted his wood in Sea Island’s soil just two years ago (and Hil knew all about it), while good ol’ boy Jimmy Carter exercised his green thumbs here in 1981 shortly after his second-term bid shellacking. Bush and wife Babs honeymooned here, followed by their son Dubya and his first lady, Laura, who dropped by for the G8 Summit in 2004. Republican commanders-in-chief who’ve visited - and customarily planted live oak trees - include Calvin Coolidge (who may not have been so silent after a few Moscow Mules, one of the more popular drinks ‘round these parts), Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford. The wholly private resort isle, surrounded by five miles of lush beach, has been a favorite of GOPers since its inception, stretching back to the dawn of the 20th century.

Welcome, y’all, to Sea Island, the year-round tropical headliner of the Peach State’s barely-off-coast barrier Golden Isles, just a quickie 75-minute drive from Jacksonville, Fla.’s aerodrome, where you can shack up in either the (all-Spanish-styled) golf-course-surrounded Lodge (where a bagpiper dwells), central Cloister or in a rental cottage. Even boozier games of bingo while totally not-ironically donning a mandatory blazer (the crestier, the better).īoy howdy - you don’t have to be a Republican to party like one, down in Georgia. Boozy three-hour brunches ‘neath massive chandeliers. Shootin’ skeet with your favorite boomstick.

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