What a difference a decade makes
I’m an electronic pack rat. I save files, realize they’re decades old and still keep them. I have copies of every Christmas letter I’ve written. I noticed the last one was 2014, it might be time for a new one.
In case you haven’t been counting, it’s been over 10 years since we moved to South Carolina. We occasionally say “y’all”, eat grits, and are still considered Damn Yankees, even though we outnumber the natives by about 10 to 1.
We have made several new friends here, most of them transplants, like us. My joke is that I knew I would meet a lot of new people here, but didn’t realize they would all have the same first name. Doctor.
Our interests have changed. I no longer autocross, in fact we only have (gasp) two cars. We do have a road legal golf cart, but I don’t count that. It’s almost required to have one here, and the best way to go the 4 blocks to the beach. I’ve become an entertainer. Shortly after moving here, I began classes in Improv. I figured with all my experience in not acting stunned when the factory reps came in with this week’s misguided program, or acting like I really didn’t want to kill a customer, I already had theater experience. I’ve since branched out into background acting. If you look carefully, you won’t see me in Outer Banks, The Righteous Gemstones, and a bunch of other streaming shows. I’m pretty good a blending into the scenery, and I’ve even gotten Carolyn to try her hand at hiding in plain sight. I also created a social media company by accident. It wasn’t planned, but can be entertaining. I am down to one customer, a local bar chain that is about as casual as casual can be, but hugely successful. We also house their online T-shirt shop in one of our bedrooms.
Carolyn has turned into the crazy cat lady they were talking about in the last election. This is as close to politics I will get, don’t worry. She volunteers two days at the Humane Society and feeds two feral cat colonies twice a week. Most of her casual clothing mentions animals in some form. We have a cat, Ziggy, we’ve been fostering. For 7 years. I don’t think he’s going back to the shelter anytime soon. Most of the furniture has fur, and some of it looks like it was attacked by a very short vandal. He does have the ability to tell time. Feeding time. At 5 am.
We have been fortunate with our neighborhood. It’s located next to everything, but not in the middle of it. Town has a festival? It’s one block over. Library? You can see it from our street. Beach? You can see it from the back of the house. Bars and restaurants? Easier to walk than to drive, and no parking hassle. We have a good group of core residents. Most of the homes are vacation homes, and unoccupied a great deal of the time. The full-time people help maintain the property, mostly as a retirement project. We share hosting of the various holidays, one family does Halloween, we do Thanksgiving, another does Christmas, etc. One special event is Bourbon Night. Randomly, my neighbors Bernie and Patty declare a bourbon night. Carolyn makes brownies (legal ones), several bottles are placed on the counter, and the problems of the world get solved. It works better than the United Nations.
We both hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday. No pressure. If you happen to wander somewhere South of the Border, look us up. We’re around most days, except for Wednesday and Friday, which are shelter days, and Mondays, which is a work day, and Saturday when I teach. Oh, and Wednesday is grocery shopping day also, we get a 5% senior discount. See Ya!
Kevin & Carolyn