Hilton Head’s ‘Lint trap of the Lowcountry’ finally writes his ‘I’m retiring’ column
We’ve got to stop meeting this way.
We’re going to have to, because I’ve decided to retire.
July 31 will be my last day at The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, a mere 43 years after walking in the door as a skinny kid who had just taught himself to type in 10 easy lessons.
People always ask what you’re going to do in retirement.
After 43 years in newspapers and two years of teaching at Thomas Heyward Academy in Ridgeland, you’ll find me curled up in the fetal position in the corner of a dark room.
I’ll give the newsroom one last tip when Sheriff P.J. Tanner sends out a Nixle alert about an unresponsive 66-year-old male, muttering incoherently about letters to the editor.
Actually, I will finally have time to put together a book of these columns. Whether it comes to market in a pandemic, we’ll have to see.
Also, editor Brian Tolley wants me to return with a weekly column after an appropriate break. I truly hope that comes to be.
Sybil and I will stay glued to the rock that has sustained us, beautiful Hilton Head Island.
And I’ll continue to tell our stories in “Lowcountry Lessons,” an adult Sunday school class at First Presbyterian Church.
It has been a privilege to be a part of the Packet’s journey as reporter, news editor, managing editor, editorial page editor and columnist. It has been a remarkable time, in a remarkable place, with remarkable people.
I treasure the three years I worked with The Raleigh Times in North Carolina, where our children, Burke and Ann Talley, were born.
But this is home.
I’m thankful to Packet publisher Ben Banks, who hired me. And publisher Sara Johnson Borton, who enabled us to have both an editorial page editor and a full-time columnist — something unheard of for a paper our size.
My editors — Tom Fesperman, Terry Plumb, Fran Bollin, Fitz McAden and Brian Tolley — have all been ethical, hard-working battlers for fairness, accuracy and public accountability. Not to mention proper grammar.
They allowed me — in fact implored me — to hit the ball as far as I could, every single day.
They held my hand, lifted me up, and had my back.
The paper and website they nourished will turn 50 this week.
But I’ve found that’s not really an accurate way to measure time here. Our era should be measured in dog years because we have packed seven years worth of wild and crazy stuff into every year of a half-century of people years.
A few weeks ago, I told Brian that it had finally gotten the best of me. Things were worrying me more than they used to, and it was time for me to let it go.
It’s been an honor to play a small part in this community’s fray. But, at least for me, the fray is getting more frayed and the so-called debates more personal. Maybe it’s just my age, but it now affords me great pleasure to turn the fray over to others.
In the journalism world, I will fondly cling to two Presidents Awards from McClatchy, both for column writing. The award is national in scope, and considered the highest honor for an employee of our parent company.
And our editorials have been judged best in South Carolina in two of the past three years.
But that’s not my story.
My story is a love affair with our readers, our people, our grand pageant of characters.
You have blessed me with the grandest honors our community has to offer. I got to hoist our brand new grandbaby, Bram, into the air while riding in a Bentley as grand marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I got to thank you at the Chamber ball, with the Good Citizenship Award.
Also, you have sent me countless notes of encouragement.
And that’s not all you have given me.
In fact, I have become the lint trap of the Lowcountry.
Every time you downsize, you bring me things that you just couldn’t bear to throw away.
And that brings us full circle.
The first of these columns, labeled “That’s That” when it began in 1984, included a number of sayings from my grandmother in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
People would ask Granny, “Mrs. Lauderdale, what have you been doing today?”
And she would say, “Piling up what I did yesterday.”
I’ve got a lot of yesterdays, and a lot of piles.
We’ll save our warm and loving goodbye for the end of the month.
It will take me that long to empty out this lint trap they call an office.
This story was originally published July 6, 2020 at 10:02 AM.
