(With the appropriate attribution and apology to Mr. Buffett)

One of the podcasts I listened to yesterday afternoon was the latest on David DuChemin’s A Beautiful Anarchy.  In it, David talks about the concept of Gargoyles as it relates to the “demons” we face in our lives, mostly as they relate to our creativity, but also as they relate to the filtering of all the so-called scary stuff we read and hear about daily.

Kathy & I have recently been having discussions about the idea of the ‘boogieman,’ or ‘monsters under the bed,’ as it relates to all of the conflicting information flowing from all corners of the world, and the fact that all of this stuff sounds scary until you figure out whether it is real or just stuff that is made up to scare us.  My thoughts are percolating on this subject and I may have more to say about it as I give it some more time.  Suffice it to say that a lot if the stuff that we react to – even if it does happen to be true – is way too often irrelevant to our own circumstances and only stands to get in our way.

Along similar but different lines, we struck up a conversation yesterday with a family who happens to have reserved beach chairs to ours that was interesting.  She happens to be a news anchor for a television station in Youngstown, OH, and was remarking about how few masks they saw on people down here.  She said that in Ohio it was unusual for people to not be wearing masks and that she was surprised.  Yesterday we were at the beach from about 8:00am until about 6:00pm and saw a total of 4 people wearing masks, out of the hundreds we saw parading up and down the beach.  Now, those same people might still be wearing masks to  the grocery store, I don’t know.  And of course we’re all outside and the beach – except at high tide – is pretty big.  But still.  Things have appeared to be quite a bit more relaxed here, whatever the reason.  It’s been nice to be away from all of the boogieman talk.

Kathy & I arrived in Hilton Head Island, SC yesterday for a week.  Hilton Head is our absolute favorite beach destination and we love to come here as often as we can.  There are other beaches that are “hoitier” and “toitier” than HHI but we find this to be just right for us.  Beautiful beach, nice restaurants (when we want to eat out) and convenient grocery stores and other services.

Our rationale is that we’re going to live here for a week just like we would live at home…with a better view!  We brought a supply of food so we can minimize our going out – just like home.  Interesting so far that – other than one gas station just south of Columbia – we haven’t seen a single person wearing a mask.  Take that however you want, but things are overall a bit more relaxed here than in the Big City.  We are on Island Time, after all!