Homesick

Bluffton Today Column, December 8

Get out the record players because it is time for Courtney’s Broken Record Show. (Cue the Family Feud theme song.) Congratulations to the 13% of eligible voters in Bluffton who turned out for the local council elections on Tuesday. To the 87% who couldn’t muster the effort, I look forward to not hearing you complain until Election Day 2007.

Congratulations to Charlie Wetmore on his victory and thank you Charlie, for taking down your campaign signs immediately following the election. You kept your first promise and I look forward to your leadership in our town.

Moving on … as much I love Bluffton, living here, and being a part of the community, I can’t help but feel homesick at this time of the year. An email from my Aunt Maryalice back in Pennsylvania just before Thanksgiving started me on my annual “let’s move back North” campaign with Joe. Her email went like this …

“I'm remembering Thanksgiving's past ... when we were all together. You spent a few holidays in our home, and we traveled to yours. Our first Thanksgiving married, we were with your family in Brick (Mike was still eating baby food - he and Sharon sat next to each other in highchairs). One of my favorite Thanksgiving was 1997 - all of your family and mine were here. We celebrated the fact that Mike was in his first year of recovery … I loved watching all of you young cousins enjoying being with each other. And of course, two years ago when you and Joe came here ... I was so excited that you had moved closer to us. And now life is very different. The miles have grown, but really our love for you has never changed … now new traditions will grow. And we'll all find new ways to celebrate the holidays ... but the best is that the memories of holidays past, we get to keep.”

You are choked up right? And you don’t even know Aunt Maryalice. So, you can imagine how this email affected me. I cried when I first read it. I turned to Joe and told him that I wanted to move back home – I miss the family traditions, I miss our friends, and more than anything at this time of year I miss the weather, I miss the snow!

Ok, I know what you are thinking – move back home Courtney. But, please just read the rest of the story…

Since the temperatures here last week were still in the 70s and almost 80s I felt justified in my request to consider moving back to the cooler climates. I watched the news of impeding snow storms in the northwest and got misty-eyed. Until, snow almost ruined the day.

You see last Saturday Joe and I were attending a wedding. I panicked mid-week and decided that what I had in my closet would not do and I needed a new outfit. Fifteen minutes of midnight internet shopping later and I was set. I paid the extra $25 to expedite the shipping. When the package didn’t arrive as promised on Friday, I panicked. I called the shipping company to track the package and learned that my package had stalled in Chicago, where a pre-winter snow storm had stunned the city on Thursday. No phones, power outages, closed airports and my cashmere wrap was sitting in a box somewhere in a warehouse waiting for the weather to break.

I continued my desperate calls well into Friday night and learned that my package had made it out of the windy city and was en route to Savannah, but there was no way of knowing when it would arrive.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning prepared to go shopping for appropriate wedding garb and was out and about when my cell phone rang. “Hi Courtney, this is Kenny at DHL in Savannah, I have your package in my hands would you like to come and pick it up?”

Impressive right? I have to imagine that with all of the shipping delays that occurred in the days prior that Kenny was probably up to his eyeballs in customer service back log. However, he picked up the phone and called me.

When I got to DHL I was met my Kenny, with a smile and a Southern drawl – “You have a great day ma’am.” As I left the DHL warehouse at the Savannah airport I noticed the hours posted on the door – Saturdays 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. It was 1:30 p.m., Kenny has stayed late for me. And I was misty-eyed once again.

So, I’m over my need for snow and once again in love with the Lowcountry, I don’t think you can find better people anywhere in the world.