We went away for the weekend to Hilton Head. Most likely for the last time.
Way back in 1997 when a shop supervisor was wondering aloud to his production planner how to list his and some other owners condos for rent on the internet, a side hustle for yours truly was born. The supervisor was Jerry, the planner was my wife Donna and because I was dabbling in coding HTML she volunteered me.
Jerry and I hashed out a simple design for a front page with just a sub page for each individual condo. It started small, with just his condo and a few others of owners he had befriended. Over the next couple of years Jerry would add a few more condos as word spread. He and his wife Donna would go down to HHI from Aiken practically every weekend remodeling places and his business of managing condos took off.
In 1999 Jerry retired and he and Donna moved down to Hilton Head and at its peak they managed a couple dozen condos in the one complex and they personally owned three of them. All the while me and my Donna were going down a couple three times a year to take pictures for updating the web site. We always got comped a weekend in a condo and always a nice dinner out. What started as an acquaintance and business relationship had blossomed into friendship.
When Jerry the Condo King passed away in 2007 at the age of 71 his wife continued on with the business. And for the past dozen years Donna the Condo Queen has continued our, at least, yearly trips down for web page updating. But because it was just her doing the managing, the booking and some of the cleaning, the 25 condos has slowly dwindled down to nine. This summer Donna, having turned that same 71 years old, has decided it is time to smell some roses and will no longer be managing condos starting January 2020.
With no real web page updating left to do, other than a thanks for the business place holder page, and our possible move to Oregon, we went down for one last free weekend in an ocean front condo on the beach and a nice meal and visit with Donna the, soon to no longer be, Condo Queen.
We are not beach people at all and probably would have never set foot on Hilton Head Island at all1, but we will be eternally grateful to Jerry and Donna for giving us the opportunity over the last twenty-two years to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic. To walk along the wide sandy, usually uncrowded, beaches. To watch the dolphins frolic in the surf and the pelicans glide gracefully overhead. And most of all we will remember fondly the joy of their company.