How does a country boy from Michigan end up on the Gulf of Mexico? That would start with three marriages, three divorces, and a redhead who caught me at a weak moment. I knew that I wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship. My prospects were staying on my own or being with an attractive woman who happened to be heading to Florida. It seemed like a no brainer. It made even more sense after a cigar, and few fingers of bourbon.

And here is where we make the sausage, so to speak. Even after three marriages I had the temerity to think that I was ready, and capable to be in a relationship. I later realized that I hadn’t been ready from the very first, as I have been emotionally immature my entire life. But at the time, off I went into an unsure future with no clue as to what I was doing. And the reason I didn’t have a clue is because….no big surprise here…I don’t listen. If I would have listened I would have seen the signs that brought me to that beach. The evening I ended looking at the ocean I never even saw it coming.

I have worked retail since graduating college in 1980 and so when I had the opportunity to work on a grocery reset crew I jumped at it. A reset crew is a group of people who come into a grocery store and move it all around just to make you crazy because you can’t find anything. Usually this is done overnight, but there are times when it happens during the day. Resets are done for a number of reasons. To add items in, to take items out. To add facings, or to decrease the number of facings. When you are doing the reset you are also cleaning the shelves, and checking the dates on the products to ensure correct rotation. This was a good gig. It was good for me to have a structure to work in, and time to be on the beach. Drinking coffee, smoking a good cigar and trying to figure out how to be better. Working on the team also gave me the opportunity to explore places I never thought I would see. Miami. Little Havana. New Orleans. Mobile. Tuscaloosa. And the food? All the foods a white bread boy from Michigan had never even thought of.

I was living a broken down trailer in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida that looked pretty much like a Meth Lab. Two miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Working Sunday through Thursday overnights with all of my weekends off. And I wasn’t happy.

I was surrounded by people, but I was lonely. And I had not yet learned that that was okay. I had been watching for a job opening in South Carolina, and when one was posted I jumped on it. This was a huge step for me to have a job before I got to where ever it was I ended up. My usual method of planning involved two fingers of bourbon, and good cigar. I lit up, packed up, waved a farewell to the Meth Lab and headed out.

In 2020 Covid happened. The job I took when I came to SC dried up as the country shut down. And I shut down further. No matter how congenial the company was, Columbia, South Carolina was no place for a man who was all wrapped up in himself. I was kidding myself that I could love anyone when I didn’t love myself. What I did love was an idea my eldest daughter had. So, I lit a cigar, put my car in gear, and headed West.