Honeymooners

Leaving Death in the Dust

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“Honeymoons are the beginning of wisdom, but the beginning of wisdom is the end of romance.” ~ Helen Rowland

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For as long as I can remember, I have had a strange fascination with the southern U.S. that began with stories they told us about Abraham Lincoln in school, movies like Song of the South that are taboo today, and books I had read like North and South. There was just something different about it that seemed mysterious and filled me with curiosity. Mom had spent the summer I turned 14 in Beech Island, South Carolina training for her new job at Kimberly Clark, a diaper and paper products manufacturer. She brought home souvenirs and talked about the people, the ocean, and historic Savannah, GA in a way that made it all sound as captivating as the plantation moss that hung from its giant oak trees. By the time I met Todd and his southern accent, I had already spent the first summer between my high school graduation and first quarter of college working in KC’s summer intern program to help earn money for tuition and planned on working there a second summer as well. It seemed as if the entrance of Todd Schaible into my life, who had made his southern upbringing sound a bit utopian in a way that may have set me up for an eventual and very disheartening reality check as the newness of it all wore off, had been arranged by destiny.