Displaced Beachbums

I’m going way back on my flashback today. It was 17 years ago that my beloved dog, Cosby and I were staying at my sister’s in Memphis & getting ready to move to the island of Lanai in Hawaii. I had been offered and accepted a fantastic, too-good-to-turn-down job on a management team for a new resort called The Lodge at Koele. I sent all my goods to Lanai ~ which amounted to a whopping 5 boxes of mostly photo albums. I graduated from college the year before, lived in a furnished house and would be moving to a furnished house. Traveling light was easy then.

Life was good ~ moving to Hawaii and a great new job ~ what could be wrong? It seemed that whenever my professional life was going very well, my personal life was in some sort of turmoil.

The team in Lanai wanted me there in June but I put them off a few weeks because my sister was pregnant and due in early July. I really wanted to see her baby before I moved so far away. Unfortunately, my now-17 year old niece had other plans. I was scheduled to fly on 10 July at 6:00 a.m. Wouldn’t you know it, at about 1:30 in the morning on 10 July, my sister woke me up to tell me she couldn’t drive me to the airport because her water just broke. What crazy timing.

So while my sister was having a baby, my dog and I were jetting off to Hawaii. To this day, I wish the timing had been better. My sister understood why I wasn’t there for K.’s birth and, as for the resort in Hawaii, it was one of the best & most rewarding jobs I ever had!

Happy 17th Birthday, K. ~ sorry I’m not there once again to help celebrate but I’m thinking of you and hope you have a great time!