Columns

It’s funny to me that we should have a story on our front page this week and last with a connection to my old stomping grounds of Darlington County, S.C. It’s where I lived for most of the past two decades and where I met the man who became one of the best friends I’ll ever have in my life.

It’s only right as we celebrate Thanksgiving this week for me to introduce you to Dwight Dana, who inspired the name of my weekly column.

Until my kid brother Jim married and started a family of his own, the birthday of every member of my immediate family fell in the fall. My mom and dad had their birthdays (and wedding anniversary) last month, and Jim’s birthday was this past week.

A week or two ago, one of my friends from back in Florence, S.C., posted online a photograph she’d taken recently of a woman standing in a checkout line at a store somewhere around there. The woman had long pink and black hair and was wearing a long Renaissance-style black dress with lace around the hem and long sleeves with the shoulders cut out — punk rock hair and a witch’s outfit. My friend told the woman she liked her costume. The woman replied, “It’s not a costume.”

It began with a debate about town finances and ended with an array of remarks aimed at a controversial mayor four weeks before the election.

At the start of Sunset Beach Town Council’s pre-agenda work session Monday night, town administrator Gary Parker kicked things off by reading aloud prepared information about the town’s financial health.

Mayor Richard Cerrato’s belief in a “looming fiscal problem” at town hall shows his lack of knowledge and is an abominable statement to make because it is completely untrue, Parker said.