Sea
Island, Georgia
June 2006
"The Marys"
We planned to go to our company golf tournament on St. Simon’s
“No can do,” he responded, “I have a family reunion that
weekend.”
“Okay”, we thought, “we’ll just do the best we can
without them.”
We booked our accommodations. Thursday night, we’d stay at the Best Western Island Inn and then move to the King and Prince for the rest of the weekend and the tournament.
In the weeks before the tournament, as the plans for the family
reunion firmed up, Mook decided to invite our group to come by during the family reunion. Granted, it was not OUR family reunion, but that
didn’t matter to us, so of course, we accepted his invitation. The reunion would include an entire weekend of
activities on
Tony, Karla (aka “Silent Partner”) and I decided to fly to
As we were learning the connections between all of our various new relatives, we discovered that there was a number of “Marys”. Mary Ann and Mary Helen were our favorites. Mary Ann (aka “Retired Mary”) was celebrating the beginning of her retirement from a long teaching career.
It was at this point that we decided that if we were to fit into this
family, we might need to change our names to Mary something.
We were having such a wonderful time that we lost all track of time. By the time we decided to leave for dinner, all of
the restaurants in St. Simon’s had closed. Even
the Burger King had locked their doors 15 minutes before the sign on the door said they
closed. We finally found McDonald’s open
and settled for Big Macs-to-go, which we ate by the pool back at the Best Western. A snoring concert ensued after the six of us had
settled down. Karla said she woke up at one
point humming, “The cattle are lowing…”
Friday morning, Karla, Booby, Woo and I donned our golf attire,
packed our bags, waved goodbye to Sister Rie and Tony and headed for the course for our
practice round. It was the most beautiful day
I can remember on a golf course. The
temperature was perfect and there was a wonderful breeze.
The course had put a bucket of range balls on our cart. Since Karla and I didn’t need to practice, we
kept the bucket in the basket on our cart. When
we got to a hole where we would be hitting over water, we just teed up a range ball and
wailed away. Most of the time, we made it
over, but there was one hole where we each put about 6 range balls in the water before we
made it over. The boys were too proud to use
range balls, so they put their expensive balls in the water or the marsh. Each time one of them hit a ball into the water or
marsh, I would offer, “Range ball?”
When we finished the round, we met Tony and Sister Rie at our suite
at the King and Prince. We quickly donned our
swimsuits and headed for the pool to cool off. Mook’s
parents, Jean and The Man, had a room that opened onto one of the pools and they
graciously opened it to us as our hospitality suite. Much
to our delight, they had all manner of cocktails and snacks.
We played in the pool until it was time to get ready for the next family
reunion activity. We had a little trouble
operating the shower in one of the bathrooms, but after two calls to the front desk, Booby
finally figured it out (“On”), so we were all able to get cleaned up for the
party. I made nametags for each of us to wear
to the family reunion. We were “Mary
BJ”, “Mary Tony”, “Mary JeRie”, “Mary John”, “Mary
Karla” and “Mary Bobby”.
Sister Rie drove Jean and The Man to the party. I drove Sister Rie’s car with Karla and Woo
while Tony drove our rental car with Booby. When
we got to the right turn onto Frederica, Woo (a little hard of hearing) piped up from the
back seat and said, “Fred Erica, I never really looked at it that way until I heard
Karla say it.” Silent Partner hadn’t
said anything, so we got a big laugh. Frederica
was pronounced “Fred Erica” for the rest of the trip.
Mary Helen, Mary Ann and the rest of the family got a big kick out of their new cousins Mary.
Mook had rented a huge grill and was cooking the most wonderful smelling brisket and we enjoyed more of Mook’s homemade wine, and met more new relatives, while we waited for dinner. When dinner was served, even Tony and I, discriminating BBQ judges, declared the brisket to be award winning!
We took the “Tour of Home” to see what amazing things Mary
Helen had done with the place. I think I
counted seven bathrooms. Can that be right, or
am I counting some twice? There were 3
dishwashers and two washer/dryers. The house
even had an elevator and maid’s quarters! Exhausted
from all of the eating and drinking, three of the Marys headed back to the hotel and to
bed, but the other three went out to find the golf crowd.
Saturday morning was the first official day of the golf tournament. Sister Rie got up and packed our “lunch” for us and sent us out to the course. Booby had an exceptional day at golf, while the others of us struggled along, wishing we had brought a bucket of range balls.
Mook and company were strolling past the golf course, saw us and strolled over just in time to see Karla win a new putter with her “closest to the pin” shot!
Back at the hotel, it was another afternoon of frolicking in the pool
and enjoying Jean and Jack’s hospitality suite.
Late in the afternoon, we wandered down to the beach to find the rest of our new family enjoying the sunshine and waiting for the traditional family reunion shaving cream fight to begin.
I spotted the only infant in the crowd and latched onto it, thinking that I could use the baby as a shield to avoid being slathered with shaving cream.
It worked for awhile, but when they finally discovered my plan, it
turned out that I was just helpless to defend myself as I tried to protect the baby. Curious onlookers enjoyed the show.
After the shaving cream fight, we cleaned ourselves up and went to the golf tournament dinner party. After a delicious seafood buffet, there was dancing to music provided by a disc jockey.
It was not really our kind of music so we opted to go back to the
room and watch The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Mary
Helen and Mary Ann stopped by to get us to go out for a night cap, but we needed our
beauty sleep.
Sunday morning was muggy and buggy for those of us on the golf course. It really affected our game.
Tony and Sister Rie headed over to Mary Helen’s for brunch.
Tony snuck up to the swinging bed to read his book while he waited
for us. We finished the round and headed for
Mary Helen’s. We got there just in time
to change clothes, say our goodbyes and head for the airport. We had to sweat the flight home since it was a bit
tight, but some seats opened up at the last minute so we made it home.
Another great trip and a great new family!
BJ and Tony Morris
bj@bjandtony.com