Survived the South

We fled into the night last Tuesday, red-eyeing it to South Carolina, which has been the reunion locale of choice for my in-laws for several years now. As has happened the last couple of years, the temperatures went down when we arrived, staying in the high 60's to low 70's, too cold for the locals, whom I heard complaining about it not being good beach weather. Not for them, but for us who have spent the past several months damp and shivering in the cold rain, it felt paradisical. We walked on the beach, we took off our shoes and walked in the surf, we even went so far as to put on bathing garments and get into the water, swimming, body surfing and boogie boarding. We ate a variety of seafoods, from oysters to soft shell crabs, shrimp with grits cakes, which were more like polenta cakes, scallops, grouper, snapper and clams. We all pretty much got along. A testing moment for me was watching the Kentucky Derby, which displayed far too many good old rich white boys for my taste, and drunken ladies in stupid hats mewling the nutty lyrics to "My Old Kentucky Home." Criminently, some "traditions" are better off sinking into obscurity.
Sure was nice to be warm for once, though.