His home had no running water and no electricity, and there were no paved roads, no stoplights, no marinas and no bridges anywhere on Hilton Head Island. But there was food on the table, friends to play with, school to attend and work to do every day.

This was life on Hilton Head Island in the 1930s, not just for Charles Simmons Jr., now 85 years old, and his family, but for all of the other native black islanders as well.

It was a good Gullah life, a life apart from the big wide world around them, except for the occasional trips to Savannah by boat for groceries, clothes, and socializing with family and friends.

For many, Hilton Head Island and Bluffton have provided an alternative from the fast pace of metropolitan areas, offering friendly, familiar faces and a strong sense of community. The way of life and pace here is relaxed, casual and easy.

The draw of Hilton Head has lured many visitors to trade their one week of the year for a lifelong vacation. The abundance of activities and diversions are endless.

Living in paradise certainly doesn’t eliminate commutes, deadlines and Monday mornings, however it offers happiness and fulfillment outside of routine; it keeps the focus centered on what is important in life.

Some things in life are just plain special, and farmers markets are special in many ways.

It’s not just the fresh, locally-grown produce in abundance in the soil of our rural neighborhoods, but also specialties like jams and pickles, sweet honey, the distinct fragrance of herbs, cultivated flowers, organic eggs and more.

Farmers markets on Hilton Head Island and in Bluffton possess a unique spirit that transcends the physical presence of food stands, rows upon rows of fruits and vegetables, and the strumming of local musicians.

MUSICIAN DAVID WINGO REMEMBERS A WILD AND SOMEWHAT LAWLESS UNINCORPORATED HILTON HEAD BACK IN THE LATE 1970S WHEN HE ARRIVED FROM ATLANTA WITH A BATCH OF ORIGINAL TUNES AND DREAMS OF CARVING OUT A FULL-TIME LIVING MAKING MUSIC IN AN EMERGING PARADISE.

Bales of contraband would wash up on local shores courtesy of waterborne area smugglers and an ensuing massive drug bust (Operation Jackpot) was followed by word that one of the crooks had buried a sizable cache of cash somewhere in Spanish Wells. So it became local sport, usually after a few drinks, to make like latter-day pirates and go on early morning hunts for buried treasure.

“It was like a Jimmy Buffett song back then,” smiles Wingo, who would soon go on to become the island’s first rock star.

LIVE MUSIC MEN
From left; Mark Ruplinger from the Old Post Office Emporium, Jesse Watkins of the The Mundahs, John Cranford of Cranford Hollow, Tristan O’Grady of the Big Bamboo Cafe, musician Martin Lesch and Thomas Reilley of The Boardroom.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE DAILY LIFE OF TOURING MUSICIAN JOHN CRANFORD

I’M sitting in the last row of the Cranford Hollow tour wagon, a 12-passenger Ford van with a 17-foot trailer attached to it. We are somewhere east of Dublin, Ga., heading home to our favorite place on Earth. This tour started about two weeks ago on St. Patrick’s Day weekend with a slew of local shows — the Boardroom’s Fat Tuesday Party, the Wine and Food Festival, the Hilton Head St. Patrick’s Day throwdown in the Wild Wing Cafe parking lot and Monday in Savannah’s City Market, playing to a sea of thirsty green revelers. The Savannah show was so rowdy, Savannah-Chatham Police police got onstage at one point and threatened to shut it down, due to the 50-person mosh pit and excessive crowd surfing.

We left immediately after our Savannah show and headed to the panhandle of Florida for a week-long Spring Break run in the Panama City area. Then we moved westward. We camped out in St. Augustine, trying to lay down eight tracks in four days at Retrophonic Studios.

WHO SAYS you can’t do it all?

MONTHLY SALUTES LOCAL MOMS WHO BALANCE FAMILY WITH BUSINESS

Career or motherhood?

Do you have to sacrifice one to be truly successful in the other? For many women in the Lowcountry, the answer is an emphatic “no.”

So, how does one balance the ever-so-delicate dance between work and home life?

We asked 10 working mothers in the Lowcountry to share their secrets of success. Here are their responses.

“ Proof of Santa will come on Christmas Day, offline, in real time”

When I was a kid, Santa became real to me every Christmas morning with a simple kick of my foot.

I don’t know how it all went down at your house, but in ours, Santa would fill our empty stockings in the living room and then leave them at the foot of our beds to find in the morning. The stockings had been crocheted by my grandmother using a grandmother’s generosity and some sort of elastic yarn, so each elephant trunk stocking easily stretched across the width of a twin bed. (“Favorite Grandmother” status: Secured.)

YOU MAY THINK YOU ENJOY THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE. AND TO SOME EXTENT, THAT'S PROBABLY TRUE.

YOU MAY SLIP YOUR FEET INTO FINE ITALIAN LEATHER, DRESS YOURSELF IN CUSTOMTAILORED SUITS, DRIVE AN EXOTIC EUROPEAN SPORTS CAR, AND CONSIDER THE HIGH LIFE LIVED. But even the concept of luxury living isn’t safe from that most elemental concept of the sea: There’s always a bigger fish. For every beachfront mansion, there’s a beachfront compound. For every pricey meal, there’s one served in a restaurant that only a handful of people can afford to enter. The scale of luxury climbs to dizzying heights, creating a level of opulence that those of us below the clouds can only dream of. We ventured to the highest spires of luxury and are pleased to present our findings on how the other one percent lives.

A resource and a reminder about why we live here

• ACTIVE ADULT LIVING
• BEACH
• BEAUTY
• BUSINESS
• CRIME (LACK OF)
• CULTURE
• FAMILY
• FUN
• LIFESTYLE
• WEATHER
• RECREATION
• SCHOOLS
• HEALTHCARE