My musical tastes have always been varied and eclectic. I still love the loud rock and roll of my youth, but only occasionally when I’m feeling nostalgic. I am still stirred by Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto, and the almost painful beauty found in the music of Miles Davis. There is very little music I don’t like. Most any time you stop by my office, my iPod will be setting the mood for the work I have planned for the day. But, nothing is as exciting and inspiring as live music, and, September 21st will mark the beginning of the 20th season of the Pawleys Island Festival of Music & Art. For two weeks, some of the best musicians in the country will be performing under the big tent in Litchfield Plantation, as well as providing musical instruction and experience for local high school students. Always changing and growing, the Festival has added an exciting visual arts component this year, including a film festival, a Chalk Walk and a gallery crawl. I can’t wait!

I hope to see you there.

A man drove up to me in the Wal-Mart parking lot three weeks ago. He had two young boys in the back of his car and told me he had driven into town from the next state over to attend his grandmother’s funeral. He needed gas to get back home and asked me for money. I didn’t know whether to feel sympathy at his plight, anger at being taken advantage of because deep down I suspected he was lying, or pity that any father would be reduced to begging from a total stranger in front of his children. I gave him some. Three weeks later, it is still bothering me.

A year beforehand, outside a different grocery store in Florida, a woman approached me in a similar scenario. She told me that her car had broken down, and she needed money to help get it fixed so she could drive home to Georgia. I refused. The situation was similar, my response totally opposite, but the one thing that remained the same was that after I drove off, I couldn’t shake it. It bothered me for weeks afterwards. One year later, I still wonder if I should have given her some.

I consider myself a good person and always try to do the right thing, but the next time someone approaches me in a parking lot, I still don’t know what that right thing is. If someone comes up to you and asks you for money, if you are able to, should you give it to them? Does their reason even matter? They must be desperate or they wouldn’t beg; nobody begs unless they have to. I have offered before to make a phone call for people but, when all they want is cash, it pricks my conscience to just keep walking.

Three weeks later, I can’t believe this is still on my mind. I am not like some people – if something is bothering me, I have a hard time shaking it off and moving on. The issue or incident lurks in the recesses of my mind, waiting to pop up whenever my brain is not pre-occupied. When it does, it routinely casts a cloud of self-doubt that gnaws at my usually clear and sunny conscience. It is not just limited to strangers in parking lots. Over the years, there have also been times when I’ve made a comment or said something to someone that I’ve later regretted. Days after, I’m still questioning myself and, invariably, I have to go back to that person and apologize – only then can I restore the status quo of my conscience. Strangers in parking lots don’t give you that luxury.

I consider myself to be one of life’s optimists so any negativity, regardless of how trivial it appears to others, weighs heavy on my mind. The irony is, the older I get, the greater the sense of self-confidence and inner peace I feel. Age has blessed me with clarity, and clarity has rewarded me with something that I never thought I would gain – growing acceptance of my flaws, my quirks, regrets and mistakes, and surprisingly, even my body. Nowadays, I’m just excited that it works even if it does hang looser and lower than it used to. My once youthful body has been replaced by the mind of a wiser woman, and if wrinkles are the price you pay for wisdom, I’m okay with that. Age has also re-affirmed my values, priorities, loves and wants. Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about “loving” yourself.

I don’t think I really started loving myself until I hit my forties. Gone is the nervous twenty-year old too serious for her own good, and changed is the anal, 30-year old always secretly and overly-worried about what others thought. The new-and-improved me is closer to 50 than 40, with greater confidence, patience, tolerance and empathy. I solve the problems that I can and give myself permission to let go of the ones I can’t. I have more growing to do but I am content – which is why when something throws a rock into my peaceful pond and three weeks later ripples of self-doubt still linger, it bothers me.

I watched a show on television once about good Samaritans. The producers staged several situations of people (who were actors) in various scenarios of “need,” for example, crying on the roadside. They then secretly filmed the reaction of passing members of the general public. Most people walked on by with no offer to help. I understood their hesitancy to enter into an unknown situation, plus, in today’s world, who knows if you are opening yourself up to danger. Nevertheless, I hoped I’d be one of the people who stopped. I’d be lying if I said I definitely would be though. It depends on the circumstances. Sad but true.

I realize that the parking-lot-asking-for-money scenario is a “lose-lose” situation. Part of me loathes that I gave him money because, in my mind, I feel taken advantage of. Also, should I feel foolish for taking out my purse when he probably could have grabbed the whole thing in a matter of seconds? I wish I didn’t think that. I also wish I didn’t suspect that he was supporting a habit that probably had more to do with drugs than his grandmother’s funeral. On the other hand, l like to think I’m the sort of person willing to help his fellow man, because, what if their plight was genuine? Whether I walk away or put my hand in my purse, my action, or inaction will dwell on my conscience for weeks, and I will never know if their motivation was pure. There is one thing I am certain of though: It will gnaw at me for weeks after.

I may love myself.

But I hate that.

Okay, okay, I am finally on facebook. I was not inclined to join, but I was shamed into it by my two-year-old grandson. No, he has not been allowed to sign up quite yet. He can’t work the keypad properly, though he does pretend to.

Here is how it happened. This tiny kid, who until recently thought watching the ceiling fan spin the greatest thing in the world, was walking around with his father’s travel brush, the kind that folds in half and has soft bristles on one side and a mirror on the other. He had been observing me talk on my cell phone (yes, I have one, but don’t ask me how to use all the apps), and I could almost see him thinking. He opened the brush part way to an “L” and placed it next to his ear.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m talking to Grandpa,” he said. He listened briefly, then shut the “phone” and said, “No one was home.”

My daughter asked, “Did you leave a message?”

“No,” my grandson said, and immediately put the brush back up to his ear and “dialed” again. This time, with a little prompting from his mother, he left a message: “Hello, Grandpa. This is Adam. Call me.”

He hung up but then opened the brush again and started to dial once more.

“Who are you calling now?” his mother said.

“Grandma.”

“But she’s right here,” she said. “Why are you calling?”

“Grandma is my friend,” he said.

After my daughter stopped laughing, she turned to me and said, “You’ve been friended.” My grown kids tell me I’m a dinosaur. They can’t believe that compared to several of my colleagues I am actually high tech. One of them calls to ask me to explain how to do the simplest things, like change the font on a manuscript or add a symbol to the text. I can do that. Another wondered how she could use emoticons in her emails. I told her. Small stuff, I admit, but they didn’t know how to do it, and I did.

No one as yet can follow me on Twitter. The only tweeting I do is to my pet cockatiel Eloise. I just started blogging because it is very close to my regular kind of writing. I write about my garden and the birds I love to watch in my backyard. I don’t always have someone around when an early morning neon goldfinch pops open my sleepy eyes so I share that experience on my blog. So far I only have a few comments but it doesn’t bother me; it is the sharing aspect that I like.

I am a member of some professional sites and have been asked to be an online friend to a variety of people on those. Sometimes I say yes, other times I decline.

I know it is important to network but this skill is not natural for me. I still like the idea of being a friend in person. I take the idea of friendship seriously. This online friending seems of a lighter quality. Maybe I would have less difficulty with the concept if we could “acquaintance” each other though I think, “You’ve been acquaintanced!” is a bit more cumbersome.

I know it is just a matter of time before I see an email from my grandson asking me to join him on facebook. I won’t have to think twice about it. I will press accept. And frankly, network-challenged as I am, I will look forward to connecting with him on whatever new possibility will arise by the time he is ready. He can teach me how to be his friend while I teach him about life.

On September 1, at the tender age of 59, I found myself in Venice Beach, California, taking a surfing lesson. Lauren Wells, a 20-year-old surfer, promised she could get me up on a board in one day. I really wanted to surf before I turned 60. The lesson began at 8 am sharp. We stood by our bicycles, surfboards tucked under our arms, prepared to ride a mile to the chosen beach spot. There was a good breeze that morning, and I had a vision of my tall form becoming the axis around which the weathervane of a surfboard might decide to spin.

I convinced Lauren that I really didn’t mind walking the mile to our destination. When we arrived, we lay on our boards in the sand, pretending we were in the water in search of the first wave. At the right moment, just as I felt the fictional wave begin to push my board, I paddled hard three times. After hoisting myself up with my arms, palms flat on the board, I commanded my legs to jump up and prepared to place them at perpendicular angles to and near the back of the board.

There was a definite pause. Then my legs gave a half-hearted push, resulting in my hands holding me up on the board and my legs at half-mast. The next thing that was supposed to happen was that I would let go of the board and spring up into a relaxed, well-balanced stance and ride the wave in.

Instead, we did a little yoga to loosen up. I did the pigeon, back twist, cobra, sun salutation and a few down dogs just for good measure. I felt I was ready, and we headed for the water. Lauren suggested we start with the white water which I learned is the large pool of foamy stuff that happens after the wave actually crashes upon the shore.

Many people aren’t aware that, even at this point, a follow-up wave comes to beat down anyone who is still on their board in case they haven’t fallen off yet. It’s Mother Nature’s way of reminding us who is really in charge.

Just before entering the water, Lauren gave me a quick lesson on surfers’ etiquette. “You generally give locals and more experienced surfers the right of way.” I squinted out at ten people on their surfboards and tried to identify the locals. It was easier to identify the experienced surfers. They were those not riding the waves with their knees at half-mast gripping their surfboards. “Generally, if you don’t do this, you can get beaten up pretty badly,” Lauren continued. “But they’re nicer to women,” she added reassuringly. This was just the confidence boost I needed.

“Also, you need to do the stingray shuffle.” Lauren explained that there are often schools of stingrays lying in the sandy bottom of the ocean between you and the wave. If you shuffle your feet in the sand while moving out toward the waves, they feel the vibrations and most likely scurry away. The mention of sting rays reminded me of the recent news story where the Australian wild animal enthusiast with his own TV show was skewered to death by a sting ray.

We approached our first wave.

While doing a great stingray shuffle, I found that the undertow was making its own vibration. I fixed my sights on the wave line and fought my way towards it with the determination of a salmon swimming upstream in mating season.

After I was dragged back to shore several times, my teacher suggested we hop on the boards (lying down, of course) and paddle out. The thought occurred to me that perhaps I would be satisfied with learning to do just this, thereby avoiding hostile local surfers who I could easily see coming toward me. If they were considering assault, I reasoned, the wave would carry them past me to shore, giving me time to escape.

After much struggle, we arrived just past the wave line and got ready for our first wave. I lay outstretched on my board. I felt a definite wave nudge at my board and paddled hard three times. Sure enough, the wave gave me a great ride to the shore in my horizontal position.

How exhilarating! “Let’s do that again,” I cheered.

I was determined. Stingray shuffle. Paddle out. Jump the waves. Turn toward shore. The nudge from the wave. Paddle, paddle, paddle. Up! To my astonishment, I found myself on my knees grasping the sides of the board and promptly fell over into the stew of foam. As an added insult, my board bonked me on the head when I tried to stand up.

“Gee,” I said, after my coughing spasm subsided,”I guess I just made that mistake you were telling me a lot of beginners make – gripping the sides of the board.”

Lauren agreed that I had.

Out we went again. This time, with great presence of mind, I jumped to my knees with my hands planted firmly and flatly on the board and rode the wave in effortlessly. The next time out, I let go of the board and stood firmly on my knees all the way in. Time for a rest.

Did I ever stand all the way up and do a pipeline? I didn’t.

I was sure I could succeed the next day after a good night’s rest, a carb-loaded breakfast, three yoga classes and two shopping sprees, which we did. Unfortunately, after all this took place, the sun had set, and I had to head back to Tucson the next morning.

What can be learned from this experience?

First of all, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but the dog has to be able to stand on a wobbling object going 20 mph.

Second, beware of 20-somethings in bikinis.

Last, but not least, don’t try to fool Mother Nature. She knows you’re 59 even if you are in denial.

I don’t like wine. Okay. There, I’ve said it. In public. To the masses. I only like to go to a wine bar if it is with a person who is whining. That way, I can offer some cheese and eat some myself.

I am opposite of a wine snob. If someone asks me what kind of wine I like, the only comment I can say is, “The kind that doesn’t taste like someone soaked their feet in it for four years.”

For a long time I just told people wine made me ill, as in, “Wine makes me have to go to the bathroom, NOW.” At which point the offer of wine was rescinded, and I went on my way with my diet drink.

Then, a few years ago, before I became wise and wore comfortable shoes and decided that most of the world is wearing its underpants pulled up to its armpits, I thought I would try, in earnest, to look cool and drink wine and talk myself into liking it.

Learning the names of a few that I could tolerate was my starting point. To my delight, I found that Riesling didn’t give me the vapors and cause my face to react like I had just been forced to swallow varnish. It was fun drinking out of a stemmed glass, swirling it round and sticking my nose in it to smell the bouquet. (Yeah, right. If I want to smell a bouquet, I smell roses.)

Each sip I took it was just like me driving in Ireland. Every few seconds I said, “Stay on the left.” But with wine, I kept repeating, “You like this stuff. You look like a grownup drinking it.”

The real test came after noting there is a hierarchy in wine drinking. White, a semi-sweet Riesling, isn’t the stuff that wine snobs relish. Nope. They like the red wine. The kind that while drinking it you are convinced that you are licking the un-sanded, wood side of a barn. And the aftertaste splinters your tongue.

Merle Streep’s acting had nothing on me when I would say, “Yes. I taste a tad bit of blackberry. And my, isn’t this full-bodied?” Then I would have to find my Motrin for my headache and blot my nose with powder as something in the wine caused my Roscea to blossom into a real bouquet of redness.

A friend of mine said there is nothing like a glass of red wine and a steak. I agree with her…about the steak. She said the wine relaxes her. But it doesn’t relax me. Wine causes me to jitter and to lift my shirt over my head. And after that, I cry. Wine makes me think nobody loves me, that I have an incurable disease and the bridge up the road isn’t nearly as high and dangerous to jump off as some people believe.

It astounds me when I read about, or see on television, a person who has a wine cellar with 42,473 bottles of wine in it. Like that makes them more cultured and refined than myself.

Anyone who bragged about having 42,473 bottles of Bud Light in a closet would, by most standards, be considered to have a pretty bad drinking problem.

While out to dinner with some friends recently, a bottle of wine was ordered for the table. Each of us had a glassful. The wine tasted like peach pits had fermented in rubbing alcohol. Since we were guests, I said nothing. I gave a pleasant smile in gratitude for the small portion I was served.

I know it might not be considered elegant, but after a recent talk with myself and my taste buds, I have decided that it is time for me to stop whining about wine, put a cork in it, stop with the sour grapes and when someone asks me what kind of wine I like, I tell the truth.

I’m allergic to wine.

It’s just easier that way.

Retired educator Christy Judah is not only a prolific author who’s written thirteen books on local history and search and rescue training, she also founded, and continues to lead, the Brunswick County Search and Rescue Team. This 501 (c) (3) non-profit is an all volunteer organization and currently has five trained dogs and handlers. Christy and Wendy Long, a nurse at New Hanover Regional Medical Center and volunteer dog handler, sat down with Sasee to talk about the passion they have for their work.

Christy, how did you get started with search and rescue?

I’m giving away my age, [laughing] but I had been invited to my 30th high school reunion and couldn’t attend. Afterward, I got a call from one of my classmates asking why I didn’t come and found out he was the head of a search and rescue team in Robeson County [North Carolina]. I was interested in learning more, and he put me in touch with someone in Wilson County who helped me to begin training Bailey, my English Springer Spaniel. After more than a year of training, we were ready to search, but there was no organized team in our area.

Wendy and I planned the first meeting, rented a room and ran an ad in the newspaper. We formed a search team in 1998 and became a 501 (c) (3) non-profit in 1999. There are five certified dogs and handlers on our team.

What’s involved in being certified?

Christy: The training is very intensive, taking more than a year to complete. The certification test is tough. The dog and handler are taken to a strange place and tested on finding live humans, human remains and water rescue. Certification must be renewed every two years to make sure the animal is healthy and able to search. All dogs and handlers must attend trainings at least three times a month, as well as keep logs and document each search and training.

There is not one best breed of dog for search and rescue. It depends on the drive of the dog. Bailey searches “off lead.” I take him to our assigned area and give him the command to find. He then winds through the area and if he catches the scent of a person, he’ll keep honing in until he finds him or her. But, Bailey has been trained not to bother the person he finds, so he’ll run back to me and put his paws on my shoulders to let me know he’s found someone. Not all dogs are “air scenters.” Bloodhounds, for example, are taken to where the missing person was last thought to be and given a scent to follow on the ground.

After the search is over, Bailey is rewarded with food, petting and lots of love. He expects a party every time! These dogs are so highly trained. They all are taught to never bother any other animal in the woods and to ignore all distractions while they are searching. Every dog doesn’t make it through the training.

Wendy: Our dogs completely understand what we want from them. One of the biggest challenges for the handler is to trust your dog. Women tend to be very good at this type of trusting relationship and are usually more animated with their dog. Christy has a great reputation with law enforcement, but sometimes it is hard. You know it’s going to cost thousands of dollars to dig where your dog says a body is buried. No dog is 100% right, but they do know the difference between a deceased human being, and, say, a pet buried in the yard.

There is a science to scent – it emanates in a cone shape. If you burn a cone of incense and watch the smoke, you’ll understand what I’m saying. Everything has scent. We use a scent machine for training that mimics what the dogs will encounter while searching during the special water recovery training sessions.

Tell us about one of your more interesting searches.

Christy: There are many old cemeteries in our area, and Bailey and I have helped to identify graves that are unmarked. Trained search dogs can find graves that are as much as 200 years old, unless they are in very acidic soil which dissolves the remains. I got a call from a gentleman in his 80s who asked if I would help him find an old slave graveyard that he believed held the remains of his ancestors. I agreed, of course, and we went trucking through the woods – I wasn’t certain that we would find anything – and found the cemetery. We brought dogs in from other search and rescue organizations and found 78 gravesites! The cemetery is on Mary Hemingway’s former plantation. She was a pre-Civil war plantation owner who was thought to have owned over 200 slaves. For a woman to own this much land and property at that time was very unusual. I have written a few books on the history of Brunswick County – it’s another one of my passions. (The Legends of Brunswick County: Ghosts, Pirates, Indians, and Colonial North Carolina, and The Two Faces of Dixie: Politicians, Plantations, and Slaves.)

Yesterday we searched Lake Waccamaw for a drowning victim and were successful. We have a search and rescue boat with a side scan sonar that we were able to purchase last year after securing grant funding from several sources. The dogs stay in the boat and are able to accurately alert the handler to a body underwater.

Wendy: A seven-year-old, mentally challenged boy went wandering in the woods and, when his dog came home without him, was reported missing. We started searching for him around midnight, and he had been gone since about 3 pm. So many things can happen to a child alone in the woods, so we knew this was very serious. He was found about 10 minutes before dawn – we spotted his shoes, and he was sitting nearby, crying because he couldn’t find them. It was touch and go for a few minutes because he didn’t want to go with us. If he had run off again, there’s no telling how long it would have taken us to find him. I managed to calm him down and the search ended successfully.

Before we left, we were able to meet Bailey, and Wendy’s dog, Beau, an eight month old English Springer Spaniel, who is currently in training to becoming certified as a search and rescue dog. As we were saying goodbye, Christy’s five year old grandson came in the room and began chattering excitedly. Christy looked at him, smiled and told me, “This is why we do this…”

Christy’s books are available at www.christyjudah.com. For more information about search and rescue, or to join the Brunswick Search and Rescue Team, please contact Christy at christyjudah@atm.net, visit www.brunswicksar.org or contact Wendy, new member chairperson, at resqdiva@hotmail.com or 910-612-5911.

I don’t think it ever occurs to any mother who first lays eyes on her newborn how short a time she will really have with him or her. Our bloated bellies and swollen ankles become forgotten memories when we see the pink bundle with fuzzy hair screaming and kicking and capturing our hearts.

We ooh and aah and cuddle them close as we bond with these tiny creatures. The connection is loving, but also fierce. We vow to protect them, take care of them and guide them.

As the years go by, the perils of child rearing test our patience and endurance. Often times, we ask ourselves, “What was I thinking when I decided to have kids?” Other times, we cherish the moments of all the “firsts” we encounter: first words, first steps, first tooth, first homerun, first date, etc. We melt when they hug us; we cry when they fall; we marvel at their progress.

The pre-teen years prepare us, the teen years exasperate us, and the preparing for college years drains our bank accounts. They go miles away to get a higher education, join the military or simply become productive members of society.

We keep their rooms just as they left them until it’s time to convert them into a hobby room or extra bedroom. We don’t really face the reality that they may be gone forever until they are actually – well, gone forever.

Many of my friends have children who never left town. They went to a nearby college, married their high school sweetheart, bought a house two miles away, appear every Sunday for dinner and have presented them with picture-perfect grandchildren. Hooray for them, I say. But there are pangs of jealousy when I see them at the park, digging in the sand with their second generation flock.

The smaller majority of my friends (including me) were not so lucky. Their children left for college and never returned. Oh, they popped in during summer and Christmas vacations, but for the most part, they were no longer permanent residents of the place that cradled them.

Both of my sons left their South Texas nest right out of high school. They chose colleges far away due to scholarship offers and freedom. In some ways, I was happy for them to have this opportunity to be on their own; to understand what it meant to separate the darks from the whites when doing laundry, to realize that food did not just appear out of nowhere when they were hungry and to understand the meaning of the word “budget.”

My older son met his wife in college. Then they moved even farther away. Today, they live a thousand miles from me as do my five grandchildren.

My younger son chose an acting career which took him to college in Chicago, then a move to Los Angeles, a move to New York and a move back to Los Angeles. It paid off because I get to watch him on television every day (he’s a soap star). No wife, no kidlets (yet) but the new girlfriend looks promising.

My sons do keep in touch with me, sending photos, emails and text messages (their all-time favorite way to communicate). I am very proud of both of them as they have achieved success in their respective careers, lead happy and productive lives and are remarkable human beings.

They have their own lives now and find solutions to their problems. They own houses, cars, furniture, campers, golf clubs; they make their own decisions. They live with the ups and downs that life has to offer. And they do it all really well without me!

I know this is the order of things. I am at peace with the transitions we all must face in life. But every now and then I miss hearing that little boy voice asking at bedtime, “Just one more story, mommy, please! Just one more story!” Of course, I would always give in to the request. Next would come the big bear hug before the final goodnight.

I can still feel it.

Someone was in my house last night. I heard the high-pitched beep of the laundry room door sensor and heavy footsteps on the linoleum. My husband, Craig, was asleep upstairs, and I was on the couch with the dog. I could tell the intruder was approaching the living room, leaving me no way to exit without being seen.

Risking being shot or captured, I grabbed the dog’s collar, opened the front door, and ran out into my yard. There I stood, trying to call for help, but unable to find my own voice. Passing cars ignored my frantic gestures and refused to stop. So I knelt down on the wet grass and waited. What was I waiting for? Help from a neighbor? The police? Maybe I was waiting to wake up.

I have been plagued by this nightmare for the past month. Sometimes I get a little farther down the street in my quest for help. I knock on neighbors’ doors but no one is ever home. Some nights I run about three blocks where I stand on the edge of a busy, four lane highway, my hand clasped around the dog’s collar and my nightgown blowing in the breeze. Other nights, I wake up just as the intruder grabs my arms and pins them behind my back.

The situation varies slightly, but the resulting emotions are always the same: terror, helplessness, and confusion. The feelings continue well into the daylight hours, even as I am driving to work. I can’t seem to shake the negativity, the evil thoughts and the feeling that someone is after me.

Following advice from my doctor, I cut out evening glasses of wine, went without coffee with dinner, and said farewell to late night snacks, depriving my body of anything that might fuel the nightmare-spawning process. But even in the absence of these pleasures, there is no peace when I sleep.

Childhood sleep was such a blissful part of my existence. I dreamt my bedroom was made entirely of candy, I lived at Disney World, and the Smurfs attended my school. Sometimes my night journeys transported me into fields with wild ponies or high into the clouds on a hot air balloon. I was happy and free. I was in charge.

My teenage dreams took me to the prom with Jude Law where my friends stared and practically drooled with envy. I won contests and modeling contracts, made As in Geometry, and was accepted to Ivy League schools – all from the comfort of my canopy bed. What I lacked in real life, I more than made up for in my dreams. I was popular, daring, uninhibited and sexy.

Something changed a few years ago. It started gradually – one or two bad dreams each month. They were vivid and powerful and, without having to write them down, the details remained with me.

I dreamt a commercial jet crashed in the field by my house. Charred passengers crawled out of the cornfield and up my front porch. They pressed their faces against the glass, clawed at the screen and begged me for help.

I had a recurring dream where I watched a roller coaster derail on its way down a steep drop, and all of the people fell to their deaths. Then, another train climbed the lift hill, and it happened again…and again…and again.

The nightmares started to impact my waking life. Images from my dreams invaded my conscious mind, and I refused to fly for several years and went two summers without visiting an amusement park.

Recently, the nightmares have become more frequent and pervasive. The intruder visits regularly. Each time, he comes in through the back door, and I run out the front. He tells me I can’t escape him, and that he will catch me – one day. And though he hasn’t yet harmed my family or me, I fall asleep afraid that he will.

I have been reading more about the underlying causes of nightmares, and that some people actually require psychotherapy to rid themselves of bad dreams. But before I take that route, I am practicing desensitization and rehearsal techniques. So far, I have managed to wake myself up at the start of the nightmare, but I have not been able to make myself dream of anything else.

I long for the day when I can reason with my subconscious mind and pilot the course of my dreams. When I can, I will bask in the sun on the beaches of Bora Bora, cruise along the glaciers of Alaska and soar with the barnacle geese during fall migration.

Until that night, I seek refuge in the waking hours and through daydreams. When I am awake, I navigate my thoughts. But at night, I remain a prisoner to my nightmares, reaching my arms out through the bars of my subconscious and hoping that someone will stop and help.

The world is her stage…the stage is her world.

If Becky Bannon had not come to Myrtle Beach for a summer job in 1966, hundreds of Horry County students might never have known the magical world of live theater. With a newly-minted degree from Marshall University, Becky came here with her roommate to celebrate a summer of fun before adulthood called her to a teaching job in Michigan. And like many before her, and since, Becky fell in love with the Beach – and with a guy. The following summer she married the guy and became an Air Force wife. Frequent moves of military life challenged long-term teaching opportunities, but she loved the excitement of each new assignment, especially their two years in Turkey. Despite close proximity to the raging Greek-Cypriot War, Becky gamely explored the entire region, discovering in herself an innate and lasting wanderlust.

In 1980, the Air Force brought Becky back to Myrtle Beach where she re-booted her teaching career at full speed. For the next 27 years, she changed lives and stirred imaginations of students throughout Horry County, teaching drama, journalism and English at North Myrtle Beach High and Socastee Middle Schools before a nine year stint at the new St. James Middle School under legendary principal, Wendell Shealy. Here Becky came into her own, taking hundreds of enthusiastic middle schoolers along with her. Her journalism classes regularly produced award winning yearbooks, including three years’ selection as the best middle school yearbook in the state and the 1993 Columbia University’s National Yearbook Competition. As heady as all this was, her true passion was not journalism but drama, and each year her students put on major theatrical performances, including memorable productions of The Secret Garden and The Velveteen Rabbit.

Becky loved St. James Middle School and the students, staff and parents who supported and encouraged her at every turn. She bought a home nearby and planned to stay there forever. Fate and Wendell Shealy, however, had other plans! In 1997 Shealy was named head of the new Carolina Forest Education Center, which became separate high school and middle schools housed on the same campus. He had a secret plan, a sure bet to lure Becky to come with him: a full schedule of her first love, drama. Bannon visited the school site, saw plans for its auditorium, and knew she wanted to direct plays there and continue working with her friend and mentor.

Looking back on our lives, we often see particular moments, specific choices that change us forever. For Becky Bannon, the move to Carolina Forest was surely one of these. Budget concerns cut the dream auditorium to a smaller, sparsely equipped facility with no stage steps, spotlights or curtains, but Becky did not let this deter her. She conned her friend, builder Wayne Vereen, into constructing steps, borrowed lights on poles from the First Baptist Church and conjured 40 middle and high school students into putting on a full-fledged Broadway musical, Give my Regards to Broadway. Despite the lack of sets, props and curtains, the show was a huge success, and tickets sales were sufficient to cover costs! Joining forces with Carolina Forest High’s drama and choral directors, Wayne Canady and Kraig McBroom, Becky’s new Dream Team immediately began to plan the next year’s performance.

Horry County schools receive no funding for drama, so all productions must be self-supporting. In 1999 a $4,000 donation from the Horry County Cultural Arts Association provided seed money for Carolina Forest to buy equipment and production essentials. Since then, ticket sales have sustained all the program’s costs, a tribute both to its high regard and the staff’s unlimited talent and imagination. Each year the shows have become increasingly exciting and challenging, replete with professional sets and a live orchestra. A friend, Margaret Ammons, describes the creative process this way: “Becky goes to New York, loves what she sees, and determines, ‘We can do that!’ Then everybody – students, faculty, parents and the community – inspired by her certainty, makes it happen.”

What happens is nothing less than the 2002 production of Peter Pan which involved the use of flying equipment rented from a company in Tennessee, five students who flew, five adults who assisted and five parents who took vacation time to train with the company’s owner in operating the equipment! Recent shows have run ten to thirteen performances, with casts up to 150 and productions costs as high as $32,000 include Cats, Wizard of Oz, Annie, The Music Man and the unforgettable Beauty and the Beast (which once again utilized flying equipment in the scene where the Beast levitates). Wendell Shealy says, “The only time I remember having to veto any aspect of a production of Becky’s was her plan to use a real horse in The Music Man!”

Meanwhile, back in the middle school classroom, Becky taught six classes of drama with waiting lists of students who recognized her to be, as Wendell Shealy described, “one of these exemplary teachers who demand, expect and ultimately get the very best from her students.” In 2000, inspired by a summer trip to Verona, Italy (the setting of Romeo and Juliet), Becky came home with an idea to launch a five-day, school-wide Shakespeare Festival. In preparation, social studies students learned about class structure in Elizabethan England, band students practiced English madrigals and consumer science classes sold artificial flowers to be woven into crowns for the grand finale: a spectacular Elizabethan Banquet and student performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In 2007 Becky retired from the classroom but certainly not from the stage. She continues to work with Wayne Canady and Kraig McBroom in the annual Carolina Forest productions which become bolder and more exciting each year. The 2010 tour de force presentation, Grey Gardens, the Musical, is the first Broadway musical ever based on a documentary, and Carolina Forest was the first high school in the U.S. to perform it. Set in the crumbling Grey Gardens mansion, the tragicomedy tells the riches to rags mother-daughter story of Jacqueline Kennedy’s aunt and first cousin. There are two acts, one set in the early 1940s glory days, the second set in 1973 when the two are struggling to maintain reality and subsistence. Canady designed a turntable stage which revolved as needed for the earlier and later timeframes. They enjoyed tremendous support from the Broadway producers and cast, as well as from producers of the original documentary and several individuals whose lives are portrayed in the play.

Then there is High Steppin’ Country! This musical revue has been presented at Lakewood Camp Ground every summer since 1976, with Becky serving as stage manager for 27 of its 33 years. The longest-running show on the Grand Strand, the two hour extravaganza features fourteen talented young singers and dancers in a non-stop celebration of the ‘80s, country, gospel and patriotic music. Many of its current performers trained with Bannon and the Carolina Forest team, including Rosa Rea and Richard Gebo who starred in Beauty and the Beast. Several others are second-generation performers, such as Austin Perry whose mother Rhonda performed with the group for ten years. This must-see summer show at the oceanfront Lakewood Amphitheater is family-friendly, affordable and open to the public.

Becky has also found ways to combine her love of travel, passion for drama and desire to share its magic with young people. Following her divorce in 1987, she began taking groups of 40-45 middle school students to New York City each year for four-day theater trips. She also worked with American Student Travel, meeting and escorting student groups to Broadway performances which, at last count, totals 78 for Bannon. “How lucky am I!” she exclaims.

Great passion for life is a trait Becky has passed on to her two sons, Dean and Brad. Dean has Becky’s free spirit and her love of travel. He has backpacked through Europe, done scuba diving in the Caribbean and worked at ski resorts in Germany and West Virginia. Dean also worked with High Steppin’ Country as a sound technician for ten years. Brad, on the other hand, shares Becky’s love of drama and her perfectionism. A criminal defense attorney, Brad first became interested in law as a member of the Socastee High School 1988 national champion Mock Trial Team. He has won a number of high profile cases, including the highly publicized 2007 trial of the Duke Lacrosse Team. Brad’s work in representing David Evans, the team’s captain, uncovered flaws in the prosecution’s DNA evidence and ultimately exonerated the entire team. He has been the featured in numerous books, television segments and films. Brad and his wife, Carmen, live in the Raleigh area.

Looking back on all she has experienced and accomplished since arriving in Myrtle Beach those many years ago, Becky’s greatest sense of pride comes not from lofty dramatic feats but from knowing she has changed the lives of many young people, a conviction regularly affirmed by her students past and present. A recent note from 2010 Carolina Forest graduate Andrew Bettke perhaps says it best. Paraphrasing Alexander Pope’s famous line – and Bannon’s mantra to her students – he wrote:

“Mrs. Bannon, thank you for all your support and guidance over the years. I have always been grateful for your confidence in me and appreciate the ‘character’ that you have instilled in me. I will always ‘act well my part,’ for I know ‘there is where the honor lies.’”