ICONS

Sometimes our icons are just there. We quietly accept and appreciate their presence, their contribution and their value.  And then there are the other times.  This is about those.

Icons come in all sizes and shapes.  Some attain iconic status because they stand out in a crowded field. Others because they survive against the odds.

Hilton Head lost two icons this week.  Just this past Friday, in fact.

One was a restrauteur; the other, our local newspaper.

Neither had been well over the course of the last year or so but they were still here.  Still with us.  Now, they aren’t.

The restrauteur created his own little spot of wonderful on this Island.  If newcomers wondered where they should dine, his was always at the top of the list with the strong caution that reservations would be hard to come by.  If not impossible. He dealt gracefully with health issues in the last years.  Until he couldn’t.

Our newspaper was never a late-breaking news kind of newspaper.  But it was there.  It was part of our lives. Delivered every day, rain or shine.  Always folded neatly and wrapped in plastic to keep it dry.  It was touchable, feelable, crinkly.  It survived for over a year of waning subscriptions and a sagging bottom line.  It was iconic in its commitment to survive.  Until it couldn’t.

And now, isn’t it ironic, and a bit sad, that one of our icons….the newspaper…. is not here to write about the other….the restrauteur.  We’ll have to muse on that all by ourselves.  And in our own words.  All I can personally say is: “May you both rest in peace.  You will be missed.”

Sunset image by Melissa Cassar