Author: Margaret Evans

(with apologies to Jimmy Buffett) Story by Mark Shaffer Photos by Mark Shaffer, Jeff Evans, and Eric Horan Shortly after the shots ring out, I figure it’s time to go. At the very least it’s a sign. The Tuesday after Matthew buzz sawed up the South Carolina coast there is a surreal quality to the storm’s aftermath. Less than two weeks past a spinal procedure on my lower neck I’m still using a brace (the human equivalent to the Cone of Shame) and feeling the aftereffects of the Percocet. Time has only recently become relevant again. Much of the past week and a half – including the storm – is one long, blurry smudge, like a child’s attempt at a watercolor rainbow.

“The troop visits got harder over time because, as I looked into each face, I increasingly would wonder to myself which of these kids I would next see in the hospital at Landstuhl or Walter Reed or Bethesda—or listed for burial at Arlington cemetery. For those on the front line who ate with me, I realized it might well be the occasion for the first hot meal or shower in days if not weeks. Each forward unit I visited seemed to have its own makeshift memorial in a small tent or lean-to dedicated to those who had been killed… I always went in alone.” – Robert Gates, “Duty” (2014, Vintage)

Administrators, faculty, staff and parents at Holy Trinity Classical Christian School are celebrating after the school’s first annual fundraising campaign ended in a blaze of glory.