Author: Margaret Evans

  Bestselling author and Beaufortonian Pat Conroy remembers the friendship of a lifetime. (Read Part One)   I was living with my family in Italy when I read a report in the International Herald Tribune about a mysterious disease that was killing gay men in San Francisco and New York. I ran to the telephone and dialed Tim Belk’s number in San Francisco. When he answered in his refined, cultured Southern accent, I said, “Tim, whatever you are doing in your unspeakable gay life, I want you stop this minute. No more hanky-panky for you, son.”

Dusty Slay’s Homegrown Stand Up Returns To The Spaghetti ClubBy Mark Shaffer   “We get a lot of tourists in the restaurant . . . and they ask weird questions sometimes like, ‘What’s something non-touristy we can do?’ I don’t know. You could get in your car and go home… or buy a house and start paying some taxes around here.” – Dusty Slay, “I’ve Waited Tables”    

Pat Conroy remembers a remarkable man and a friendship that spanned almost half a century.   Among the worst things about growing old is the loss of those irreplaceable friends who added richness and depth to your life. I met Tim Belk in Beaufort in 1967, the first year I taught and coached at Beaufort High School. We were the only guests at a dinner that the only writer in Beaufort, Ann Head, had put together so we could meet and form what she was certain would become a serious “literary” friendship.

Thoughts on Veterans Day    Veterans Day is a landmark observation, the official day in America that honors those who have served in our armed forces across all wars. A federal holiday, it falls on November 11.