Monthly Columnists

A Father and Son Reflect on the Smartphone Revolution

MARC FREY
mfrey@freymedia.com

The first iPhone went on sale at 6 p.m. Friday, June 29, 2007, “and suddenly the world was in our pocket.” The device created the i-generation: i-centric and i-absorbed. It created a new cult and culture. A new language (apps, clicks, texts, likes, selfies, swipes). It turned us into an always-on society. It brought us the term FOMO, or fear of missing out. Millions started to measure their self-worth through clicks and likes. The urge to check the latest news became uncontrollable. We were consumed with capturing and sharing every moment with anyone who would “follow” us. The iPhone changed the way we communicate and the way we interact with each other, like breaking an engagement via text. While they seem to connects us, smartphones often leave us feeling empty and alone — even when we feel naked without them.

Over video chat, sitting on the porch of his Chicago apartment, enjoying a rare pristine summer day in the Windy City, Hilton Head native and percussionist David Agee told me about his life’s unexpected turn. He’d just wrapped up his last semester teaching percussion at Fenwick Park High School, and was spending the week saying goodbye to friends before starting his new adventure. Agee, who uprooted to Chicago eight years ago to pursue his love of music, recently joined the Navy and is heading to boot camp. He joked, “I never thought I’d be graded on pushups in order to play music.”

It’s high summer in the Lowcountry, the time of year when happiness smells like sunscreen and locals joke that Hilton Head Island might sink from the weight of all the visitors. So much fun is packed into the long days that end in soft, golden evening light.

July is when the staff at local restaurants, bike rental companies, charter fishing boats and other businesses work long hours to make sure that every customer’s experience is top notch. Here at Monthly, we too worked hard on this issue to bring you the very best of Hilton Head Island and Bluffton people, events and opinions.

These aren’t my lungs,” he told his theatre classmates. It was 2013 and Brennen Reeves was facing an eager audience, speaking of an illness without a face. No one knew. Brennen, who was born with the progressive lung disease, cystic fibrosis, has fought for every breath. As a child, doctors told him he’d wouldn’t live until 18 unless he traded the old pair for the new. Not only did he survive a double lung transplant, he would invoke his own story in a oneman play entitled “Breathe. A True Story.” These are his lungs, now.

This spring, I was honored to sail with veterans as part of the “Warrior Sailing Program” during the venerable Charleston Race Week. I met some of the most high-spirited young women and men you can imagine, and no matter if they lost their eyesight, a leg, or got shot several times, they demonstrated dignity and a positive attitude I sometime miss among their more self-absorbed peers. If their smiles and can-do attitude could resolve conflicts, then this is all it would take to make this a more peaceful planet! It could be reasoned that their sacrifices have made this a better world or made America a safer place, but the question that came to my mind is how much say did these young citizens have in deciding how invading Afghanistan and Iraq was going to benefit us?

Left to right: Audrey Clayton, Allison Venrick, Anuska Frey, Kelly Spinella and Mike Lupi

Dear Reader,
With school out and Father’s Day coming soon, June is a special month full of energy. Some are celebrating their long standing work in the community, like J. Banks Design, celebrating 30 years, Boys, Arnold & Company, and The Cypress for 25 years. Engagements and weddings are bustling with the start of summer, and we are excited to highlight a few gorgeous venues, brides and vendors who continually create amazing events. Father’s Day makes it a truly special month though. Capturing a special moment between father and child on the cover, we took this opportunity to take a special look at the roles fathers can take in this day and age. It’s not always the 9-5 of yesteryear any longer.

is that something terrible happens to one of their offspring. After all, as parents we only want three things for our children: that they become independent, that they are happy, and that they stay alive.

My girlfriend is about to visit one of the happiest countries in the world: Iceland, land of otherworldly landscapes and geothermal hot baths. Each year, the United Nations publishes its World Happiness Index, and Iceland has topped the list each year along with the same 12 or so countries. What qualities do they share? While there’s certainly no formula for happiness, each of these countries seems to possess a strong cultural identity, a government in tune with its people and a generous welfare system. 

What was a 21-year-old kid from Hilton Head Island doing driving a Rolls-Royce down Manhattan’s West Side Highway?

Dear reader,
May is generally considered a month of renewal, with nature in full bloom all around the Lowcountry. It seems an appropriate month to announce that Lori Goodrige-Cribb, the long-term publisher of Hilton Head Monthly, has decided to take on a new challenge in her life. We thank her for her many years with the company and root for her to be successful in her new endeavors. My husband, Marc, who grew up with ink in his blood, and I will take a more active leadership role while at the same time making room for a younger generation to carry forward the mission of Monthly: Connecting the Lowcountry by publishing inspiring and informative stories covering all aspects of life in the communities we serve.

It’s only an 8-hour drive away yet a world apart. The first thing that hit me when I got out of the car in Miami is how blue the sky and ocean are and how the constant breezes reminded me of the Caribbean. Exactly the reasons wealthy New Yorkers started visiting via railroad as early as the “roaring 20’s” remain the reasons it is magnet for our second gilded era and a showcase for wealth inequality.

Lance Little was still in high school when, sitting on the porch shooting the breeze, he came up with an idea that seemed far-fetched — a restaurant that cures world hunger. It was clever, but wasn’t it a bit naive? The fast-food giants were making billions, but the fry cooks came home smelling like cheap grease, earning minimum wage while the money funneled upwards. Meanwhile, even in first-world America, children were going hungry. Of course, this was high school, and Little wasn’t too concerned with the economics of the idea. Enrolled in Hilton Head Island High School’s ROTC program, he had plenty to keep him occupied, along with being an average teenager. But his idea to end world hunger would not be ignored, even as he grew up and moved on with his life.