When Amanda Walton was pregnant with her daughter, Walton’s father offered a bit of advice that has proved true time and again. “He said, ‘They don’t come with a manual, but there are two things that are a close second: (The book) ‘What To Expect: The Toddler Years,’ and your mom.”
This proves two points in rapid succession: that fathers offer wise and loving counsel to their children, and that mothers are even better at it.
Walton, 28, says she has turned to her father for advice on things like buying cars and leasing apartments, life decisions that call for a cool head and a bit of business savvy. “But when it comes to matters of the heart, I think moms know best,” says the mother of a 3-year-old. “And there’s nothing closer to your heart than your child.”
This year, a platoon of Wexford residents is extending some Southern hospitality to returning men and women of the US Army by hand-delivering 93 individually packaged “welcome-home bags” for returning and redeploying soldiers at Fort Stewart, Ga. The project is part of a volunteer effort called “Operation Welcome Home,” which primarily argets single soldiers and is connected with Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers (BOSS).
Reality winner Patrick House on starting his new life in the Lowcountry 
Phyllis Mauney: retired Marine, career musician and, most likely, the Lowcountry resident who has played harp for the higher number of presidents.
For the past 10 years — four of them at the Quarterdeck — Jodi Bassani has worked directly in the heart of the Heritage. Bassani isn’t much of a golf fan herself, but she’s probably served some of the game’s most famous players — although it’s hard to know for sure, since she rarely has a free second to look up long enough to see who she’s serving. This year the Quarterdeck will be staffed as usual: four bartenders at the main bar and two at outside bar, with portable bars on the patio and a handful of servers walking around to handle demand. Bassani talked about what it’s like trying to hold down the fort amid patrons hopped up on golf buzz, and how crazy the scene could be if people think this year will be the Heritage’s last.
New York Times Notable Books author and Brooklyn resident Darin Strauss, who wrote parts of his sobering memoir “Half a Life” at the Bluffton Library, is finding that his words have the power to bring sense out of tragedy.
Every morning, John Hutcheson and his wife, Elma Rios, mount their recumbent bicycles — the lowto the ground, laid-back-seating kind —and begin their 45-minute commute to work at Sea Pines Montessori Academy. Their route goes from their rented home in Spanish Wells Plantation over the Cross Island Parkway, down Palmetto Bay and Cordillo roads and to the school at the back gate of Sea Pines. John, 60, and Elma, 51, have shared a classroom there since moving to the school from a similar gig in Seattle three years ago, teaching fourth-, fifth and sixth-graders.
This St. Patrick’s, pick up some good vibrations with these green libations.
These days, when Terry Sweeney walks the streets of the Lowcountry, he’s more likely to get compliments about 
Sixteen-year-old Crystal Garmon’s got it made, and she knows it. She also knows who to thank, at least in part, for the comfort and freedom she enjoys at her Hilton Head Island home. “I think it’s really cool that (those in the Armed Forces) would just give up their lives to defend this country,” said Crystal, a sophomore at Hilton Head Island High School. “We have a great life here, and they’re out there su ering in the cold and the dirt.”
