The New Year’s Resolution

One of the greatest treasures that surround us are the newcomers who arrive to share our lives. Most often for the Marco Beach Boys and Girls, the newcomers arrive after the holidays. The new arrivals often share many traits. They are here to escape winter or to begin a new life in the American tropical islands. Almost everyone that travels will arrive with a little bit of luggage; or baggage so big it can be difficult to imagine.

Our story begins during an early January when a middle aged single man made an arrival on our islands to begin a new chapter in an ongoing life. We met Sedgwick on the beach during a January cold front when the northwest wind was so fierce the breaking waves were endless miles of gray and white surf rolling in from the horizon. The spindrift from the gulf was alive at the top of the whitecaps but rushing to shore with the finality of a losing battle. When the racing foam finally found the beach, the shorebirds that were migrating became a blur in the mist and lost in the spray. 

When Sedgwick made his approach, everyone was watching. The beach was a swirling sandstorm, but the newcomer was looking up into the salt spray and smiling. Despite the onslaught of windy weather, Sedgwick was easy to watch, he was very tall, very fit, and the only person on the beach.

When he joined the group in the shelter of the hut on the beach and stepped out of the wind that was a winter gale, he began as if he knew no strangers. “Hello everybody,” the newcomer began, “I’m the new Beach Boy. Jim sent me down. I love this island and I’m here to stay. My name is Sedgwick, but everybody calls me Shelly.”

We soon learned that our section of the beach was to close because of the windy weather and during the last hour of winter daylight the beach crew reassembled at Jack’s Lookout for after work libations and to learn about the new oversized Beach Boy.

After introductions were complete and the sound of the wind whistling under the eaves was an almost musical background, we soon learned that our new and very large friend Sedgwick - that we were now calling Shelly - was a newly arrived and misplaced person with a heavy load of emotional baggage. 

Shelly was on Marco because of a New Year’s resolution. Apparently, Shelly was from a very wealthy family that was a household name in every grocery store. Shelly was from “Old Money” that was generational, ongoing, and getting bigger by the moment, but Shelly was on Marco because he could not manage his wealth. Shelly was on Marco because he was broke. His family finally said: no more spending more than his allowance would allow, and no monthly allowance without a full-time job. Finally, and most importantly for the New Year’s resolution, there was to be no more loan shark debt, and especially no gambling.

Sedgwick Shelly was on Marco because he needed to unload his troublesome baggage and stay out of debt. Staying out of debt was indeed Sedgwick Shelly’s New Year’s resolution, and he was determined this time to keep that personal promise.

As the days of January began reaching into February and Valentine’s Day, Shelly easily became the most popular of the Marco Beach Boys. He was always ready with a joke. He was never in a bad mood, and his easygoing and hail-fellow-well-met personality was contagious. Shelly, with his monthly allowance, rented a big house, hosted extravagant parties and there was never a doubt that Sedgewick Shelly was even bigger in life than his six-foot-four, blonde, and blue-eyed frame.

When the days of March madness began however, the imposing figure that was Sedgwick Shelly began to change. After work, his obsession was sports on television. Basketball began to take over his life. He was no longer the life of the ongoing party, but the subject of desperate urges and hopeful impulse. When his favorite team would win, Shelly was ecstatic. When a newly chosen team would lose, Shelly was suddenly despondent, moody, and fragile. 

On any given day, Shelly would pull out a roll of cash that had to contain thousands of dollars; on the following day, he would be asking someone to buy him a beer. When Shelly was on a winning roll, his big heart and generosity was overwhelming, but even when he became a loser in picking basketball teams, he was still kind and thoughtful to everyone he met. Sedgewick Shelly was always trying to help everyone, even when he could not help himself. 

Unbeknownst to most of the Marco Beach Boys, Shelly discovered a new friend who was a girl. The young woman was also a newcomer to the island, but instead of a carefree lifestyle, the young woman was also a young single mother. She was another traveler escaping into paradise, but her little bit of luggage, and big baggage, was a new baby and a tragic divorce.

The new island mother was working two jobs and caring for her baby girl, while Sedgewick Shelly was gambling heavily on basketball and borrowing huge sums of money from several different loan sharks on the east coast.

After a particularly troublesome losing streak, Sedgewick Shelly became desperate and tried to double down. He won big on one game and lost very badly on the other. When the cash from the winning game came, he dropped off the bulging envelope with a note to the single mother and her baby. The note explained the cash was for the baby, the goodbye was for the Beach Boys and Girls, and the “I don’t know where he went,” was for the loan sharks when they came looking for the big blustery guy with the New Year’s resolution.