From the Stern

The rooms weren't glamorous, but there was furniture, coffee and doughnuts.

Evidently, it was enough to lure into two small rooms eight people who were eager to meet each other, discuss their work and get a few things done.

The inaugural Fuse843 co-working event was Thursday in the Beaufort Town Center, an effort to bring together pieces of the new economy: small businesses mobile enough to tote their laptops and smart phones into shared work space.

On Tuesday evening, the bar area of WiseGuys on Hilton Head Island was filled with about 50 people hungry to find others like themselves.

Innovators, those interested in doing things a bit differently. They even have a name for such people — creatives.

Most were members of Fuse843, an online effort to bring together creative types in area code 843, be they chefs, architects, human resources professionals or real estate agents.

River otters normally are nocturnal creatures, but when they do venture out during the day, they aren’t shy.
An otter hung out at South Forest Beach on Monday evening, not afraid of the many residents and tourists who ventured near for a closer look. Edgar Wiggins of Hilton Head Island sent in dozens of photos of the mammal.

A report released Wednesday says Beaufort County is the healthiest county in South Carolina and that Lee County is the least healthy.

The study was conducted by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. However, researchers caution people not to make comparisons between states because data collection methods vary by state, says Bridget Booske, project director for the rankings and a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute.

As the numbers pour in -- or down -- on the state of the local economy, questions arise.

What can we, or will we, live without? We have to decide in our personal lives whether will we forego new clothes, dinners out or something more basic, like food.

In our community lives, can we put off street repairs, updated textbooks, sewer maintenance?

As a journalist, I've developed skills that serve me well in my job but make me sort of a freak in the rest of the world.

Just a moment ago, like a mother bolting straight up in bed after hearing the faintest call of "mommy," I heard over the scanner "the shooter wrecked the car."

There are other noises in the newsroom -- people talking on the phone, the furious clicking of keyboards, conversations. But that entered my head clear as a bell.

We received this e-mail, that I thought would be of great interest to readers. Whereas Mrs. Sterling didn't have direct ties to the Lowcountry, she wrote a biography of Beaufort son Robert Smalls that certainly resonated with Mr. Nolan. Check out the links, too. It's good reading.

Dear friends,

I just learned of the death, at a very advanced age, of the well-known author Dorothy Sterling, who wrote the first book about Beaufort's Civil War hero, Robert Smalls, more than half a century ago.

I recently was among dozens of family members at a funeral. I have 23 first cousins just on my mother’s side. About 18 of them were there, many with their spouses.

I enjoyed the positive reaction I received when I mentioned I’m a newspaper editor. It sounds glamorous and exciting. But they know it also means I’m not cashing in as I could with my MBA. I earned that degree so I could manage newspapers. Not the most lucrative application.

Somewhere along the way, I became the curmudgeonly old editor who barks at frightened young reporters about apostrophes and commas.

When I started, people still smoked in the newsroom and the first paper I worked at, a weekly in Lapeer, Mich., had a live-in newspaper cat named Deadline. He was gray and white. Not as good as black and white, but close.