Debordieu Days
Enjoying the richness of a fascinating family
We made the drive down to Debordieu (pronounced “deb-a-doo”) on Saturday, making near-record time, about 7 1/2 hours. It usually takes us around 9 or 10 hours, with traffic and stops, but we got an early start and our son, JB, shared the driving. He and I would switch off whenever we took a stretch break from the road, me taking the first and last legs of the drive, while he took most of the in-between time. This worked well.
It always feels like coming back home, coming down here, where we get to relax and hang out with so many of our family members. This time, there was a minor deviation from that welcome vibe, but it came from outside the family.
We stay in a beach villa, which is part of a group of villas appropriately named The Beach Villas. We first stayed in Villa #6, the Dixon Villa, 20 years ago, and someone in our family has stayed in this villa just about every year, since then. This is our second year in a row being back in this villa after my brother Jim and his wife, Dorothy, stayed here for a number of years before. When they were here, we were usually in another beach villa, Doctor’s Orders, a few doors over.
Apparently, the community of Debordieu has a Home Owners Association (HOA), and a number of the home owners are beginning to resent all the renters who come in. Since the villas have the attraction of a pool, they’re cracking down on outsiders crashing the pool area. We’ve usually bent that rule a bit, allowing some of our other family members to come over to use the pool while we stayed here. There were also those years that family members had rented 3 or 4 of the beach villas, so we had a lot of family legitimately at the pool. These rules were never very strictly enforced — before this year.
On our first day here, Sunday, we were getting settled in and my little sister, her daughter-in-law and grandson came by to welcome us, and hang out a bit. It’s what we do here — we go around to everyone’s place (we’re in 4 difference places this year) to visit and catch up. While they were visiting — nobody had even gone down to the pool yet — an HOA board member visited us, with a copy of the rules which he claimed stated we were restricted from having any visitors in our villa.
What!?!?!? That’s our whole reason for being here, to visit each other. He kept saying, ‘I’m just the messenger’, but it was clear that he was more than that. His little visit did more to make us feel unwelcome here than anything has in 20 years coming to this place. We got the message. It will be our last time staying in a beach villa in Debordieu. We’ll come back — but we’ll get a place further inland, that’s not as expensive but still allows us to visit with family and friends while here.
Another disturbing incident occurred when a great niece and her friend were out exploring the inland area on a golf cart, hoping to spot some deer in their travels. They noticed a couple of older ladies in a golf cart seeming to be following them. They pulled over at one point to let the ladies go by, then later on, when they’d pulled over to look for deer, the same ladies came up to their cart and stopped. “Can we help you?”
“What are you girls doing?”
“We’re just looking for deer.”
“Oh, good! We just wanted to make sure you weren’t a couple girls pulled over kissing each other, back here.” Did I mention that this is in South Carolina?
Aside from these minor incidents on the first day, we’ve had a wonderful time here with family, in some cases three generations of this grand clan, enjoying our nightly games of “Bugger-Rum” and just getting caught up with each others’ lives. We’ve been doing this together since 1997 — getting together on 4th of July week down here in South Carolina, keeping the richness and depth of the fabric that binds us as a family strong and growing. No rules, silly little men with agendas or intolerant old ladies can break these bonds that bind us!
