Patti Shannon:  

Life I get up to Chicago every once in a while, and regret that I didn't stay in touch with more people that I grew up with. I moved to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina when I was 22, so I was out of the Chicago area pretty much right after a couple of years of work and college. I love the warm weather and the ocean breezes, and don't miss shoveling snow at all! Life here on an island is a totally different world than living in a big city or the suburbs. This is a pretty small town - at least it was when I moved here with only 5,000 full time residents. Now there are over 35,000 islanders who call Hilton Head home. You can't get through Wal-Mart without running into someone you know. I spent the last 14 years involved in real estate law. I loved the work, but it was as stressful as it was rewarding. I took some time off, and now work for the local phone company. Gary Fissinger and I never did get around to getting married. He always said David Bradshaw would be his best man, but the night we called David to tell him we had decided to get married, we found out that David was killed that day in a car accident. As you may have heard, Gary was killed just 10 weeks later in a work related accident. That was back in 2000, and sometimes it still ...Expand for more