Mac Lacy

It’s no secret that I enjoy examining the responses we receive during our breakout sessions at the Select Traveler Conference each year. At a great conference this year hosted by Visit Williamsburg and their regional partners, we had 55 travel planners for upscale groups arrive early enough to join us for breakouts that preceded the opening session.

If the evening events for the Select Traveler Conference (STC), held February 15–17 in Williamsburg, Virginia, were any indication, Virginia’s Historic Triangle will be the place for groups to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary this summer. Visit Williamsburg served a seated dinner with on open bar the opening night and brought the Good Shot Judy band with vocalists Brett Cahoon and Jeanette Corey. By evening’s end, the floor filled with guests who danced the stellar event to a close.

“Time waits for no man.” Of all the memorable lines in the classic Coen brothers’ film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” the one that makes me pause is delivered by an old man on a hand-driven railcar somewhere in the Mississippi Delta. He lays that truth on George Clooney’s character and his hapless comrades when he confronts the folly of their youth. I am turning 71 as I write this and am embarking on a retirement journey that presently seems more puzzling than liberating.