Prissy Elrod Celebrates Marital and Magazine Milestones

Anniversaries arrive whether we’re ready or not, tapping us on the shoulder. We mark them in countless ways—flowers delivered, rings and necklaces engraved. They can celebrate joy: marriages, births and professional milestones. Others carry sorrow, honoring loss and the people who shaped us. Either way, anniversaries ask us to pause. To remember. To consider not just what happened on a particular day, but what unfolded in the years that followed.  

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the award-winning Flamingo, a publication that didn’t simply prove itself on newsstands—it carved out a distinctive voice in Florida storytelling. Rooted in place, beauty, culture and perspective, Flamingo arrived with intention and stayed with purpose. For me, it also marks the beginning of an entirely unexpected second chapter in my writing life.  

Before I imagined myself as a columnist, I was a reader and author—a Floridian who recognized her own sensibilities reflected in Flamingo’s pages. I had already published my first book, “Far Outside the Ordinary,” but I was not searching for a magazine in which to share my writing. I couldn’t have known then that one day my words would live inside Flamingo, issue after issue. Like so many meaningful things in life, it all began as an accident.

Christina Cush, an editor for Flamingo at the time, was on vacation doing what one often does near the ocean—wandering into a bookstore in search of a beach read. She chose “Far Outside the Ordinary,” loved it, and when she returned home, shared it with the magazine’s owner and editor in chief, Jamie Rich.  

Shortly afterward, I received a call I never saw coming. Would I consider writing an essay for the magazine? It could be anything I chose about Florida.  

Yes! 

An issue or two later, they asked for another piece.

Then came the question that shifted everything: “How would you feel about your own column?” they asked.  

The question marked the birth of Panhandling—a column named as a tongue-in-cheek play on geography. I live in Tallahassee in Florida’s Panhandle. It felt fitting: a series grounded in a part of the state that can feel overlooked, with a point of view shaped by my lived experiences. It was a space for storytelling—observational, personal, reflective and humorous. Humor being my favorite noun and verb. 

Over time, my relationship with Jamie grew richer. Though she is younger than I am, age never factored into our connection. We are both mothers to daughters. We share an understanding of ambition tempered by family, of creativity balanced with responsibility, of the push and pull between professional life and personal devotion. The rhythms of our lives aligned in ways neither of us could have predicted. 

What started as deadlines and edits became conversation, which grew into trust. And eventually, that trust turned into an endearing friendship—one built on shared values and mutual respect. We became two women cheering each other on—one magazine at a time, one story at a time, one season of life at a time.

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Anniversaries, I’ve learned, don’t just measure time. They reveal relationships.
—Prissy Elrod

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Over the years, Panhandling evolved into an ongoing communication—not just between me and the magazine’s editors, but also its readers. Issue after issue, I returned to the page with stories shaped by family, travel, humor and quiet observations that often say the most. There is something liberating about the magazine’s quarterly schedule too. Life has time to happen. Children grow. Grief softens. Life surprises you. By the time the next issue arrives, I’m no longer the same person who wrote the last column—which, I’ve learned, is exactly the point.

Honeymoons and Hammams

Long before I celebrated a magazine anniversary, I had learned the weight marital anniversaries can carry. It happened at The Cloister hotel in Sea Island, Ga. 

The Cloister has welcomed honeymooners since 1928—more than 40,000 couples beginning their married lives beneath its shaded corridors. For years, The Cloister has kept a honeymoon registry, a series of bound books with newlyweds’ names and photographs carefully inscribed and preserved. The volumes were once housed in a large case near the lobby, quietly holding thousands of love stories.  

It was there that my first husband, Boone, and I began ours. I was 22. He was 26. Young, hopeful, blissfully unaware of how quickly life moves. Like so many couples before us, we believed we were standing at the very start of everything. 

Twenty-five years later, we returned. We walked back through The Cloister, as seasoned partners—parents shaped by responsibility, softened and strengthened by time. 

We found the registry and our names. There we were: Our photograph captured a couple I almost didn’t recognize—fresh faces, easy smiles, the innocence of two people who still believed they had forever. We stood there quietly, taking it in. Our beginning preserved in leather and ink.  

It was meant to be a celebration. Our silver anniversary. A return to where our journey had begun. What we did not know then was that it would also mark the beginning of an end. Boone died only months later from a brain tumor. 

That milestone changed forever in my memory. It taught me that anniversaries are not just markers of time passed—they are reminders of love lived, of moments that mattered and how beginnings and endings often sit closer together than we realize.  

But, life, thankfully, insists on chapters we don’t see coming.  

Love found me again in a way I never could have predicted. After 30 years, my college boyfriend Dale reentered my life. We hadn’t stayed in touch. He had never married. What we found together wasn’t nostalgia, but something far stronger: a love seasoned by time, steadied by patience and shaped in a deep knowing that felt familiar and miraculous. Loving him felt less like starting over and more like coming home to a version of life that awaited me, quietly and faithfully, at just the right moment.  

Dale is so kind, insanely generous and always listens fully. He delights in surprise. For one of our recent anniversaries, he decided extravagance was in order and surprised me with a week-long trip to Grand Cayman. He included a bow-tied gift certificate with unlimited spa services at the Palm Heights hotel. It was a dangerous gift for a woman who has logged more spa hours than frequent flyer miles.  

When I entered, the menu alone was overwhelming. I told the young woman at the desk that I wanted something “out of the ordinary,” a phrase I have since learned can lead to the unexpected. 

What followed was something called a hammam, a traditional Turkish bath, which I mistakenly assumed involved soaking quietly in warm water.  

I was wrong.  

The experience took place outdoors, under God’s blue Caribbean sky, in an open-walled garden of golden travertine. At the center stood a massive, heated washing stone that looked like an altar. When the gorgeous, muscular Turkish man motioned for me to discard my oversized Turkish robe, I silently thanked every prayer I’ve ever said that I was wearing a bikini and not naked. 

What followed was ceremonial, at least for him. For me, it was panic in stillness. First came the Kessa scrub with black soap, then an exfoliation so thorough it almost removed my appendectomy scar. He then thrashed me with wet aromatic branches, applied a full-body mask and covered my eyes so I had no idea where he was or what was coming next. 

It was soapy foam. A cloud of bubbles engulfed me as he washed my hair, my scalp and, apparently, everything else. His hand was wrapped in an enormous loofah, moving in directions I couldn’t track. I lay there on the heated stone, steaming and covered in bubbles, like a spa-approved sacrificial offering.  

When my eyes were finally uncovered, I stared up at the sky and questioned all my life choices, and said, “I wish I had a picture of this!” 

Without missing a beat, the Turkish bath master straddled above me and pulled out his phone, took photos with it, and sent them to me. 

It is still the most unforgettable anniversary of my life, and proof that life holds both grief and grace. More importantly, that laughter and life’s surprises can return if we stay open to them. As I now reflect on anniversaries both personal and professional, I see how each one marks not just survival but evolution. They invite us to look back with honesty and forward with hope. Some bring tears. Others bring laughter. All of them, if we pay attention, offer perspective.  

Anniversaries don’t simply mark time. They tell us what mattered and why.

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To read previous Panhandling columns, click here.

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