From Pauline to Clinton, I am listening to Beethoven's last movement of his 9th symphony, the Ode to Joy.
(It takes about 25 minutes). Leonard Bernstein directed this symphony in Vienna in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and changed its name to the Ode to Freedom ("I am sure Beethoven would support this", he said). The words were written by Friedrick Schiller and here is an exerpt:
"Joy, joy, moves the wheels
In the Universal time machine
Flowers, it calls forth,
From their buds,
Suns from the firmament,
Sphere, it moves far out in space
Where our telescopes cannot reach
Joyful as his suns are flying..."
It is a call to brotherhood on this day of Peace.
Baker Creek State Park is past McCormick, SC for 4 miles on the Huguenot Hwy or 378. Soon on Oct 1, it will close for the winter.
At the office, I meet a young man moving picnic tables, wearing a brown State Park T shirt. He is the maintenance employee. He tries to find me a trail map and tells me the story of his abcessed tooth which was extracted, his jaw that swelled so badly, that a friend lanced it, how the infection has spread into his ear and throat. I think he should go to Self Regional Hospital in Greenwood and have himself admitted but he thinks he is recovering. He goes to the maintenance shed and brings back a map. Meanwhile I meet a couple from Lexington with their Blue Heeler, who are visiting all the state parks. The man tells me that he is from the Pee Dee area and as a boy rode his bike, sleeping bag on the back, along with his friends into Little Pee Dee State Park and would sleep on the ground, spending the night or the weekend.
The Ranger comes along and tells us that the 10 mile trail is partially unmarked now. He has just bush hogged a long part of it. He tells us that last year he had cleared the trail at Hickory Knob and found that someone had turned the trail marking arrows all around to the wrong directions and he could even see a little trail hikers had made into the woods in the wrong direction. He fixed the arrows. He advises me to take the Nature trail which loops around the camping area. I do take this trail and it is pine needle covered and well marked following Thurmond Lake for a while and then rounding back to the campground.
A man at a trailer tells me he comes here to hunt and fish with his nephew. Down on the lake are two pontoon boats and on the shore a table with 26 fishing rods. The host couple at their trailer tells me they come in March and stay until the end of September. There is good fishing and it is peaceful and quiet.
It is beautiful. There is the sound of crows and blue jays, another chortling bird call I don't recognize.
The lake is the deep deep smooth green of old wine filled bottles.
I meet a man dressed in blue walking with concentration on the hilly roads. "I walk for exercise on the hills and for thinking and stress relief". His name is Eric. Eric from McCormick.
I return up the Huguenot Hwy and stop at Earth Connection Outfitters (864-993-0109 EarthConnectionOutfitters.com) no one is home at the old house festooned with kayaks of pink, blue, purple and orange. I discovered from posters that there is a Savannah Valley Railroad Trail nearby, opened in 2011. (864-378-77032 or 864-852-2835).
At the MACK artisan shop and Katura, fronted by a path of blooming vincas, I am greeted by Belinda Ramsey, coordinator of the fiber workshops at the McCormick Art Council where women are making quilts. She tells me about the Elijah Clark State of Georgia Park, just over the Savannah River Bridge down 378 past Baker's Creek. Katura was the old hotel frequented by railway engineers and staff. Fannie Kale's Country Inn and Restaurant is next door, not doing so well now, she says. Again there is the ubiquitous quilt patch painted over the doorway.
In Greenwood, at the Subway with the deck overlooking the lake, a small, blond pony tailed girl makes me a "Flatizza" while telling me that she has been a vegetarian for the past three years. "I have become anemic, but I love animals". Medics from MUSC have parked their ambulance outside and are waiting in line.
"Try Indian food", I say, "Beans and rice make a whole protein". The medics and I sit on the deck and enjoy the view while eating our lunch.
Time to go home now. I pass the church nearby with the sign that says: 'How Can I Tell If I Hear the Voice of God or Satan?'
In two days, it will be officially Fall.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
September 19, 2015 On the Edge of the Pisgah Forest
It is the last weekend of summer, the last gasp of heat, of swimming in pools and ponds, of watermelons and ripe tomatoes, of sitting on porches in the dark listening to the chorus of cicadas, crickets and frogs. I am going to a log cabin overlooking Rocky Creek, that flows into the Toe River in Yancey County North Carolina. It is not so far up I-26 East, joining Hwys 19 and 23 to Burnsville, the county seat, passing by a billboard for Zen Tubing, "Find Your Inner Tube", past fields of cosmos and zinias now fading, past Mars Hill ( where my grandfather went to college) and Bald Creek. I am in the unreal mountains, blue and green and astonishing as they stand across the sky. There is an exit for Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, where in the Spring, bicylists ride their bikes from Spartanburg in South Carolina to the top in the Assault on Mt Mitchell.
In Burnsville, I find restrooms beside the visitor center just off the square where there are historic buildings, antique and gift shops,a coffee shop "Java", the Nu Wray old hotel still in business with a restaurant, the Monkey Business Toy Store, the Menagerie, down the street, Stonefly Outfitters.
There are now trees turning yellow and red among the evergreens.
Highway 19 meets 80 South in the Micaville Loop. Now the side roads are:
Bear Wallow, Gold Knob, Boone Hill, Grizzly Bear, Bowditch Bottom, Mudslinger, Roaring Spout, Morning Glory, Locust Creek, Moccasin Flower, 7 Mile Ridge, Everlasting, Wild Cherry, Goodtimes, Passional, Powderhorn, Stillhouse and Hardscrabble, Lookout Rd and Heavenly View. I am on the Quilt Trail, displaying traditional quilt squares on the sides of buildings, houses and barns.
At Blivens Farms, I buy grits from Boonville, Bear Berry Jam (blueberries and blackberries) and Frog Jam (figs, raspberries, orange and ginger), a big red mountain tomato and a rustic bark bird feeder.
Soon I have traversed windey roads until I reach the beautiful log cabin perched over Rocky Creek. Inside there is every modern convenience. Ken, the owner, built this cabin himself. There is an antique iron stove and a modern gas stove, heat, stained glass windows, a shower with a mosaic tile wall patterned with a cabin in the mountains. There are decks surrounded with mountain laurel and rhodendron. There is even a little cabin set apart as a reading library.
We set out for a swinging bridge over the Toe River, where looking down, we see trout swimming among the rocks. We hike up to a waterfall which splashes down over level after level of rocky stairs. We see many small dark gray juncos flitting through the trees and bushes.
At night, the water stops running in the faucets, but we have buckets to flush toilets with water from the creek and bottled water to drink and brush our teeth.
We are packing up when a neighbor walks by with his stick. He says for years, he has spent the winter in Florida and the Spring, Summer and Fall here in his house on the Creek.
"This year," he says, "I am going to try to make it through the winter here."
In Burnsville, I find restrooms beside the visitor center just off the square where there are historic buildings, antique and gift shops,a coffee shop "Java", the Nu Wray old hotel still in business with a restaurant, the Monkey Business Toy Store, the Menagerie, down the street, Stonefly Outfitters.
There are now trees turning yellow and red among the evergreens.
Highway 19 meets 80 South in the Micaville Loop. Now the side roads are:
Bear Wallow, Gold Knob, Boone Hill, Grizzly Bear, Bowditch Bottom, Mudslinger, Roaring Spout, Morning Glory, Locust Creek, Moccasin Flower, 7 Mile Ridge, Everlasting, Wild Cherry, Goodtimes, Passional, Powderhorn, Stillhouse and Hardscrabble, Lookout Rd and Heavenly View. I am on the Quilt Trail, displaying traditional quilt squares on the sides of buildings, houses and barns.
At Blivens Farms, I buy grits from Boonville, Bear Berry Jam (blueberries and blackberries) and Frog Jam (figs, raspberries, orange and ginger), a big red mountain tomato and a rustic bark bird feeder.
Soon I have traversed windey roads until I reach the beautiful log cabin perched over Rocky Creek. Inside there is every modern convenience. Ken, the owner, built this cabin himself. There is an antique iron stove and a modern gas stove, heat, stained glass windows, a shower with a mosaic tile wall patterned with a cabin in the mountains. There are decks surrounded with mountain laurel and rhodendron. There is even a little cabin set apart as a reading library.
We set out for a swinging bridge over the Toe River, where looking down, we see trout swimming among the rocks. We hike up to a waterfall which splashes down over level after level of rocky stairs. We see many small dark gray juncos flitting through the trees and bushes.
At night, the water stops running in the faucets, but we have buckets to flush toilets with water from the creek and bottled water to drink and brush our teeth.
We are packing up when a neighbor walks by with his stick. He says for years, he has spent the winter in Florida and the Spring, Summer and Fall here in his house on the Creek.
"This year," he says, "I am going to try to make it through the winter here."
Sunday, September 13, 2015
September 12, 2015 Lake George Warren: Apparitions from A Walk for Your Life
Lake George Warren State Park is diagonally all the way across the state of South Carolina and nearly to Savannah. It is a fine, cool dawn with a low sky like a folded white blanket, as if a white sky were painted by water color pushing the brush along the seams with a transparent gray paint.
I take Hwy 56 past the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind where horses in a green pasture behind a white fence are munching their breakfast.
I get gas at Pauline General Store ($1.79.9 the cheapest in 11 years). There are porch rockers with little cypress knee tables between them. Farmers are going in and out with steaming cups of coffee in one hand, a newspaper in the other shaking off sleep from their eyes. Inside is a tub filled with iced soft drinks, tables, a bar and grill with a variety of homemade warm flakey biscuits filled with sausage, ham, eggs, cheese and bacon. For me, it's a sausage with grape jelly which I eat in the car.
Along the way, the deep green trees stand silently with the expectation of the fall to come, an inner knowing of the beginning of the autumnal equinox to be, that will change them.
Near Bobo's Taxidermy, there is a fluffy tailed fox in the road which vanishes into the bushes. Beside the road there is yellow mullen, black eyed susans, wild yellow indigo. On the radio a haunting voice is singing Ave Maria from the 9-11 Memorial of last night in New York.
I pass by Belfast Plantation in Newberry County and just afterwards the Little River-Dominick Presbyterian Church established in 1761. The building is red brick with blue stained glass windows. Little River flows nearby.
I get Hwy 39 at Chapells where the Fire and Rescue is having a Barbeque today, drive over the Saluda, past the Centro Cristiano Pentecostes Vida Abundante Church (pastor: Jose Gonzales) in Saluda, listening to country music on the radio:
"He's a Heartache Waiting to Happen"
I am on the Uncle Bill Eargle Memorial Highway. A Farm has Brahmins. Tall purple ironweed grows on the side of mowed down corn fields. The morning glories everywhere are pink. In the Upstate, they are usually purple, rose and sky blue. At Ridge Springs the Derrick John Deere Store has dozens of bright shining green tractors. There is a sidewalk sale today in town. There are antique stores, The Nut House pecan store, Dixie Belle Peaches. This and the next towns are set in pecan groves, cotton fields and peach orchards. Over I-20 I am on the Old Ninety Six Indian Trail. There is the New Holland Memonite Church and I am going through Salley, "Home of the Chitlin Strut". After Springfield there are four or five bridges; the middle one goes over the South Fork of the Edisto River.
I hear on the radio, that people were walking on the Haje to Mecca when a crane collapsed, killing many.
On the Camino de Santiago, a young American woman is missing from her pilgrimage, leaving behind her belongings in a back pack. Across Europe, thousands of refuges are walking, floating on rubber rafts, running, jumping on trains, suffocating in trucks, drowning, searching for freedom for themselves and a future for their children, escaping from wars in the Middle East and North Africa.
On the radio, Judy Collins is singing the Leonard Cohen "Hallelujah".
I have finally come to Denmark where the Nelson's have the best bakery in South Carolinna, maybe in the world and I buy donuts which melt in your mouth. Besides this world class Memonite bakery, Denmark has the Dane Theater converted to a Cultural Center and Voorhis College and Denmark Tech.
Soon, I think I lose Hwy 39 and stop at Bulldog Cycles where they are having an open house. I ask directions from a group of tatooed, black leather vested senior citizens who kindly show me the way and soon past Gifford, turning onto Hwy 363, I find Warren Lake and the entrance to the State Park.
The Williams Family, wearing bright red Tee shirts which declare "Family is Everything" and "Williams", are having a cookout and even putting up a big inflated bouncy house on the athletic field for the kids.
Coming up from the children's play ground and leaving the Nature Trail which goes down near the lake, is a group of people, four young men and two women, who startle me by looking like apparitions of the Syrian and Iranian refugees who are fleeing into Europe. One woman wears a long traditional subtlely flowered dress with yazma head scarf. But they are smiling and well fed. They give me directions to both trails. They are from Lebanon and will soon be U.S. citizens.
I take first the little Nature trail, only .3 mile and then the Fit Trail. All along the way, there are exercise stations-- "A good walk ruined" as Mark Twain once said of the sport of golf.
Then I take 1.5 mile trail which is extremely well kept and marked. Growing there are pink Butterfly Pea vines with little flowers and floating through the forest air is a beautiful brown butterfly (could this be the Wild Indigo Dusky Wing?). On a pond float Fragrant White Water Lillies ( Nymphaea adorata).
Going home, I take 321 up to Columbia. On the way in the crossroads of Neeses is the gargantuan Piggly Wiggly, which has a pharmacy, a florist and even a large restaurant inside.
Nearing home, there is a swath of blue peaking out over gigantic cumulus clouds piled on the horizon, the kind of clouds that have a silver lining, at least that is the way I see them.
I take Hwy 56 past the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind where horses in a green pasture behind a white fence are munching their breakfast.
I get gas at Pauline General Store ($1.79.9 the cheapest in 11 years). There are porch rockers with little cypress knee tables between them. Farmers are going in and out with steaming cups of coffee in one hand, a newspaper in the other shaking off sleep from their eyes. Inside is a tub filled with iced soft drinks, tables, a bar and grill with a variety of homemade warm flakey biscuits filled with sausage, ham, eggs, cheese and bacon. For me, it's a sausage with grape jelly which I eat in the car.
Along the way, the deep green trees stand silently with the expectation of the fall to come, an inner knowing of the beginning of the autumnal equinox to be, that will change them.
Near Bobo's Taxidermy, there is a fluffy tailed fox in the road which vanishes into the bushes. Beside the road there is yellow mullen, black eyed susans, wild yellow indigo. On the radio a haunting voice is singing Ave Maria from the 9-11 Memorial of last night in New York.
I pass by Belfast Plantation in Newberry County and just afterwards the Little River-Dominick Presbyterian Church established in 1761. The building is red brick with blue stained glass windows. Little River flows nearby.
I get Hwy 39 at Chapells where the Fire and Rescue is having a Barbeque today, drive over the Saluda, past the Centro Cristiano Pentecostes Vida Abundante Church (pastor: Jose Gonzales) in Saluda, listening to country music on the radio:
"He's a Heartache Waiting to Happen"
I am on the Uncle Bill Eargle Memorial Highway. A Farm has Brahmins. Tall purple ironweed grows on the side of mowed down corn fields. The morning glories everywhere are pink. In the Upstate, they are usually purple, rose and sky blue. At Ridge Springs the Derrick John Deere Store has dozens of bright shining green tractors. There is a sidewalk sale today in town. There are antique stores, The Nut House pecan store, Dixie Belle Peaches. This and the next towns are set in pecan groves, cotton fields and peach orchards. Over I-20 I am on the Old Ninety Six Indian Trail. There is the New Holland Memonite Church and I am going through Salley, "Home of the Chitlin Strut". After Springfield there are four or five bridges; the middle one goes over the South Fork of the Edisto River.
I hear on the radio, that people were walking on the Haje to Mecca when a crane collapsed, killing many.
On the Camino de Santiago, a young American woman is missing from her pilgrimage, leaving behind her belongings in a back pack. Across Europe, thousands of refuges are walking, floating on rubber rafts, running, jumping on trains, suffocating in trucks, drowning, searching for freedom for themselves and a future for their children, escaping from wars in the Middle East and North Africa.
On the radio, Judy Collins is singing the Leonard Cohen "Hallelujah".
I have finally come to Denmark where the Nelson's have the best bakery in South Carolinna, maybe in the world and I buy donuts which melt in your mouth. Besides this world class Memonite bakery, Denmark has the Dane Theater converted to a Cultural Center and Voorhis College and Denmark Tech.
Soon, I think I lose Hwy 39 and stop at Bulldog Cycles where they are having an open house. I ask directions from a group of tatooed, black leather vested senior citizens who kindly show me the way and soon past Gifford, turning onto Hwy 363, I find Warren Lake and the entrance to the State Park.
The Williams Family, wearing bright red Tee shirts which declare "Family is Everything" and "Williams", are having a cookout and even putting up a big inflated bouncy house on the athletic field for the kids.
Coming up from the children's play ground and leaving the Nature Trail which goes down near the lake, is a group of people, four young men and two women, who startle me by looking like apparitions of the Syrian and Iranian refugees who are fleeing into Europe. One woman wears a long traditional subtlely flowered dress with yazma head scarf. But they are smiling and well fed. They give me directions to both trails. They are from Lebanon and will soon be U.S. citizens.
I take first the little Nature trail, only .3 mile and then the Fit Trail. All along the way, there are exercise stations-- "A good walk ruined" as Mark Twain once said of the sport of golf.
Then I take 1.5 mile trail which is extremely well kept and marked. Growing there are pink Butterfly Pea vines with little flowers and floating through the forest air is a beautiful brown butterfly (could this be the Wild Indigo Dusky Wing?). On a pond float Fragrant White Water Lillies ( Nymphaea adorata).
Going home, I take 321 up to Columbia. On the way in the crossroads of Neeses is the gargantuan Piggly Wiggly, which has a pharmacy, a florist and even a large restaurant inside.
Nearing home, there is a swath of blue peaking out over gigantic cumulus clouds piled on the horizon, the kind of clouds that have a silver lining, at least that is the way I see them.
Monday, September 7, 2015
September 6, 2015 Little Pee Dee State Park, Great White Herons
I slept in my little tent where looking up I could see the sliver of a moon through the tops of tall pine trees.
The woods and lake were breathing their musical notes in and out in a lullaby. Once, I heard a commotion among water fowls, but near dawn, there was a silence, warm, full of promise and comforting.
Yesterday evening I took the Beaver Pond Nature Trail which shoots off the camping area for one and a half miles. It is a white sand, pine needle covered trail through pines and oaks full of the unworldly black butterflies with blue markings (known as Limenitis Arthemis Astyana) drifting towards my outstretched hands and away. Suddenly, almost without warning I came upon the pond of high grasses and cat tails, alive with dozens of Great White Herons, wading, perching, bursting and careening through the air, as startled as I was to be an uninvited guest at their roosting and fishing place. Unaware, I had stumbled through that invisible barrier into another world inhabited by other beings. With reverence, I stepped as quietly as I knew how around the loop and back through the butterfly woods.
This morning at 5:00 am, I awoke to the strong aroma of coffee brewing, the orange flame of a camp fire not far away. I made tea and sipped it watching the dawn come. Showered and dressed I walked down to Lake Norton where the day before I had seen mallards and an anhinga with its wings wide spread on a little island. A young girl told me that she thought it was a fake bird. This morning, I could see many many white dots of herons far down the lake. Yellow blooms of lilies float on the dark black waters.
It was time to leave and I took another course home, first down hwy 57 to the crossroad of "Fork" where I spotted a huge fat snake curled on the side of the road, perhaps a copperhead or even a rattle snake, I did not stop to check it out but turned unto Hwy 41 to Marion. I have noticed that in Dillon and Marlboro counties, the garbage cans are Susan B. Koman pink.
In Marion, there were hand wavers up already, sitting in lawn chairs passing the time, greeting strangers driving by as well as friends passing. Here there is poverty, houses grown over with bushes, side walks fringed with tall grasses. It reminds me of how my town was growing up, how I remember walking barefoot on those grassy sidewalks in the silent summer heat. I turned onto Hwy 76 for Florence, past billboards for "Yams, Real Greens, Blackeye Peas, Boiled P-nuts and Beer on Sunday", soul food, but the food of the European Americans as well as the African Americans, who have shared much.
I stopped at a BP station which had a snack and breakfast-lunch bar with tables, a pool room with 2 pool tables and three, yes three, Ladies' Restrooms. This gas station has a porch with rocking chairs.
In Florence, there is prosperity, the Francis Marion College now listed in USA News and World Report as a best American College. There is McLeod Regional Hospital.
I cross under I-95 and head for Darlington. Now the land is softly rolling. Unbeknownst to me, today is the day of the Southern 500 at the Darlington Motor Speedway. I am driving behind the Joe Gibbs Racing Van.
Banners proclaim "Welcome Race Car Fans". I drive right past the speedway where thousands of those fans, dressed for the sunny day are parked and tail gating; one young couple is walking 6 hunting dogs on the side walk. People are hawking parking places, flags, mugs, hats, you name it, it is here. There is a festive spirit for the race which has not started yet.
My last stop toward McBee (pronounced Mackby with the emphasis on Mack) is the McLeod Farms Store. Huge Mrs. Huff's orange and pink Lantana along the side of the building, rocking chairs on the porch. Inside are peaches in season, vegetables, an ice cream parlor and peach cider, apple cider, corn relish, peach butter, apple butter, canned peaches, pickled peaches, peach almond bread, apple almond bread, peach cobbler with and without ice cream, anything your heart desires in the manner of peaches. I buy some fresh peaches.
Now a back road, we came this way on the driving to the beach when I was a child. We would stop, I suppose just here to buy peaches at a peach stand. At home, my mother would buy a bushel of peaches from Springs' stand and would be horrified when my father's mother (from Pennsylvania by way of Ireland) would stew the peaches. Somehow, our family could put away a bushel of ripe peaches in cobblers, pies and sliced on vanilla ice cream, made into homemade ice cream and on corn flakes with milk.
I notice that in McBee, the name on the water tower is Alligator Water. There are other businesses with the name alligator.
I am tired now of driving and hardly notice the yards with suspended gourd bird houses for purple martins,
motorcycles in the driveways, campers in the backyards, rockers on the porches, Chinaberry trees in the yards. I pass Papa John's Christmas Tree Farm, the brick house which looks uninhabited, the grass cut, the broken back yard cyclone fence which belonged to my mother's sister, Trude (married to Papa John). And there on the left is the place where my mother's old homeplace had once been before it burned, now just a small cottage where someone else lives. There had once been a sandy drive in the back where we played hop scotch, a privet hedge separating the barnyard of chickens, pigs, hunting dogs, smokehouse and giant walnut trees that had been cut down and hauled away by a crook who scammed my grandmother out of them.
In the Upstate, along the road, sweet gum, poplars and pecan trees have their first yellow leaves.
By late afternoon, I am back home again, feeding the cat and the dog and unloading the car. My glimpse into the other world of the Great White Herons is behind me, but will stay with me always.
The woods and lake were breathing their musical notes in and out in a lullaby. Once, I heard a commotion among water fowls, but near dawn, there was a silence, warm, full of promise and comforting.
Yesterday evening I took the Beaver Pond Nature Trail which shoots off the camping area for one and a half miles. It is a white sand, pine needle covered trail through pines and oaks full of the unworldly black butterflies with blue markings (known as Limenitis Arthemis Astyana) drifting towards my outstretched hands and away. Suddenly, almost without warning I came upon the pond of high grasses and cat tails, alive with dozens of Great White Herons, wading, perching, bursting and careening through the air, as startled as I was to be an uninvited guest at their roosting and fishing place. Unaware, I had stumbled through that invisible barrier into another world inhabited by other beings. With reverence, I stepped as quietly as I knew how around the loop and back through the butterfly woods.
This morning at 5:00 am, I awoke to the strong aroma of coffee brewing, the orange flame of a camp fire not far away. I made tea and sipped it watching the dawn come. Showered and dressed I walked down to Lake Norton where the day before I had seen mallards and an anhinga with its wings wide spread on a little island. A young girl told me that she thought it was a fake bird. This morning, I could see many many white dots of herons far down the lake. Yellow blooms of lilies float on the dark black waters.
It was time to leave and I took another course home, first down hwy 57 to the crossroad of "Fork" where I spotted a huge fat snake curled on the side of the road, perhaps a copperhead or even a rattle snake, I did not stop to check it out but turned unto Hwy 41 to Marion. I have noticed that in Dillon and Marlboro counties, the garbage cans are Susan B. Koman pink.
In Marion, there were hand wavers up already, sitting in lawn chairs passing the time, greeting strangers driving by as well as friends passing. Here there is poverty, houses grown over with bushes, side walks fringed with tall grasses. It reminds me of how my town was growing up, how I remember walking barefoot on those grassy sidewalks in the silent summer heat. I turned onto Hwy 76 for Florence, past billboards for "Yams, Real Greens, Blackeye Peas, Boiled P-nuts and Beer on Sunday", soul food, but the food of the European Americans as well as the African Americans, who have shared much.
I stopped at a BP station which had a snack and breakfast-lunch bar with tables, a pool room with 2 pool tables and three, yes three, Ladies' Restrooms. This gas station has a porch with rocking chairs.
In Florence, there is prosperity, the Francis Marion College now listed in USA News and World Report as a best American College. There is McLeod Regional Hospital.
I cross under I-95 and head for Darlington. Now the land is softly rolling. Unbeknownst to me, today is the day of the Southern 500 at the Darlington Motor Speedway. I am driving behind the Joe Gibbs Racing Van.
Banners proclaim "Welcome Race Car Fans". I drive right past the speedway where thousands of those fans, dressed for the sunny day are parked and tail gating; one young couple is walking 6 hunting dogs on the side walk. People are hawking parking places, flags, mugs, hats, you name it, it is here. There is a festive spirit for the race which has not started yet.
My last stop toward McBee (pronounced Mackby with the emphasis on Mack) is the McLeod Farms Store. Huge Mrs. Huff's orange and pink Lantana along the side of the building, rocking chairs on the porch. Inside are peaches in season, vegetables, an ice cream parlor and peach cider, apple cider, corn relish, peach butter, apple butter, canned peaches, pickled peaches, peach almond bread, apple almond bread, peach cobbler with and without ice cream, anything your heart desires in the manner of peaches. I buy some fresh peaches.
Now a back road, we came this way on the driving to the beach when I was a child. We would stop, I suppose just here to buy peaches at a peach stand. At home, my mother would buy a bushel of peaches from Springs' stand and would be horrified when my father's mother (from Pennsylvania by way of Ireland) would stew the peaches. Somehow, our family could put away a bushel of ripe peaches in cobblers, pies and sliced on vanilla ice cream, made into homemade ice cream and on corn flakes with milk.
I notice that in McBee, the name on the water tower is Alligator Water. There are other businesses with the name alligator.
I am tired now of driving and hardly notice the yards with suspended gourd bird houses for purple martins,
motorcycles in the driveways, campers in the backyards, rockers on the porches, Chinaberry trees in the yards. I pass Papa John's Christmas Tree Farm, the brick house which looks uninhabited, the grass cut, the broken back yard cyclone fence which belonged to my mother's sister, Trude (married to Papa John). And there on the left is the place where my mother's old homeplace had once been before it burned, now just a small cottage where someone else lives. There had once been a sandy drive in the back where we played hop scotch, a privet hedge separating the barnyard of chickens, pigs, hunting dogs, smokehouse and giant walnut trees that had been cut down and hauled away by a crook who scammed my grandmother out of them.
In the Upstate, along the road, sweet gum, poplars and pecan trees have their first yellow leaves.
By late afternoon, I am back home again, feeding the cat and the dog and unloading the car. My glimpse into the other world of the Great White Herons is behind me, but will stay with me always.
September 5, 2015 H. Cooper Black Memorial Field Trial:Cruising Hwy 9
According to Chris Waddell, Ranger, H. Cooper Black is a 7,000 acre wildlife preserve with 50 miles of dirt roads, dedicated to horses and hunting dog field trials.
Highway 9 crosses South Carolina from the mountains above Spartanburg and goes all the way across the top of the state to Little River, Cherry Grove and Ocean Drive (home of the Shag) beaches. I cross the Broad River at Lockhart, through Chester , then crossing the wide Catawba to Lancaster where there is an odd billboard warning:
"Don't Let E-Coli Ruin Your Dinner Party"
Through Tradesville and over Lynches River into Chesterfield county and past Dudley Dorights General Store.
In Pageland there are lovely red roses blooming along the old main streets of town. Twenty years ago, as a volunteer, I drove a frail patient to a nursing home on the skirts of town here where posted at the door was a sign proclaiming "Quarantine".
" Never mind that", the white coated doctor said and I left the man there, to worry about it the rest of my life, including today.
Along the road through tiny hamlets are Evans Farm Produce, Rick's Produce, Grandma's Produce and at Mt Croghan in the road in front of Polecat BBQ lies a smashed furry red and black dead animal looking much like a "Polecat" (an ill smelling member of the weasel family, a type of skunk, or a vile member of the human family who acts like a polecat). In Ruby, Jewel City Produce is closed.
From Cheraw (home of the Braves), I take hwy 1, then left on Society Hill Rd and right onto H. Cooper Black Rd and left on Sporting Dog Trail. After a few miles on a gravel road, I come to stables, rest rooms, a Club House and a dozen white shiney mobile home/horse trailers as big as Trailways buses, parked under some shade trees. These huge vehicles cost from $40,000 up to untold fortunes.
There are really no hiking trails here. There are horseback riding trails, but Christ Waddell suggests I take a stroll around Goose Pond (one of three ponds here). I take a pleasant 1.5 mile walk around the little pond covered with water lilies, the large blooms now brown. At first I am following two pinto horses, their long tails swinging, carrying two riders who move off into the distance over meadows and into pine forests. No one else is here except me, a little white heron in the top of a tree, lots of orange and black fritillaries and thousands of grass hoppers flying through the air.
The field dog trials begin in the fall and continue until Christmas, says Chris Waddell.
Leaving, I pass through the sweetly named village of Society Hill, take Hwy15/401 across The Great Pee Dee River and back onto Hwy 9.
Here is the town of Clio, established 1836, where on Main St the fading letters high up on an old brick building proclaim: " Edens Opera House", now divided into an auto parts store and a Refuge of Deliverance mission.
Now, the land is changing into lush flat fields of cotton or soy beans and in the distance houses and barns banked against forests of dark green trees. I drive on through Minturn and Little Rock. A sign says:
" I love you
I forgive you
Come to supper"
Here is the huge looming Perdue Dillon Plant and then the even huger more looming Rocket City 2 Fireworks, it's red and yellow facade devastating the view of the town of Dillon. Highway I-95 crosses here, just over the border from North Carolina. A little north is the famous South of the Border group of Souvenir Junk shops and restaurants. I did not go there, but I have been there before when John was on his way to Kitty Hawk to run a marathon. Colleen, Michael , the dog, Finn, and I accompanied him. Not today.
I am on my way to Little Pee Dee State Park, turning rt on Hwy 57 for 11 miles, then left on Road 22 (State Park Rd) and across two bridges over the black waters of the Little Pee Dee River, then right into the Park, where I pitch my tent for the night.
Highway 9 crosses South Carolina from the mountains above Spartanburg and goes all the way across the top of the state to Little River, Cherry Grove and Ocean Drive (home of the Shag) beaches. I cross the Broad River at Lockhart, through Chester , then crossing the wide Catawba to Lancaster where there is an odd billboard warning:
"Don't Let E-Coli Ruin Your Dinner Party"
Through Tradesville and over Lynches River into Chesterfield county and past Dudley Dorights General Store.
In Pageland there are lovely red roses blooming along the old main streets of town. Twenty years ago, as a volunteer, I drove a frail patient to a nursing home on the skirts of town here where posted at the door was a sign proclaiming "Quarantine".
" Never mind that", the white coated doctor said and I left the man there, to worry about it the rest of my life, including today.
Along the road through tiny hamlets are Evans Farm Produce, Rick's Produce, Grandma's Produce and at Mt Croghan in the road in front of Polecat BBQ lies a smashed furry red and black dead animal looking much like a "Polecat" (an ill smelling member of the weasel family, a type of skunk, or a vile member of the human family who acts like a polecat). In Ruby, Jewel City Produce is closed.
From Cheraw (home of the Braves), I take hwy 1, then left on Society Hill Rd and right onto H. Cooper Black Rd and left on Sporting Dog Trail. After a few miles on a gravel road, I come to stables, rest rooms, a Club House and a dozen white shiney mobile home/horse trailers as big as Trailways buses, parked under some shade trees. These huge vehicles cost from $40,000 up to untold fortunes.
There are really no hiking trails here. There are horseback riding trails, but Christ Waddell suggests I take a stroll around Goose Pond (one of three ponds here). I take a pleasant 1.5 mile walk around the little pond covered with water lilies, the large blooms now brown. At first I am following two pinto horses, their long tails swinging, carrying two riders who move off into the distance over meadows and into pine forests. No one else is here except me, a little white heron in the top of a tree, lots of orange and black fritillaries and thousands of grass hoppers flying through the air.
The field dog trials begin in the fall and continue until Christmas, says Chris Waddell.
Leaving, I pass through the sweetly named village of Society Hill, take Hwy15/401 across The Great Pee Dee River and back onto Hwy 9.
Here is the town of Clio, established 1836, where on Main St the fading letters high up on an old brick building proclaim: " Edens Opera House", now divided into an auto parts store and a Refuge of Deliverance mission.
Now, the land is changing into lush flat fields of cotton or soy beans and in the distance houses and barns banked against forests of dark green trees. I drive on through Minturn and Little Rock. A sign says:
" I love you
I forgive you
Come to supper"
Here is the huge looming Perdue Dillon Plant and then the even huger more looming Rocket City 2 Fireworks, it's red and yellow facade devastating the view of the town of Dillon. Highway I-95 crosses here, just over the border from North Carolina. A little north is the famous South of the Border group of Souvenir Junk shops and restaurants. I did not go there, but I have been there before when John was on his way to Kitty Hawk to run a marathon. Colleen, Michael , the dog, Finn, and I accompanied him. Not today.
I am on my way to Little Pee Dee State Park, turning rt on Hwy 57 for 11 miles, then left on Road 22 (State Park Rd) and across two bridges over the black waters of the Little Pee Dee River, then right into the Park, where I pitch my tent for the night.
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