Tom – Page 113 – Random Connections

Remembering 9/11

September 11, 2011 Tom 1 Comment

Miscellaneous

I must confess – I’m suffering from 9/11 fatigue. Not because I’m tired of hearing about the terrorist attacks of ten years ago and the remembrances thereof, but because of the overwhelming and very conflicting emotions associated with those remembrances. There was the terrible, terrible national crisis, with so much confusion. There was the shining … Read More “Remembering 9/11” »

Upper State Fair 2011

September 9, 2011 Tom 1 Comment

Local, Photography

Labor Day marks the advent of the Upper State South Carolina Fair. As I’ve done for the past couple of years, I grabbed my camera and headed out to get some shots. This year I had invited several others to come along and make it a true photo trek. Unfortunately, iffy weather and other conflicts caused problems. So, Wednesday evening I headed out on my own.

My usual plan is to get there early evening and catch the last rays, then hang around to get some night shots. I arrived at the Greenville-Pickens Speedway fair grounds at about 6:00, and it wasn’t too crowded, but starting to fill up.

I took a few shots, but found myself shooting the same things I’ve shot in years past. I was running out of ideas.

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The Trappe Door

September 9, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

Restaurants

Friday evening Laura and I were in the mood to try something new downtown. Our friend and former neighbor, Josh Beeby, is the owner of Barley’s Tap Room, and several months ago he had opened a new venue called The Trappe Door. We decided to give it a try. Background Josh is from Australia. According … Read More “The Trappe Door” »

Grits Guilty Pleasure

September 5, 2011 Tom No Comments

Recipes

1. In a cereal bowl, dice a small tomato. Home-grown, garden-ripened with a higher acidic content works best. In this case I just used cherry salad tomatoes from the store, cut in half. 2. Add two packets of Quaker Instant Grits with Bacon Flavored Bits. (Yeah, blasphemous to most true Southerners.) 3. Add enough butter … Read More “Grits Guilty Pleasure” »

Meet Rory

September 3, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

Miscellaneous

I can’t believe I let this slip by! I had posted it on Facebook and Flickr, but hadn’t written about it here. We have a new kitten!

A week and a half ago I was on my way into my office when I heard this tiny voice meowing. I looked, and one of the tiniest kittens I’d seen was curled up in the corner just outside of my window. I got a box and retrieved the little beast, which immediately curled up in my hands and started purring.

We’ve had other kittens dropped off at our office. There have been two other such incidents, and each of these had been adopted by my coworkers. This time it didn’t look like anyone was interested in giving this little guy a home. I snapped this photo of the cat in his box, and sent to Laura, just to show her what I’d found.

I had the kitten and his box in my office. He quickly escaped, so I picked him up. He stayed on my shoulder for awhile until I figured out what to do.

The problem is that we have folks allergic to cats in our office. I couldn’t just leave him there, and he was already out of his box. Fortunately, Lori Cooper came to my rescue with a much larger box, and an office that could be closed off so that he didn’t escape. Right after that I got a message from Laura asking if I was bringing the kitten home. I guess he’d found a home, after all. During lunch I brought the kitten home so he could get settled in.

Quick Jaunt to Cunningham

August 28, 2011 Tom 1 Comment

Paddling

One of the things I love about where I live is that I can be on the water paddling somewhere within 15 minutes. Such was the case Saturday. While Irene was wreaking havoc along the coast, we had wonderful weather, albeit a bit breezy. I called up Tim Taylor, and we loaded up the boats for a spur-of-the-minute paddling trip to Lake Cunningham.

Tim had headed out with me once before, on a trip from Piedmont upstream on the Saluda River. Tim is a naturalist, and a great person to have along on these trips. Today was no different, as we came across lots of wildlife on the paddle.

We first stopped by the Lake Robinson office to get day passes for paddling. Looking out over the more open water of Robinson, we could see white caps churned up by the wind. We had toyed with the idea of just putting in here, but the rough water made us stick with our original plan, and head to the more sheltered waters of Cunningham.

There was a major party wrapping up at the Cunningham picnic area, but the only folks at the boat ramp were a few fishermen who looked at our kayaks skeptically. We launched, then did our usual routine of heading upstream toward the lily pads.

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A Matter of Maps

August 21, 2011 Tom 3 Comments

Geocaching and Maps, History and Genealogy

I have been enjoying going through the old maps in the Robert Mills 1825 Atlas of South Carolina. However, last weekend’s photo trek to Old Pickens Court House brought out some problems with relying solely on Mills’ maps to find ghost towns. The maps are too early to catch many towns that developed after 1825, only to fade away by the time of the Great Depression. Never fear, though. There are other online resources that can cover later time periods.

The University of South Carolina’s online digital library has an extensive collection of historic topographic maps of the state. The maps cover from 1888 to 1975, but not all quadrangles are available for this time period. For example, the collection contains three maps for the Abbeville quadrangle – 1900, 1918, 1943. The 236 maps in the collection include a mix of 30 minute, 15 minute, and 7.5 minute projections. I haven’t checked to see how extensive the state coverage is, but I’m sure there are parts of the state that are not covered.

Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant

August 18, 2011 Tom No Comments

Restaurants

While on our photo trek Ed gave me grief about not doing any restaurant reviews lately. And he’s right – I haven’t. It seems that we’ve been either traveling too much, eating at home because we’re tired of traveling, or hitting our tried and true places because we’re too tired to cook but also tired … Read More “Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant” »

Old Pickens Court House

August 16, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

History and Genealogy

During our photo trek on Sunday, Ed and I visited Old Pickens Presbyterian Church, which was once in Old Pickens Courthouse. The “Old” designation is official, as a way of distinguishing it from the “New” town and church to the east. This location fits our working definition of a “ghost town”, so I thought I would write it up as such.

Ed and I first visited the church early in the morning. The church itself was closed, but there was a sign saying that it would be open at 2:30 that afternoon. After our trek I had dropped Ed off at his house, and was actually on my way home when I noticed the the time – the church would now be open. Since I hadn’t gotten very far down the road, and since I had no idea when I would have another opportunity, I turned around and headed back to the church.

I found the church open and manned by Joyce Brickett, who is on the Board of Directors of the Historic Old Pickens Foundation. She had several tables set up with a wealth of information about the church and the town. I spent some time photographing the interior and talking with her about the area.

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A Photo Trek with a Duck Hunter

August 15, 2011 Tom 1 Comment

History and Genealogy, Local, Photography

Saturday I met Marc50. Sunday I met another long-time Flickr friend – Ed Clem, the Duck Hunter.

Ed and I have been online friends for several years now. We started commenting on each other’s photos first on Flickr, then started following and commenting on each other’s blogs, and have both been active on Facebook and Google+. I feel like I know Ed fairly well, but there’s just one catch – we had never met in person. That is, until Sunday. Ed loves history and rambling about as much as I do. So we decided to get together and see what we could find in the Pickens-Oconee areas.

I picked up Ed at his home, then we headed for our first stop, Cateechee. This is an old mill village that has suffered the fate of so many in the upstate. The mill has closed, and has now been torn down. The little community has long been in decline. There are still two churches with active congregations, but any form of commerce is long gone.

Cateechee is an isolated village where the mill is the only real employer, similar to Slater, Newry or Startex. As one enters the main village loop, the old Cateechee School can be seen off to the right.