It’s been far too long since I’ve posted something here. The long and short of it is that I’ve been crazy busy getting things ready for my OLLI course and getting things ready for church. I’ve played with probably a dozen musical groups, but I’m even having to scale that back with my other obligations. Since the course seems to be taking so much time, I thought I’d give a quick rundown of what’s happening there.
The Furman OLLI Course is entitled “Carolina’s Lost Communities” and I’m team teaching it with Scott Withrow, who has similar interests to mine. The course lasts eight weeks and the following syllabus outlines what we’ll be discussing:
Wednesday, March 27 Introduction/Scott and Tom; The Savannah Towns: Andersonville, Vienna, and Petersburg, Hamburg – Tom
Wednesday, April 3 The French Connection: New Bordeaux, Purrysburg, and an Antebellum Academy – Scott and Tom
Wednesday, April 10 Ghost Towns of the Santee-Cooper: Ferguson, Fort Motte, Lone Star – Tom; Sunken Plantations and Remnants of a Battlefield – Scott
Wednesday, April 17 Along the Broad River: Arnold, Burr, Pinckneyville, Henderson Island, Shelton (Shivar Springs), and Lyles Ford – Scott and Tom
Wednesday, April 24 Railroad Towns: Kingsville, Manchester, Renno; Inundated Upcountry: Merrittsville and Jocassee – Tom
Wednesday, May 1 Native-America Connections: The Temple of Health – Tom; the Nations; Keowee and Old Pendleton District – Scott
Wednesday, May 8 From Worry to Joy to Fonta Flora – Some NC Sites – Scott
Wednesday, May 15 Happy Land and Promised Land and Other African American Communities – Tom and Scott
We had 140 people sign up for the course, which just blew me away. I was expecting maybe 30. Last Wednesday for the first session the room was packed.
The first session was on “The Savannah River Towns” which included Andersonville, Petersburg, Lisbon, Vienna, and Hamburg. Here’s the PowerPoint slideshow that I used for the presentation:
The slides above may be a bit sparse, but I hate going to lectures where the presenter just reads slides. I prefer to use mine as cues for the larger story.
I did create a handout for the resources that I covered in the class. This includes old maps and online archives.
Nest week Scott is doing most of the class, so I’ll take a bit of a breather. Even so, I’ll still publish a summary here where it’s done.
Thanks so much for doing this, Tom.
The history is fascinating, and those resources are great!