A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
Alan had a list of places he wanted to explore. That’s always a good thing. I got an e-mail from him several weeks ago with an attached Google Map showing places in Western York County, including the communities of Smyrna, Sharon, and McConnells. Our schedules finally aligned so that we were able to go on our photo trek this past Saturday.
Thursday morning had come and gone and I’d already had a full day. I had given my talk at the SCASL conference, but it was too nice of day to just hang out at home. I was in the mood to do more rambling. I had seen an article about a new kayak ramp down in Pelzer and decided that would be my target for the afternoon.
Several weeks ago I got an unexpected request. Fellow tech educator Cathy Jo Nelson is president-elect of the South Carolina Association of School Librarians (SCASL), and was in charge of this year’s conference, to be held at the Hyatt in Greenville. Cathy asked if I, as a resident who blogs about our town, would be willing to say a few words about Greenville before the keynote address. I was flattered. Of course I said yes.
The day had already started out well. I’d made my debut with the Musician’s Circle at the Pickens Flea Market. There was still a lot of daylight left and the weather was beautiful. I felt the urge to ramble. In the course of the afternoon I found three historic churches and one old school, all of which were new to me.
NOTE: I started writing this post a couple of years ago and for whatever reason never finished it. After this past weekend’s William Walker Singing I decided it was time to dig it back out.
After my disasterous attempts at leading a couple of songs at the Sacred Harp singing at First Christian Church last Friday (back in 2015, when I first started this post) I decided that I needed to familiarize myself a bit more with the material. I put together a method for studying, and came up with a simple, mobile solution for having my favorite tunes on hand. In the process, I also stumbled on a community obsessed with record-keeping, more so than just about any obsessive sports fan I’ve ever encountered.
I almost missed it. A friend had posted on Facebook that he was attending the William Walker Memorial Shape Note Singing and that it would be this weekend. My original plans for the weekend had been changed, so I thought it would be a good chance to head over there. It had been awhile since I’d been to one of these singings, longer than I had thought, as it turned out.
While I’ve been able to find several venues where I can play my banjo, finding a venue for the new drum has been a bit more problematic. We weren’t able to find a drum circle while we were down in Florida, so I looked for options in Greenville. A friend online mentioned the Greenville Unitarian Universalist Church. But, of course they would have one. It wasn’t exactly a circle, but it was interesting.
If you Google the phrase “Coporate Music” (as I did) you get links to royalty-free music clips with an industrial/business feel. Either that, or you get links to diatribes blasting mass-produced pop music. However, my use of the word “corporate” is more like how we use the phrase “corporate worship“, an act of cooperation in the production of music. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to have several posts about such corporate acts of music, from organized groups to spontaneous jam sessions.
Spring Break in Florida. Sounds like it should be a wonderful escape. However, when the trip revolves around caring for an elderly parent things can get…complicated. Such was this past week. There were some nice escapes, and we spent lots of time with Laura’s mom.
