Three unrelated events had the effect of catapulting me back 41 years. Several months ago I bought a Rubik’s Cube as part of a musical experiment. Two separate Facebook friends posted links to songs from South Carolina’s Tricentennial, and this week I met with my friend Tim Taylor about setting up a geocaching trail around the Roper Mountain Science Center. Those three events together created a time warp, and sent me in search of information about Greenville’s ill-fated Piedmont Exposition Park, and the geodesic cube designed by Buckminster Fuller that was supposed to sit atop Roper Mountain.
It was the 1969-1970 school year, and I was in Mrs. Medlock’s third grade class at Gray Court-Owings School. In third grade the social studies curriculum is all about South Carolina, so the timing with the state’s tricentennial was perfect. We all sang that we were good Sandlappers, and we learned about the various sections of the of the state, from the coastal plains to the Piedmont.