Closet Dixie Chick | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Closet Dixie Chick | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Closet Dixie Chick~ R. Brabham

I couldn't understand why I couldn't write today. I had a few stories floating around in my brain, but when I sat at the computer...blinking cursor. Hoping for inspiration, I grabbed the leash to take Snowy for a stroll on this crisp pre-fall morning. I came back inside, sat in front of the computer...crickets. And then it happened, a cool breeze wafted in through the open patio door. I looked out and up to the swaying treetops and cloudless blue skies. And then I remembered. I looked down at my date calendar, September the 11th. The weather was eerily like the morning of the tragedy in New York City when the terrorist flew their planes into the World Trade Center, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon killing nearly 3000 people. It almost feels sacrilegious to write about anything but the tragedy or at least memorialize it today. While sitting back and thinking of that morning, little tidbits of recent inconsequential moments start to append. The beautiful scarf I saw with the label made in Vietnam this week, Anne Franks diary and a Dixie Chicks CD. I realize as a nation and part of the human race. We forgive. As I touched this beautiful hand-woven scarf and saw the label ~Made in Vietnam~ I had goose bumps crawl up my arm. I recalled the documentaries and movies of the bloody battles and maimed bodies the Vietnam war left behind. A war indecisive in years, documented by most to span 20 years. Yet in 2010 we were trading with Vietnam to the tune of $376 million a year. According to Economy in Crisis, The United States was the second largest importer of Vietnamese shrimp in the world in 2010. Let's see, then there was Japan and Pearl Harbor. According to Wikipedia Japan-United States-relations, The United States has been Japan's largest economic partner, taking 31.5 percent of its exports, supplying 22.3 percent of its imports, and accounting for 45.9 percent of its direct investment abroad in 1990. Today, although US participation in the war in Afghanistan is over, we still have infantry and national guardsmen fighting Taliban forces and trying to stabilize the country. July 22, 2012 KABUL, Afghanistan -- This year's pullout of 23,000 American troops from Afghanistan is at the halfway mark, U.S. Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces, said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/afghanistan-war-pullout-american-soldiers_n_1692992.html Yet at the same time on the same soil, their brothers in arms are refabricating the infrastructure of Afghanistan by re-building schools, providing drinking water and medical assisting. http://www.army.mil/article/38726/civil-affairs-soldiers-prepare-for-afghan-mission/ The healing has already begun. The greed and lust for power of a few doesn't necessitate hating a whole nation. I thought of the beautiful words written in the diary of holocaust victim Anne Frank “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” And it has already started. Then, there's this CD. I sifted through a box looking for a lost business logo. What's this? The Dixie Chicks. I packed their CD away when I tired of the mud slinging and controversy that ensued after Dixie Chick's (Natalie Maines) controversial statements about our US president on foreign soil and feuds with Toby Keith on opinions and positions on the war in Iraq. I realize now that it had less to do about what their opinions were and more to do with the fact than I just wanted to begin healing without the bickering. If I had owned a Toby Keith CD at that time, I would have done the same with his. I buy music for music's sake not for the personal lifestyle and opinion of the artist. My music collection would be quite sparse, especially considering that the list of wayward , outspoken opinionated musicians goes way back. I pop the ~Chicks~ Cd into the player. Those gals were incredible. I see a neighbor strolling past the patio near the pond and fight the urge to turn the volume down. I realize we have come along way and then again..not. There's a stigma attatched to the CD that time will have to erase. But darn they were good. I guess this makes me a closet Chick.

Fish Aren't Predjudice ~R. Brabham

We spent a day pier fishing at Mt. Pleasant Waterfront Park recently. We noticed a man that tirelessly worked the pier up and down with his rods. Each time he passed by us he was expectantly optimistic that the ~tide would change~ any second. But hours into in, he had only caught a few tiny pin fish. "They are going to start biting anytime," he excitedly told my hubby Don. Don asked "What time did you get here today?" he replied, "8:00 a.m." At 4 p.m. we started pulling our rods in. Another fisherman walks up casting his line just feet away from the gentleman who had been there all day. Almost immediately, he pulls up a big flounder, minutes later he hooks a nice Red Drum. Is it skill? Is it luck? Is it a numbers game, a wait out, a fluke, a test? "What about the person that comes and needs to catch their dinner and they don't catch it?" I ask Don. He looks at me wryly, without replying but implying "You're in Mt. Pleasant, not a third world country." Similarities, we all want to outsmart the fish and we are willing to spend an 8 hour day, bucket of minnows and several canisters of shrimp to do it. Whatever it is, I have the patience of Job doing it. I have fished until I got bed spin drunk at night after closing my eyes. The stirring waters and cork still bobbed behind my eyelids. There was a time that Don didn't like to go lake fishing with me. I could literally stay on the bank all day long feeding pinfish. On one such day, he sauntered over after several hours to peer into my red worm container. He dug a finger through to find that I was down to my last 3 worms. Contented with his find, he walked back to the grassy bank, stretched out and lounged, confident the end was near. I smiled, pulled out my knife and cut the worms into three pieces. Now I have 9 and another hour of fishing. I'm not an adept angler, I just love to fish. I do everything wrong. I jiggle my line, I talk the whole time and I'll hook myself and you too if you are near. Also, at the end of the day I do what is called stupid fishing. I thread worms halfway up the line, sometimes put a shrimp and a minnow together on the hook and I've used plastic lures soaked in shrimp juice. Once when I wasn't ready to leave yet but sadly out of bait, I threaded macaroni from my packed lunch onto the hook. I like cork fishing. And don’t' understand why it isn't done in the ocean. One summer we took a trip to Sea Level, NC near the outer banks. We were staying at the Sea Level Inn. I could hardly wait to get my Zebco 33 with yellow and orange cork in the water. Don told me several times "That's not the right set up for the ocean." He was right...... and wrong. I am on the hotel' s fishing dock before check in. My line wasn't in the water ten minutes when it whizzed out, I had something big on it! It jumped and splashed and we realized I had a beautiful Red Drum behind that cork. Don jumped in the water to help me get it up. The restaurant at Sea Level said that is was one of the nicest Drums they had seen caught there. The chef took it into the kitchen and they cooked it for us for our dinner. Delish. Our most recent fishing trip, Shem Creek Pier. Just glorious. Sailboats ease by the dock, they want to catch a breeze and so do I. Beautiful Hobie fishing kayaks ease beneath me idly trolling their lines while the lady fishing beside us has a fish so big on her rod that the line snapped. Dolphins ease through the creek to the delight of the boaters as two Manatee come to the edge of the marsh to feed to the delight of the pier fishers. Family pets sit at the helms of the boats while other pets stroll the pier with their owners, some lick our salty legs as they pass. The ocean, the creeks, the marshes. Pleasures are enumerable, unpredictable and unprejudiced. We pull in our lines, pack our rods and head down the pier. There's nothing in our cooler for dinner, no worries we say as we pull into Mt. Pleasant Seafood....Fresh Flounder!!

Examining the "Truth" in an Election Year | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Examining the "Truth" in an Election Year | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Truth? You Can't Handle The Truth! ~R. Brabham~

I read the most interesting article in a back issue of Charleston Magazine. I usually absorb and repeat virtually every page to anyone that will listen, how this issue slipped by me, I don't know. I vaguely remember a leaf through. Author Harriet McLeod interviews Jack Hitt. Native Charlestonian, magazine writer, author and one-man stage storyteller. I won't re-write her incredible interview, but will hinge this story on his answer to her question concerning his new stage piece. Harriet asked Jack "Your piece is called Making Up The Truth, What do you mean by that? I was totally mesmerized by his take on cognitive research of truth. And I came upon this article at a good time. I was dealing with some issues of truths in my own life. As an overly optimistic person, I was questioning whether I have spun positive webs around areas in my life that are in sadly in need of repair. And what is the truth? A few clicks of my remote and I am ankle deep in reality shows, warring political networks and anti-this and anti-that groups. Everyone seems to have their own version of truth. But, we have to fall on one side or the other, right? When I started typing this out two things came to my mind. Peter Frampton's lyrics; Do you feel like we do. After playing the song and reading the lyrics, I quickly determined that what I believed to be truth in the 70's, is not truth for me today. Our only commonalities’ being that Peter and I have both experienced drastic losses of tresses. The first part of our Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths, to be self-evident. The definition of self is singular, your consciousness, of your own identity. The definition of evident, means clearly revealed to the mind. So, add on the We at the beginning and there are clearly groups of people who each singularly believe those truths. Which also means there has to be another group of people somewhere that doesn't believe this as truth. Collectively by starting with We, our country decided to go this way and forgo the differences in varying opinions of truth to fall on the side of majority, but never intending for majority to be absolute truth. A while back I ~friended~ a very interesting and talented person. I didn't agree with many of their philosophies, however they gave me insight into views I could pursue to find my own truth's. A facebook post recently stated that they wanted to give heads up that they would be de-friending anyone that liked a particular participant in our November presidential election process. They stated the reason as being "That they couldn't possibly have anything in common with someone that supported the views of that person. It bothered me, not because they believed differently than I, but because they couldn't comprehend that there are more truths than their own and are not able to accept that the two worlds co-exist together. I am forever grateful to the inventive trail blazers across our great country. Can you just imagine what the world would be like if their ideas and inventions were thwarted by their skin color, religious or political beliefs. I have never questioned the skin color of the first person to run hot water over coffee beans. Nor the political views of the first person to ferment wine by leaving the grape juice out too long. And I could care less what the sex was of the person who dropped the chocolate in the peanut butter and came up with Reece's Cups. I love them all. In our muddled world of political correctness and blurry lines drawn in the sand, I believe truth and opinion have cloned. I believe the old adage goes ~Opinions are like as....pirins..take two and call me in the morning~ , or something like that.

Dance Like Nobody Is Watching (and Pray That They Aren't) | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Dance Like Nobody Is Watching (and Pray That They Aren't) | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Dance Like Nobody Is Watching & Pray That They Aren't

I worked a 13 1/2 hour day last week. At the end of the day I was with some very tired co-horts, the radio was still jamming in the establishment. We all looked lifeless, spent. Then,  the first chords of AC/DC ~You shook me all night long~ belted out. As tired as everyone was, head's started bobbing, booty's swayed and table tops turned into drums. I have a few years on these kiddo's so I was the one chair thumping. I can Pop Drop and Lock with the best of them, albeit my version is the literal dsecription of what would happen if I tried to perform it.  Music, the miracle cure, salve on weary souls, grown up lullaby's. Dance, the expression of my insides. Years ago I realized that you can no more dance and be unhappy at the same moment than you can blow Hubba Bubba bubbles while frowning.
Dancing was one of the first indicators that I was getting better after surgery. I shagged by myself to Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl with the frig door. My feet weren't always Happy Feet, there was a time when the music died.  I swayed and waxed philosophical on friends couches during the 70's to 8 -tracks of the Eagles, Pink Floyd. Danced my butt off in the 80's and early nineties. The club nights and house party's became fewer and farther between in the third millenium.  Slowly, the inside music died and Stella lost her groove. I tried to dance a few times around the house during my decade dry spell. It was the most pathetic non-rythmic display my mirror had ever witnessed.
Then one day, I was in a retail store browsing through the racks.  A song came on the piped music.  ~Under the Boardwalk, by the Drifters. My shoulders started first and the short waves traversed down to the dead dancing nerves in my feet. Soon my happy feet were shuffling unseen beneath the clothes racks. I was shagging. When I got home, I threw my packages down and you tubed some beach music.  I was cutting the rug to some old shag tunes and it felt sooooo good.  Over the next couple of month's Stella got her goove back.
Now, it might not be pretty. But, if the music's in me, it's going to come out.  A recent visit to my daughters had a room crying laughing as grandma held her own with grandaughter on ~Hey Ya~ by Outcast on the Wii Dance. I smile thinking of my Ya Ya's one Carolina summer eve on the back porch. My sister got up and started dancing by herself to the music on the IPOD, minutes later the other Ya Ya joined her, her husband looking inquisitively on from inside and shaking his head.
Dancing should come as natural as swatting mosquitoes here in Charleston. The south has spurned out a few classics.  Developed by Kathryn Wilson, the Charleston became a popular dance craze in the wider international community during the 1920s. Despite its origins, the Charleston is most frequently associated with flappers and speakeasies. Speakeasies were back alley bars that ran during the American Prohibition.Here, these young women would dance alone or together as a way of mocking the "drys," or citizens who supported the Prohibition amendment, as the Charleston was then considered quite immoral and provocative.
Jump up 20 years and flocks of kids are converging on the beach boardwalks of the Carolina's to do the Shag dance.  The Shag was designated as the official State Dance by Act Number 329 of 1984.
It's much more fun if you dance like no one is watching and praying that they weren't. I feel I may have startled a landscaper or two while throwing down near my patio window a few times. But, it's ok. Drive it like you stole it baby!
The photograph is of House Representative T.S. McMillan of Charleston watching on as flappers dance the Charleston with the Capitol building in background.  Credit: Library of Congress LC-US762-93721