Magnolia Plantation & Gardens Chinese Lantern Festival

When we arrived at  Magnolia Plantation & Gardens for the Lights of Magnolia display in collaboration with The Zigong Lantern Group the lights were competing with a brilliant fuchsia sunset to the east. In no time at all the sun set and the production proceeded to steal the show.
I had been excited since before Christmas to see the display and avoided looking at pictures (the best I could) of friends who posted on FB and Instagram of the event. That worry was unfounded, there isn't a picture out there, anywhere, that could replace seeing this in person.
My husband, two friends and I were greeted near the ticket booth by one of Magnolia’s own colorful beauties. Mr. Peacock was lackadaisically foraging the grass for a late evening snack. Minutes later he flew to one of the magnificent moss laden oaks and posed as one of the most beautiful silhouettes I have seen.
As we entered the arches the “oohs and ahhs” began. The 3/4 mile stretch of phantasmagoric eye-candy was filled with people of all ages. Glee, amazement and gasps of awe were heard from the smallest to the oldest around me in addition to my own. I slowly moved from one display to another through the slack-jawed, wonder-struck crowd. I talked to strangers too overcome not to speak about what we are seeing; The colors, the miles of silk, the weight of the bent steel, the precision, the perfection, the art, the intensity, the backdrop of Magnolia Garden’s dripping moss and towering oaks. It was an amazing marriage between the lights and Magnolia’s natural flora; the lighted alligators among the low forest, huge butterflies alongside the winter blooms of camellias. 
We wound our way around the fairy tale children’s section, the ark, the fields of butterflies, ladybugs and more. The trees and paths were filled with brilliant Avatar sized blooms and dripping icicles formed a canopy overhead along with the hundreds of LED lit Chinese lanterns. The panda, lion and zebra displays were just dazzling. The wall of Chinese Zodiac tiles was a huge hit with the crowds as everyone searched out their birthday year and sign to take a picture with. And then — there he was, the  200-foot dragon.
The dragon being one of the most magnificent lantern displays was built on-site by The Zigong Lantern Group. The artisans, use a variety of materials including silk and chinaware, LED lights, bent wire, plates and cups.
Hong Jun Deng's magnificently created dragon "is really the biggest dragon I have ever made." he said through an interpreter to Herb Frazier, Magnolia Garden’s Public Relations Director.
Its head towers 45 feet into the moss-draped trees. The dragon's scales are made of 26,000 porcelain plates. Deng and Wu carefully attached each plate on the dragon's body with thread. I stood transfixed at this piece for a long time in wonder. I crept up as close as I could get and was admiring the plates, the thread-work, the silk, the wire fabricating, the bracing. I turned to find my husband to find an Asian man smiling at me across the path, I smiled back. I think he was pleased to see the work of his culture so greatly appreciated by the crazy lady about to tip over the rope to get a better look.
For more stories about the fabrication, the process and the people behind it, please check out Herb Frazier’s stories based on interviews of the artisans here. https://www.magnoliaplantation.com/lights_of_magnolia_stories.html

As we exited the last arch, my friend touched my shoulder. "Look back." she simply said. As a whole the lights were just as gorgeous, but narrowing and dimming with each step away. A perfect close to 2019. Hello 2020.
Thank you to the powers that be at Magnolia that brought this beautiful lantern festival to us. Get your tickets and don’t let this event slip by.
The hours are 5:30 to 9:30 PM Wednesdays through Sundays. Tickets are $28 with fees for adults, $13 with fees for children ages 6-12 and free for children ages 5 and under. Additional fees for on-site parking and shuttles apply. For more information and ticket options, visit www.lightsofmagnolia.com

Lions & Panthers and Eagles, Oh My!!

I was scrolling through social media one morning when I saw a photo of the last known Barbary lion, now extinct. The grainy photo was taken out of the door of a plane by it’s pilot in 1925. The year they actually went extinct is disputed but this appears to be the last actual photo. Proof in hand (or on film) is not always good enough. There are disputers to this day.
Lions with similar DNA touted to be Barbary’s in zoos around the world are likely mixed descendants. Barbary lions were huge! 600 pounds and over 6 to 9 feet long with a defining dark mane on it’s head and chest with a light colored body — think Scar from Lion King, only not as skanky. My gosh they were a magnificent species. Sadly the reason for their extinction was un-restricted hunting.

The story struck a chord with me, it reminded me of my own “sighting” over 40 years ago of the thought to be extinct Eastern black panther. I was working at a tiny country store in Dorchester County when a young man that I knew pulled up and came in. I saw his tailgate was down and figured he must have a deer on it which wouldn’t have been unusual, a lot of the local fellows paraded their deer on the way back from a successful hunting trip.

“What did you bag today?” I asked him after I rang him up for his drink.

“Come look.” he answered

There were no customers in the store so I followed him out of the door. When I stepped past the porch column I saw it, that mythical sleek black cat on the tailgate and gasped. I ran my hand across it’s body. It was still soft and subtle. I was speechless and fought back the tears that were threatening to spill down my face. I was both the saddest and luckiest girl to have seen it but I wish more that I spied it darting between pines in the straw covered terra-firma rather than lifeless on the back of a pick-up truck.

There is no question, no doubt whatsoever that it was a black panther. And no, it was not a melanistic cat or mistaken identity. It was in full sun beneath my hand. Jet black with no mutation of color anywhere. It had a lithe slinky body and long tail. My guess is that it weighed 60 - 70 pounds or thereabouts. It’s black coat was very shiny. It’s eyes were open and the most beautiful aqua color.

I looked up at the young man in disbelief. He didn’t act proud or chatty and maybe even became a little solemn when he saw my reaction. I think he wished he hadn’t asked me to come look. He moved the panther back and shut the tailgate. Of all of the questions to ask, the only thing that came out of my mouth was “What did you kill it with?”
He pointed to his bow hanging in the truck over the back window.

I sympathized with the young man as he pulled off and I walked back into the store. I thought of the Mockingbird that I killed with my brother’s BB gun when I was 9 or 10 years old. I don’t think I believed that I could possibly even hit it when I pulled the trigger. I was sure that it would fly away and I would talk about how close I got to it or something of that nature. But — no. It fell to the cool sand under a oak tree and I buried it there. I hoped that when the last handful of dirt covered it I would never think of it again —but that wasn’t the case. I was sick and heartbroken for the longest time and it still bothers me to this day. What in this world made me do that? To show my brother that I was a better shot?

The night after I saw the panther I called my Dad. He told me that he had heard of local hunter’s spotting them since he was a little fella but had never seen one or heard of one being killed.

If this had been present day I am sure it would have been all over social media. The tiny little country store would be a busy convenience store today with every person there snapping a pic with the camera. The headlines would read “Young man kills phantom thought to be extinct black panther, maybe the last of its species.”

I am glad it didn’t go that way, it would have done no good. I believe with all of my heart that he wishes he had not reached into his quiver for that arrow. It was possibly an impulse reaction from the adrenaline induced by seeing the magnificent animal.

Even though we lived in the same town and still know each other, it is something that we have never mentioned again. I did however reach out to him several years ago when there was a sighting of a panther near Edisto Beach. I told him that we both know they are/were out there. I didn’t hear back from him and didn’t really expect to. I don’t worry about credibility with telling the story. I know it’s a few notches shy of saying I saw Sasquatch but — it happened. The truth is always stranger than fiction. I did see an Asian Black Panther up close and personal for a photo shoot in NC once. It was definitely NOT that Panther. It was much smaller, but with the same features.

In the early 70’s my parents received an urgent request to hurry to my grandmother’s house. When they arrived my cousin was sitting in the living room with his rifle between his knees looking proudly at his kill. Stretched across my grandmother’s tiny living room was a Bald Eagle. It’s wingspan was nearly 7 foot across. My cousin showed no remorse for killing the eagle which was actually still on the endangered species list in the 70’s. He bragged about what he was going to do with the feathers and talons.

I have to admit that I didn’t feel a bit sorry for him the next year when he lost a toe on a hunting jaunt. A rattlesnake crossed his boot and the dumb ass shot his own foot.

I am not against hunting legally at all, on the contrary. I anxiously await a freezer of venison as I write this. But I would never, ever again in my life pull the trigger on an animal that I wasn’t going to eat with the exception of  poisonous snakes. And — other than the Palmetto Bug, (roach on steroids) I can think of no species that I would want eradicated from the planet.

My kids would chime in here and say “What about those two hamsters?”
They were accidents and that’s a story for a different day. As I look at the photograph that started this morning of retrospect I found myself in the seat with the pilot in 1925, far above the now extinct Barbary lion as he looked through his lens at what he believe was the last of it’s species. I know how he felt.

I think of the still quiet body of that Eastern Black Panther on the tailgate of a truck and how it felt to my hand. I wish that it too would have been shot by a camera like the Barbary Lion that day as well as the Eagle and the Mockingbird.   

Privilege, Privilege Everywhere.

My phone rang  and I looked down at the call coming in, it was my granddaughter. We had just finished a long conversation a half hour earlier, so I was surprised to see her name on my incoming screen. I knew something was wrong when I answered, I could hear the shakiness in her voice.
“Grandma, I am so upset!  Something crazy just happened here and I feel like a second class citizen, like these people think I am a criminal or something."
"Whoa, what happened?" I asked.
"I went to my dog sitting job, it's in a gated community. The clients were still home and I thought I would let them leave before I came in, I didn’t want to interrupt their last minute packing. I decided to pull over at the park to eat my lunch and give them time to leave. There were two ladies there, one old and one young. They watched me pull up and saw me eating. They kept staring and then went over to each other and kept looking back and talking. Then one of the ladies walked past me, glaring, she was so close to me that she could touch me. She picked up a football in the park and walked over to a car like mine a mustang. I could see there were two young school aged teens inside. The women told them something and pointed at me and the boys started staring as well. I finished eating and went to leave and the boys pulled in behind me. They followed me staying right on my bumper. They stopped pulled up beside me and glared like the women did back at the park. I just don't understand this." she said.
“Yes, I know exactly what this is, and I am so sorry you went through it.” I told her.
I call it privilege paranoia. I have experienced this more and more in the past years as a service provider. Our business requires us to work in gated communities all the time. Along with the absolutely phenomenal customers that we have, the communities are also brim full of Nosy Nellie’s and Picky Pete’s and it’s not just in gated communities anymore, it’s spilling over into developments everywhere. I know this because I lived in one. Actually it was one of the reasons we wanted to move to the country. People were fighting everywhere and about everything! Feed the ducks, don’t feed the ducks, dog poop on ground, dog poop smell, late postal delivery, suspicious car, suspicious that, child alone at the park on a swing, child didn’

t’t have a pass to the pool, vehicle didn’t have a sticker on his car, their grass is 1 inch over regulation, they had 4 cars in their driveway, they left their garage door open all day, they left their garbage can out all day, house trim color is hideous, their trim needs painting, their shrubs need trimming and the list could go on and on. 
We saw and heard it all. If you want an idea of how it goes, join the community Face Book page of the development you are living in or plan to live in. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to have caring neighbors and HOA rules and regulations are set up to ensure a better living environment. Their restrictions are fine if that is what you agree to, BUT — let better judgment prevail.
When you see a beautiful young lady or hell even an ugly old ass lady for that matter sitting in her (beautiful black mustang) car eating her sandwich, can’t you just assume that is all they are doing? What triggers you to think she is a child snatcher, a package thief, a criminal that you needed to corral out of the park? If you see a 60 year old grandmother driving a company truck looking lost can you just assume that she IS lost and not a serial killer.
This happened to me in an affluent community last year. I pulled up to the community gate, which opens to public at 9 a.m. I followed a truck through the gate. After getting about 20 feet in the gate the man put his brakes on and got out. He walked back to me and asked me what the nature of my visit was. I told him I had a quote to give.
He said, “You piggy-backed into the gate behind me.”
I told him, “No, the gate opens at 9 to everyone.”
He said “It’s not 9 yet.”  I looked at the clock on my dashboard, it was 8:58. 
He asked me if the business name on the side of the truck was my business. I wanted to say “No, I put these magnets on so I could pose as a legit business while I come in here to case you out for a robbery.”  He then walked to the back of my truck and pulls out his phone to take a picture of my license tag. By this time I am done with Barney Fife wanna be cop and pulled out. I left him with his mouth open in my rear view mirror. I cut a few blocks and lost him but was shaking by the time I got to my clients house. She was very apologetic, she said she didn’t know what was wrong with these anal people in her community.
All I am saying is give peace a chance. You would have liked my granddaughter. The neighbor of yours that she was dog sitting for would have recommended her to you to care for your pet. And she might even have forgiven your crude ass and done so. She is working two jobs to go to school in the fall. 
Me, I’m a little charred. You left a bad taste in my mouth. I wouldn’t be rude or nasty but  I‘d mutter under my breath, “Bless their teeny weenie privileged ass hearts.”
Privilege begins as a supposed blessing before it becomes a fence, whether it is in a gated community, a line drawn in the sand, a sect that won't tolerate other's that don't feel or think like them. Privilege can be anywhere or attached to anything. It can even be imagined. But what it can't do is make itself invisible.   

Hurricanes in the lyrics of Clash — Should I stay or should I go now?

On the cusp of Hurricane Michael bearing down on the gulf coast, I write this story of resilience during and after Hurricane Florence in one of my other favorite seaside towns. 

Davis, NC is a small fishing community on the Core Sound, about 15 miles outside of Beaufort. You have to drive right through it to get to the Cedar Island Ferry to go to Ocracoke, but don't blink. Population is somewhere between 250 and 400. An un-deserted island of sorts, the majority of it's residents would just as soon stay on it than leave it. Oh they may go to high land for a bit, but there is never the thought of NOT going back to Davis Shores. When you are born in these parts, you're a lifer. 

Davis Shores (the endearing moniker of the town) is the idyllic stomping ground of my childhood summers. Think Mayberry minus Main Street. Most roads were dirt roads and even the paved roads were mostly sand. It was, and still is, a tight knit community. I wrote letters after coming come from those summer breaks, scribbling Aunt Marie or Aunt Mary Louise on an envelope and Davis, NC. Nothing else. They got those letters because the postmaster knew everyone in town. 

I held my breath as Hurricane Florence began to jog closer to the Core Sound last month, checking online continuously as Florence came ashore and then again as the tides crested. I watched Facebook video's while nibbling my fingers. Just when I couldn't bear to watch any longer my cousins' phone got damaged from the onslaught of rain and they couldn't post anymore. Davis was completely underwater during the storm. 

My cousin's daughter, Melissa, was my liaison between the states after Florence came ashore. Some people left for higher ground, but Melissa tells me that about 70% of the community stayed put. My cousin Lanier was one of them. He and his wife, Annette, run the family business Davis Shore Ferry Service that sits on the Core Sound of the Atlantic. Their house is 20 feet from the Atlantic. Davis Shore's documented sea level was 5 foot in 2010. 

Melissa told me "The house which my parents currently live in belonged to my great grandparents, it was my mother Annette's grandparents home. They originally built it as a single residence, and over time, they added on to the home to accommodate a growing business, a fishing bed and breakfast. Jeanette and Alger opened their home to fishermen to stay the night before the next day's ferry ride over or upon returning from the Banks. Jeanette would serve basic meals including breakfast, lunch and dinner. The rooms were simple, and included iron twin (single) beds laid head to toe in a room (beds similar to old hospital beds). Captain Alger ran the single-car ferries over to the Banks. This operation began in 1966. He kept the ferries; she kept the house and food."

During hurricanes the ferries were moved to the "safe harbor" of the local fish house, James Styron Fish House. Alger contracted with Mr James that when storms came, it would be permissible for Mr. Alger to dock the ferries in the harbor and that tradition has continued ever since. The business has spanned four generations:  Captain Alger Willis and Jeanette Willis, Captain Glenn Willis, Annette Willis Mitchum and Captain Lanier Mitchum, and Captain William Lanier Mitchum Jr (Mitch). Davis Shore Ferry Service has ferried many a family and fisherman over to South Core Banks, Cape Lookout, which is more commonly known as Great Island Camps by National Park Service.

THIS is why these small communities choose to face the daunting threat of increasingly ferocious hurricanes each year. They make a living by the sea, on the sea, from the sea. It is their livelihood and has been for generations.

As Mellissa put it, "people that choose to live their lives Down East respect that there is a cost to living where they do. This storm took away a lot of what most people took their whole lives to build, but they will rebuild. Salt water is in their veins, that can't be taken from them. Aside from the ferry business, independent commercial fishermen still operate out of Core Sound, but in drastically reduced numbers over the past decades. Shrimping has made a rebound in the past five years, enough to support those that continue to operate. Crabbers still set pots in Core Sound and gillnet fishery for mullets has always been a part of Down East heritage and continues to be a local tradition."

I fell in love with the sustainability of the town when I stayed with relatives during those summers in the late 60's and early 70's. I just couldn't believe you could eat seafood everyday if you had a rod, a cast net, a bucket, a chicken neck or a clam rake, but you could and that's exactly what we did!

My Aunt Marie walked to work from her conch shell studded driveway to the fish house two blocks away to head shrimp or pick crabs all day, she always brought home a bag of sea goodies that either ended up in the freezer or in a pot that evening. Uncle Moye taught me to clam dig with my toes and look for the tiny bubbles to show me where they were. I would fill a bucket in no time and take them to the fish house to collect some money to buy YooHoo's and M&M's at the little country store.   

Yes, Florence whipped up the town pretty good. But it was so encouraging to hear the hope and continuity that I expected would come to Davis.

Melissa finished, "It has been amazing to hear the stories regarding the aftermath of the storm and the cleanup. Everyone has joined together to look after the elderly and the ones that suffered the most above their own needs. Several of our family friends rushed to our families aid, not everyone is so lucky to have that network. The churches have worked hard to ensure that their congregations are looked after, despite whether they attend the up the road church, the down the road church, or the out the road church. They all looked out for one another. One of our family friends, Mrs. Sue Buck, took Lanier (her dad) in after the storm. She offered him a place to sleep, shower, and food. Our people just naturally look after one another, it's what we do."

So how is Davis Shores doing today? They are grateful! The community is rebuilding as expected. They are proud and resilient people who rolled their sleeves up to tackle the hard stuff immediately, but they are eternally grateful for the help that came from Red Cross, the Davis Shore Fire Department, a Go Fund Me page started by a fisherman in the community, the boaters who brought food and supplies in, and the endless - seriously endless - help from family, friends, and people that they don't even know. As of now, the ferries are up and running and the docks rebuilt just in time for those fall fishing trips to Cape Lookout. It's a great destination for family and fisherman alike.

As Hurricane Michael approaches Florida, I think of the other little fishing communities along the Florida coast. I know those strong, salty souls are considering their options as well. One thing Melissa told me is that of that roughly 70% that stayed in Davis during Florence, most said they wouldn't next time. Storms have become more frequent and debilitating. I hope that life and limb is considered higher priority than shingles and structures. Like Davis Shores — if the water recedes, they WILL be back. 

Davis Shores and other communities nearby have a dialect all their own, the unique brogue has been studied by NCSU linguistics professor Walt Wolfram. It seems to originate from early English settlements of the 17th century. I can still to this day fall into a pretty good rendition of it and will take the liberty of expressing what A Hoi Toider (local, high tider) could very likely be heard saying to you today. "Florence came in here and mommucked (shredded to pieces) up the whole town, what it didn't mommuck is all whopperjawed (askew). But it's slickcam (calm, no wind) out there now and we are just glad to sit on on the pizer (porch, piazza) with a glass of tea for a little while." 

The poignant picture of the outside church service in Davis says it all. I'm sure their hearts, as well as ours in Charleston, go out to those in direct path of the incoming Hurricane Michael.

Interview with Steven Wright Comedian

Steven Wright's monosyllabic style is to comedy what Haiku is to poetry, abbreviated and to the point. His refreshing performances have stood the test of time, decades to be exact. His one-liners and hilarious deadpan comedic delivery are a refreshing detachment from current events, breaking news, tweets, and memes. Come out with me on Thursday 9/13 at 7pm, Charleston Music Hall to catch Steven's show. Laughter is so good for the soul!
I want to tell you a little about Steven Wright the comedian, off-stage. I have never had a more comfortable conversation with a complete stranger in my life. However, the morning got off to a shaky start. Even though I had a week to get things together, I found myself tearing the house apart an hour before the interview. I needed 2 triple A batteries for the recorder. I guess I could take notes, but my shorthand isn't what it used to be, okay I know I lost a lot of Gen Xer's on that one. Shorthand was a primitive written communication, like after dinosaurs and before Emoji's.
Hubby found two batteries in a remote for me in the nick of time, later I will match all of the ripped off backs to their respective battery operated devices. The worst part of this fiasco is that, apparently, the batteries we found died shortly after saying hello to Steven, which I didn't find out until after the interview.
Luckily the highlights are memorable ones and not easily forgotten, also I am a doodler and scribbled things down as well.
Steven answers the phone, "Hello," he said, reasonably fast, which took me by surprise. I was expecting the slow monotone voice I'd heard while watching him perform over the decades.
Renae Brabham: Steven are you looking forward to doing the show in Charleston?
Steven: Yes, I enjoy all of the shows I do, regardless of where they are. I have a nephew who goes to college here and I look forward to seeing him while I am there.
RB: Tell me something about you that may surprise your audience.
Steven: I exercise every day and ride my bike when I am home in Massachusetts. I think it surprises people to see me move around kind of fast because they see me as the slow mover and talker in my shows. When I go to the Boston Red Sox games and they make a good play, I jump up and down like everyone else. When I lived in Colorado, I used to ski and it shocked people that I could move like that. Oh and one more thing that people might not know, I laugh a lot, not something you see on stage.
RB: How do you keep fresh in this age of technology?
Steven: I don't really focus on technology. I may joke about it in my shows, but I am not interested in putting jokes online, twitter or any other way. I would rather share my jokes with a live audience. I do have a website though, StevenWright.com, I post things there that keep people in touch with what I am doing, I have my art and music there too.
RB: So, you are playing your next show in Charleston and then you will be going to California. Will your set up change for that audience?
Steven: No, not at all. I try out all of my jokes on the audience and if they work I keep them. I keep the show to general topics that everyone can relate to anywhere across the country. I can still use jokes that I performed 30 years ago. Like jokes about the speed of light are not going to wear off, but one about let's say, president Regan, well that wouldn't fly today.  I made a promise when I first started out that I would keep my comedy free of news stories, politics, etc.
RB: I watched the YouTube video when you were on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. It was so cool to watch you two interact. You were just making it up as you went. I laughed so hard at the part about you killing butterflies because they were arrogant. But — you didn't really kill a butterfly did you?
Steven: No way, but that was funny. I live in Massachusetts and really do connect with nature. I have lived all over the place, California, Colorado, New York, but this is home. It is beautiful here,  I love the winter, the snow, the tree's, all of it.
I said something, not sure what. But Steven said "I like your accent. I never get to hear a southern accent."
Here is where the challenges of the morning continued. My phone dropped the connection. We live in the woods, smack dab in the middle of a pine forest in the country and this happens a lot. I hurriedly called Steven back. After a try or two, I got him.
He answered and said. "I was thinking, kind of sort of in my head, but not really, that I offended you by saying something about your accent and you hung up." I assured him it was nothing more than a cow stepping on our line that dropped the call. He then had me explain what that meant, I kicked myself for saying it, but told him it was a country living metaphor. He laughed heartily.
We were back to technology again. I told him we seldom had good cell phone service where we live.
"I have a lot of dropped calls in my house in Massachusetts, too." he tells me. "I often think a cell phone is like a spaceship that they haven't perfected yet. Like what would life be like if our stuff broke down as often as our phones went down. If our cars shut down 7 to 10 times a day? If this is a Smartphone what does an average phone do? Can I go into a store and get an average phone? Or an idiot phone?"
We laughed and talked a few more minutes, inconsequential stuff. A hummingbird zooms up to my window, there are no feeders there. When I got distracted, I told Steven that a hummingbird is hovering at my window looking in at me.
"It's me, coming in for a bird's eye view interview. Is he still there?" he asked.
"No, he just left, I think he/you went to get a drink." I told him.
I finished out the interview with the this question.
RB: If you had another profession, what would it be?
Steven: I am not sure, but I would hope it is something creative. Drawing was my first creative outlet, but I like to paint, write, play music. It would have to be something that lets me be creative.
RB: It would be impossible for you to not be creative, Steven.
Steven graciously thanked me, we concluded the interview and ended the call, but I felt like I had not finished talking to him. This interview was like talking to a friend, a funny, inquisitive friend. I  hope to tell him that at the show. When I got off of the phone, my husband who was in the other room said, "What a genuinely nice guy." And then we tell Steven Wright jokes for a few minutes.
In one of my favorites from a video, Steven jokes about his former girlfriend, a mail order bridesmaid who in her spare time likes to waste time. Her eyes were too close together, like the headlights on a jeep. He gave her the nickname of A/C, almost Cyclops.

Worth a Hill of Beans

When we pulled into the drive after work Don said “I think those beans are about ready for picking.” He didn't get the words out of his mouth good before I was planning to get my basket and head outside, hotter than Hannah or not. Late June, heat advisory and not enough moisture in the air to work up a good spit. Oh yes, me, butter beans and a day like this go way back, 1974 to be exact. As I bent over the knee high bushes that Don planted I heard the voices of those gone now. My mother;
"Why don't you pick them in the morning, when it's cool outside?
"Can those short's get any shorter?"
"When the mailman comes by stand up, don't want you running him off the road."
Daddy; "3 beans per hole" he told my brother, sister and I on planting day as he walked ahead of us placing a divot in the sandy soil every 3 or 4 foot.
On harvest day, "There's a certain way a butter bean feels when it wants to be picked, it's fat and feels like it’s about to bust open."
Examining our baskets after we picked a few plants he'd pick up a flat bean and tell us, "I didn't plant all these beans to eat snaps, Lawd, when are y'all gonna learn to listen?"
I loved picking the beans, it felt as if I was finding treasures over and over hidden beneath. After the freezer had it's fill of beans Daddy told us that we could pick and sell the rest and keep the money. My sister and I still remember what we bought with our first "salary." I don't know what they go for now, but we got $30 a bushel in l974.
I would lather up in butter, yes butter. When you live 40 minutes from a grocery store, cocoa butter's cousin "just butter" had to suffice. I pulled on my sassy blue jean cut offs on with a halter top and headed to the field around 10 o'clock when the sun sucked the dew off the plants. I could pick about a bushel and a half in a couple of hours.
I'm not going to go so far as to say those were the good ole days. But butter beans and me, well we were thick. I could do a lot of figuring out there in that field. And there was nothing so sedating back then for me than sitting in one spot in a rocker with a basket full of beans to shell.
I don't remember Daddy planting many more butter beans after all of us were out on our own. He had a bad back and couldn't do the bending for too long.
Don and I moved to NC for the next 25 years, butter beans weren't a viable crop there for some reason, probably the rocky clay soil. Don's step-mother would go down to her family homestead in SC during butter bean season and pick to her hearts content every year. When she came home I helped her shell them sometimes and she would give me a stingy little mess to bring home. I totally understood, I knew how much work it took to get a little pot of them and I really loved to shell them.
This is our first crop of butter beans in the tall pines, Don has some killer bean gene's. Some things have changed and some haven't out here in the bean field. The blazing South Carolina sun between my shoulder blades is the same but 40 years later I won't be running a mailman off the road while bunked over picking these rows. I sat and shelled my basket of beans in the rocking chair on my porch, went in and washed them and put them on the stove. A bonafide good "mess" of Southern butter beans.

Snowy, The Best "Good Girl" in the Whole Wide World

Three days ago was a red letter day. We lost our Snowy.
A plethora of pain and grief assaults us in waves as volatile as our Charleston summer weather, dry as a bone one minute, drenched and submerged in puddles the next.  I didn't want to add to the cornucopia of heart-wrenching books, essays and movies on losing a dog, but here I am. I cried my eyeballs out through most of these without ever having lost a pet. Garden and Gun has been known to have me snorting and blowing all over their magazine pages with their dog stories and Dean Koontz wrote THE best memoir and possibly the second best book I have ever read on losing his dog. No, I'm selfishly writing this to bleed on my keyboard one last time about the best good girl in the whole wide world.
Snowy Biscuit Brabham 1.1.2000 - 6.14.18. The vet gave her this birthday, probably because it looked good on paper and he figured she was at least 6 months old when we brought her to him for her first check up. She adopted us. The story is a long one, condensing would be the equivalent of opening and eating a can of cold, condensed she crab soup without the cream, sherry, milk, butter and —  if you are reading this, you already know the stories that make up our girl.
The pain we feel is debilitating and that is not an exaggeration! If it is possible to dehydrate yourself from shedding tears, it has been done here. She loved Don and I both equally and us her. She was our shadow from day one so we feel as if we have lost an appendage of ourselves with her gone. In all of her 18 years with us we only took vacations that included her, with the exception of the tree-house trek down the Edisto River and a mountain trip and even then it was close family that watched her. She never stayed the night at at someones home, was never boarded or had hired sitter's, never left at a groomer's and never alone in a vet's office. So, needless to say, we can't hide anywhere from the pain. We can't go outside without seeing her sprawled in the grass, we don't even want her poop to go away in the yard, we can't open the frig without thinking she is watching (for a treat), I can't cook without seeing her beautiful doe eyes looking up at me, we can't watch TV without her warm pig like belly touching our toes, we avoid looking at where she laid in our bed, there are only two rooms in our home that she didn't visit and they are too small to live in for the next however long it takes to get through this.
She went with us everywhere! So right now, the floodgates open each time we go to the dump (her favorite), to the gas station (liver and tater wedges), sit on the porch, look at lizards, frogs, squirrels, rabbits. It's endless. And yet, I am grateful that she touched every aspect of our lives and NEVER want to remove her memory from a single place she has been. So we work through it.
It's so hard to separate her dying from her living right now but I know that those days will come. She was loved by so many people. Her brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, and last but not least her vets in both NC and SC. She never considered herself to be a dog, so thought it beneath her to sit on the floor in a vet's office and would jump on a chair beside me. Gratefully, she was loved enough that her haughtiness was forgiven by the caretakers. She was even given special non-office hours by our friend and her last vet in SC. The sweet card and handkerchief put into my hand from them sits on the table. In return I left a puddle of saline on their shoulders.
The first night home without Snowy Don said "You know what? When we pulled in the driveway our home didn't look as beautiful as it did before."
No sweetheart it doesn't. Nor is the sky quite as blue or the grass as green or the flowers as vibrant. And that is because as Dean Koontz wrote “Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.” 
“No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement, and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of itself. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished souls make us wish - consciously or unconsciously - that we were as innocent as they are, and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meanness, the betrayals, and the cruelties of this world are unknown.”
― Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
We are healing, at snail's pace. I have pounded the earth blinded by tears and asked God for this healing to be speedier but I stopped doing that because he graciously gave her to us. I will accept this pain for what I gained in return, 18 years of life with the "Best GOOD GIRL in the whole wide world."

#OldYelleraintgotsquatonthebrabhamhouserightnow