Images of South Carolina

By Tom Poland

 

Images of South Carolina

By now, many of you have seen the Photo of the Week feature that Robert Clark and I run each week. For those of you who are new to the Photo of the Week, here’s a recap. My good friend and co-author, Robert Clark, and I decided to provide readers a look at South Carolina and its abundant beauty and fascinating stories. Here’s the web address for the Photo of the Week. http://www.photooftheweek.net/ Bookmark it and pay it a visit anytime from Tuesday on. We try to post a new one each Tuesday but sometimes it’s later before life lets us get the new one up.

 

 

Winter’s Breathtaking Valentine

The ancient Cherokee considered the northern cardinal, to-tsu-wa, the child of the sun. Indeed, males shine like red beacons at feeders. When red birds, as we call them, arrive to crack black-oil sunflower seeds a good day’s at hand. Many days, a dozen or more cardinals cling to my bamboo and bunch up like a bouquet of feathery roses.

As lovers, florists, and sentimental cards commandeer that obscure saint’s February day we see red. Red symbolizes love, passion, and desire, as do red roses, red velvet, red hearts, dark chocolate in red boxes, red candles, and more. Why not red birds?

Among the legends behind Valentine’s Day comes a fitting story from the Middle Ages: that birds pair up mid-February. Indeed, the male you see was staking out territory and seeking a mate when photographed.

Coming full circle, the northern cardinal takes its name from the red, hooded wardrobe of Catholic cardinals. Valentine, that holy martyr from Rome, might take solace in knowing his day evolved into a celebration for betrothed couples, happy marriages, love, and lovers. Often portrayed in pictures with birds and roses, I don’t think he’d have a problem posing with the Cherokee’s rose-red child of the sun.

 

100 Years Of Perfection

All across the South, evergreen shrubs burst with warm splashes of color in a season known for cool, dark days. These heirloom camellia blooms, perfection’s essence, grew on 100-year-old bushes in a Columbia, South Carolina garden.

Yearning to inhale their sweet fragrance? Well, forget it. In the dead of winter few flowers rival camellias, thus pollinator-attracting perfumes prove superfluous. (Some species are fragrant.)

Though native to eastern and southern Asia, camellias share a strong association with the South thanks to double-dealing. In colonial days, the British, coveting an afternoon spot of tea, sailed to China to buy tea shrubs. The Chinese sold them camellias instead, an easy ruse since camellias and tea plants are cousins in the family Theacea. Imagine the Brits’ disappointment. (China’s native name for camellias means “tea flower.”)

We brew tea from the leaves of Camellia sinensis. Our imported cousins of sinensis may not be palatable, but crème de la crème blooms such as these brew joy for the eyes and spirit: evocations of roses and longings for spring and summer.

Perhaps in 2115 these beautiful centenarians will brighten the winter of those to come for camellia bushes can live over 200 years.

 

Traffic Jams

HIGHWAY 501 SC: April. Somewhere near Aynor. Having wrapped up a photo shoot in old Ocean Drive, we drive homeward through wind-driven coastal plain silt. Though dust devils obscure 501, a shimmering red and green mirage breaks through.

But it’s no mirage. It’s remembrance. Winds subside, sands drop, and Dean’s Produce emerges next to a cornfield mown to beard-like stubble. Dean’s stand of glinting tin and yellow pine glows with honey, but the incandescent red and green jams gleam like St. Elmo’s fire.

REMEMBRANCE: Oh say do you remember when grandmothers sealed jams and jellies with paraffin wax in sterilized jars?

And where cometh the fire in Dean’s lidded, lime-green jars?

Finely chopped jalapenos, my friend. Add apple cider vinegar, powdered pectin, and white sugar. Cloves too. Bring to rolling boils, and all find themselves in a jam as we recall kitchens where jelly making sweetened life.

Is your winter pantry getting thin? You don’t jell? Well, enjoy a taste of grandmother’s kitchen lovingly preserved in a Mason jar. Hit the road with high hopes that jams will work your brakes. Try a twisting mountain lane in autumn or blustery beach byway in spring. Either way, a sweet drive is yours.

 

 

The Colors Of The Earth

Two continental plates collided beneath North America 250 million years ago thrusting rocks to Blue Ridge Mountain fame. For eons, water, ice, sun, gravity, and wind have weathered mountains, liberating boulders, and cutting gorges and riverbeds.

With its milky filaments and moss-green rocks, what enchanted river might this be? The Middle Saluda in Jones Gap State Park. Running through northern Greenville County she drops 1,000 feet in four miles. A 20-second exposure charms rocks into streaming water and fog.

Other waters cascade, mist, and thunder for falls with melodic names live up here … Issaqueena and its stair-stepping cascades … Laurel Forks, spilling into Lake Jocassee … Brasstown, a sheer curtain of water … Station Cove, a glittering filigree of silver … King Creek, an upside down geyser of white slashing through a green alleyway.

But the Middle Saluda possesses allure uniquely her own. With her jade moss, burnt-sienna boulders, and pearl and sea green waters she flaunts the colors of the earth.

Look and listen. Close your eyes and hear her purl, burble, and chime her way over, through, and past rock. Each day, all night, she carries remnants of the great collision toward the Atlantic in the great planet-building cycle.

 

 

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected]

 

Tom Poland is the author of eleven books and more than 1,000 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press has released his and Robert Clark’s book, Reflections Of South Carolina, Vol. II. The History Press of Charleston just released his book, Classic Carolina Road Trips From Columbia. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture.

 

 

 

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