Granddad’s Fiddle
June 25, 2025
By Tom Poland Long did Grandad’s fiddle hang on my mother’s living room wall. I could never walk by it without wondering … “What’s its story?” Best I recall,…
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A seat at the table
June 25, 2025
By Jeff Becraft Last week I was at a week-long retreat with a children’s home. As part of this retreat, we all have meals together. We wait until everyone is seated…
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Identifying what’s most important
June 19, 2025
By Jeff Becraft I finally got another car. The car I was driving, which has been a fantastic car, was fifteen years old and had over 316,000 miles on…
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Blink Book Review: “Uncommon Favor: North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three” by Dawn Staley
June 18, 2025
By Reba Hull Campbell I’m not usually one to pick memoirs by sports icons. Musicians, journalists, writers or politicians, yes. But not often sports heroes. I admit, I just…
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They Just Upped And Left
June 18, 2025
By Tom Poland Late 1950s. May 1. Riding with Dad by a cement block house. White. A few clothes out back on the clothesline. Diapers mainly. A tricycle with…
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Miss South Carolina Scholarship Organization announces 2025 judges’ panels
June 17, 2025
The Miss South Carolina Scholarship Organization has announced the panelists tasked with selecting the next Miss South Carolina and Miss South Carolina’s Teen. The 2025 competition, taking place in Columbia…
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My Perfumed Nights
June 12, 2025
By Tom Poland Squall lines, thunder and lighting, and tornadoes signify the changing of the guard. Winter’s heavy air gives way to lighter air, and soon air conditioning will…
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Four guys and 10 minutes
June 12, 2025
By Jeff Becraft Since I recently talked about Wallaby, and also Mr. Mert, I am going to tell another story that happened at Mr. Mert’s wedding. There were four…
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Blink Book Review: “Grace Will Lead Us Home” (reprise in memory of the 10th anniversary of the shootings)
June 11, 2025
By Reba Hull Campbell If it’s summer, that means it’s time to gear up for summer reading. (Writer’s note: I wrote this review in 2019 shortly after the book…
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Fences Say A Lot About Folks
June 5, 2025
By Tom Poland A fence has become more than a way to mark property—delineate—as a five-dollar word goes. “I put that fence up to delineate precisely where my line…
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Summer Blink Book Reviews are back for 2025
June 5, 2025
By Reba Hull Campbell If it’s summer, that means it’s time to gear up for summer reading. Remember those summer reading clubs from childhood? In my family, we would…
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Saying thank you
June 5, 2025
By Jeff Becraft As I’ve said before, my Dad was a great man and my Mom was a great woman. They were two incredible parents. And so, as time…
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Wallaby, the Soldier We Never Expected
May 29, 2025
By Jeff Becraft Years ago, I was at a friend’s wedding in Virginia Beach and one of the friends who was also at the wedding was telling me about…
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Man Will Always Wage War
May 29, 2025
By Tom Poland Cynicism Sometimes Is Backed By Reality I remember the Vietnam anti-war protests at the University of Georgia. Some group firebombed the Army ROTC building and I…
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Free lecture on the Battle of Bunker Hill, 250 years later
May 29, 2025
There were more Revolutionary War battles fought in South Carolina than anywhere else, but we have to admit that there were SOME significant fights elsewhere. And the 250th anniversary of…
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‘Tis the season for graduations … and this year’s update of “20 life lessons”
May 22, 2025
By Reba Hull Campbell ‘Tis the season for graduations, new jobs and life transitions. It’s also the season for my annual updated “20 lessons” list. A number of years…
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Sometimes I Hallucinate
May 22, 2025
By Tom Poland Fate lays its hand on me. While driving the Fall Lines Freeway to Dry Branch, Georgia, the time to medicate arrived, 9 a.m. I had a…
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Our mistakes do not define us
May 20, 2025
I may have talked about this before, and to be honest, I really can’t remember. Some of the early Friday emails got lost when we changed servers years ago… but…
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Pizza and fried chicken
May 15, 2025
A couple of Friday nights ago I needed to work late, which meant I had to eat late. Brenda was not feeling well. as she was fighting off a cold,…
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Juke Joints & Dive Bars
May 14, 2025
By Tom Poland Mom never darkened the door of a juke joint, but that didn’t stop her from rendering a harsh judgment. “The only people who go to juke…
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The Battle of Camden, as explained by a ‘redcoat’
May 13, 2025
Books have been written about war since writing was invented. In the 1890s, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage initiated a new way to tell such stories. Rather than…
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A cure for FOMO (or also entitled 48 hours in the company of hooting, cackling and snorting friends*)
May 7, 2025
By Reba Hull Campbell At my age, there’s not much that can gin up a full-blown case of FOMO anymore. But when I recently realized I was the only one…
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The Birds of Death
May 7, 2025
By Tom Poland Forever Fly, You Black Riders Roads tell stories. I’ve come across the “Mule Kick That Killed Eight People” in Edgefield County. I’ve seen stores fall to…
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Brighten up someone’s life
May 5, 2025
By Jeff Becraft (Someone once told me they end their week and start their weekend with the Friday email. Well… maybe on this one, you can end your weekend…
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West Columbia Police Department hosts Lexington County Law Enforcement Memorial Service
May 1, 2025The West Columbia Police Department will host the Lexington County Law Enforcement Memorial Service on May 6, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. at the Marc Westbrook Judicial Center at 205 E.…
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Capt. Mose Rogers & The S.S. Savannah
May 1, 2025
By Tom Poland I visit cemeteries never knowing what I’ll find. February 10, a cemetery gave me a story that has the elements of a great movie—risk, bravery, tragedy, the…
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Do it right the first time
May 1, 2025
One time when I was up in Maryland, I bought a big bag of frozen blueberries. Now this was a big bag. I felt along the top when I was first opening…
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Free admission to the museum for military and families, thanks to Blue Star
April 28, 2025
The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum seizes upon every opportunity to honor those who have served in uniform. That certainly includes those serving now – and their…
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Veteran ‘Tunnel Rat’ will tell his story at Lexington County Library branch – May 2
April 24, 2025
On May 2, the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum’s Noon Debrief series of free lectures will debut in a new location. And it will be a particularly…
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He took my place
April 24, 2025
By Jeff Becraft (Another story involving Black Mountain for Children… names have been changed for privacy sake.) Last year, I was speaking at a weekend camp with Black Mountain…
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Learn about the struggles of a Montagnard soldier who settled in South Carolina
April 24, 2025
We all remember – if we’re old enough – the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, particularly the image of that helicopter trying to evacuate people from a rooftop.…
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Nature’s Fierce Defiance
April 23, 2025
By Tom Poland For seven years I only read Russian writers, Boris Pasternak, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and my favorite, Alexander Ilyich Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn wrote of life under Stalin.…
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South Carolinians to shine “Two Lights for Tomorrow” on April 18
April 18, 2025
South Carolina will participate in “Two Lights for Tomorrow” on the night of Friday, April 18, a nationwide commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s legendary midnight ride and…
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Pictures don’t even capture it
April 17, 2025
By Jeff Becraft This past weekend, I went with a group of guys to Black Mountain Home for Children in Black Mountain, North Carolina. On the west campus of…
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A Southern Rock Connection
April 16, 2025
By Tom Poland Back roads took me past pecan groves and cotton fields and eventually to Charlane Woodlands, Chuck and Rose Lane Leavell’s home/tree farm. That evening Chuck and…
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HOLY WEEK: Being always mindful of life’s blessings
April 14, 2025
God literally saved me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually By W. Thomas Smith Jr. As we begin HOLY WEEK – Palm Sunday through Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, then…
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We Never Met
April 10, 2025
By Tom Poland I wish we had. I traded letters with a writer who lived alone in the remote reaches of Alaska, the Land of the Midnight Sun. Poet…
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Sistercare x Jamie Scott Fitness EmpoweRun 5k on Saturday, April 5
April 7, 2025
Sistercare’s 3rd Annual EmpoweRun 5k Walk and Run Sistercare and Jamie Scott Fitness are joining together to host the 3rd annual EmpoweRun 5k walk and run to benefit Sistercare’s ongoing…
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Hear the full, true story of the Doolittle Raid, and the Midlands’ role in it
April 7, 2025
You know about the Doolittle Raid – or at least, you should. On April 18, 1942 – just over four months after the Pearl Harbor attack – sixteen B-25B Mitchell…
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Responding to life
April 4, 2025
By Jeff Becraft I am building a storage shed in my backyard. I am being trained by this guy in a blue shirt off of YouTube University. I watched…
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Gnarly voicemails
April 2, 2025
By Jeff Becraft I’m on my second illness in six weeks. What kind of shenanigans is this? I guess all the running around over the last month and eating…
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A Day in the Life of a Garbage Man
April 2, 2025
By Tom Poland Let this harrowing tale serve as a warning. Be careful of what you wrap in aluminum foil. A British judge stopped a man’s 12-year legal battle…
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M16, which generations of American soldiers have carried into battle, discussed at next Noon Debrief
April 1, 2025
The eight-shot, semiautomatic M1 Garand rifle got the American infantryman through both the Second World War and Korea. General George S. Patton called it “the greatest battle implement ever devised.”…
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Saying goodbye to Dad
March 27, 2025
By Jeff Becraft I know my last article talked about my Dad moving on to Higher Ground, but while it is still fresh on my mind, I’m going to…
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Lessons From The Great Snakeman
March 26, 2025
By Tom Poland Come the cold, dormant months, few snakes, if any, are out and about. Perhaps winter makes a good time to read about the critters many fear.…
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Power: Ed awards $95,000 grant to A Father’s Place to prepare young men for fatherhood and life
March 26, 2025
A Father’s Place (AFP), has been awarded a $95,000 grant from Power:Ed, the philanthropy of SC Student Loan Corporation, to support AFP’s Reality Check Program, which actively engaging both current…
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Come out for a special Saturday at the Relic Room. It will be revolutionary! March 29
March 25, 2025
When did our country make itself independent from British rule? Was it when the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired at Lexington? Was it when John Hancock and 55…
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New report highlights factors influencing the health of South Carolinians
March 25, 2025
New data explores the population health of South Carolinians and the impact of physical, mental, and social well-being on life expectancy, among other factors. The annual report released by County…
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Hidden by Woods; Revealed by Wind
March 20, 2025
By Tom Poland I was cruising a familiar Georgia road looking for the past. A gut feeling told me to strike out for a place Hurricane Helene devastated—the busy…
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During the Revolution, South Carolina had its very own Navy
March 20, 2025
You’ve heard of John Paul Jones, the first great hero of the United States Navy. But remember that in his heyday, there was no “U.S. Navy” as we think of…
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