Aldo’s Bench
June 24, 2022
By Tom Poland The bench you see overlooks an estuarine creek. That creek snakes its way into a wider creek, Pine Creek, I believe, that snakes its way into…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz Category: life, on-the-move
Blink Book Review #3: Educated by Tara Westover
June 21, 2022
This is the second in a series of summer “Blink Book Reviews” by Reba Hull Campbell When “Educated” first came out in 2018, I remember seeing the book in…
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Blink Book Review #2: South of Heaven by Patti Frye Meredith
June 16, 2022
This is the second in a series of summer “Blink Book Reviews” by Reba Hull Campbell For anyone who is southern by birth or has moved to the south,…
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Through Broken Glass
June 16, 2022
By Tom Poland The old church just wanted to be left alone, but that didn’t happen. Someone shot out her windows. Some kid’s BBs shattered panes, leaving sharp jagged…
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Eastside Celebration to feature Mayor Tecklenburg, Eastside community leaders and Piccolo Spoleto pop up performance Friday evening
June 9, 2022
Please join Mayor John Tecklenburg, City Councilmember Robert Mitchell, Police Chief Luther T. Reynolds, Philip Simmons Foundation Project Administrator Rossie Colter and Eastside Community Development Corporation President Shelia Fields at…
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A Creek Runs Through It
June 9, 2022
By Tom Poland Writers title works and often they fail to come up with a good one. Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas comes to mind. Sometimes a gem of…
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21 heroic dogs selected to compete for America’s highest canine honor
June 8, 2022
Public Voting Opens to Choose 7 Finalists for the 2022 American Humane Hero Dog Awards More than 400,000 votes from animal lovers across the country have decided the top 21 semifinalists from…
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The Cedars Of Philomath
May 19, 2022
By Tom Poland Long ago it was, in the late 1980s. I was in a hurry to get back to South Carolina. Thus did I take Georgia Highway 22,…
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A New Broom Sweeps Clean
May 18, 2022
By Tom Poland “A new broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows the corners.” Mom pulled out this old saw when a new preacher attempted wholesale change or…
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Rediscovering An Old Friend
May 12, 2022
By Tom Poland March 3rd is a day I’ll long remember. A bit earlier I had given a talk to the Kiwanis Club at the Darlington Country Club. Returning home…
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An Old Tree, An Old Academy
May 5, 2022
By Tom Poland A Magnolia and a School of Consequence As you top the Edgefield County rise, that fine word “copse” comes to mind. Copse, a small group of…
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Cotton Pickin’ Memories
April 27, 2022
By Tom Poland My jaunts around the South take me past old haunts, a cotton gin now and then. I’ve seen gins in Salters, Bishopville, and other rural places.…
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Miss Emily’s Oak
April 20, 2022
By Tom Poland She planted the oak some sixty-eight years ago. Miss Emily was around twenty-six then. The years passed, the tree grew, and today it’s a setting Normal…
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Masters Memories
April 11, 2022
By Tom Poland There comes a memory from long ago when Georgia had yet to win 1980 and 2021 national champions. No worries, Georgia was and is an annual…
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From Savior to Survivor
March 31, 2022
By Tom Poland Four relics remind me of how things used to be: fire towers, windmills, chimneys, and silos. I’ve written about fire towers, windmills, and chimneys but never…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: education, life, non-profit, on-the-move
Wild Horses
March 24, 2022
By Tom Poland When I hear some determined soul say “wild horses couldn’t pull me away” thoughts race through my mind. First, I think of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. You’d…
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U.S. News ranks three Hammock Coast beaches among South Carolina’s top 10
March 22, 2022
U.S. News & World Report has ranked three beaches on South Carolina’s Hammock Coast among the best in the Palmetto State. In its ranking of the 12 best South Carolina…
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The Best Drink Of Water
March 16, 2022
By Tom Poland Seems to me, as the old folks would say, an aluminum dipper delivered the best drink of water. You’d sink that dipper into a wooden bucket. And…
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Read The Fine Print
March 10, 2022
By Tom Poland Note: For Non-Offended Eyes Only Some say we are what we eat and that what we eat these days is killing us. Down in Australia, some…
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Winter In Wambaw Bay
March 3, 2022
By Tom Poland The orchestra is quiet, as winter holds the conductor’s baton. Still, a song comes to mind. “California Dreamin” where much is brown and gray—every shade of…
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The Emperor’s Hem
February 23, 2022
By Tom Poland In the late 1990s, a time that seems ancient, I touched the emperor’s hem. That is I corresponded with a writer whose words revealed a style…
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Noble Ruin of the South
February 17, 2022
By Tom Poland When man abandoned it, the traffic diverted west, and the forest began to claim it. Today, sycamores, cedars, and oaks console it, and wind and water…
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‘Rosie the Riveter’ had a lot to say in her letters to a boy in uniform
February 14, 2022
Catherine Ladnier says her mother never threw anything away. So when she died on Mother’s Day, 2001, there were a lot of things to go through in her house in…
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Miss Lucy, Childhood Legend
February 10, 2022
By Tom Poland “Perhaps you recall a person from childhood whom everyone kept their distance from. Enjoy this glimpse of small-town life in the 1960s.” Small towns have that one…
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Bitters, A History In Life And Literature
February 2, 2022
By Tom Poland Among the dusty bottles and vase stand three alcoholic potions. I bought the matador-like bottle in Madrid when I traveled by train through hard, brown Spain. Next…
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Crow Tastes Pretty Good In Snow
January 27, 2022
By Tom Poland My last column criticized I-20 as a barrier to snow in the classic South. “Winter after winter, radar reveals blue, pink, and white blotches rolling north…
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MarineMax co-hosts a Scout Factory Day Sales Event at the Scout Factory
January 26, 2022
MarineMax recently announced the Scout Factory Day Sales Event on Saturday, February 5, from 11 am to 4 pm, at the Scout Factory. This exclusive event features many vendors and a unique…
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The Great Dividing Line
January 21, 2022
By Tom Poland Yet another dud weather storm forecast teaches me something. When the next Ice Age arrives, its frozen sheet will grind to a halt where I-20 crosses…
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Remembering Smokehouses
January 20, 2022
By Tom Poland I wrote about old hand-dug wells not long ago. Many old wells had a companion nearby, smokehouses. I’ve written about these farm icons before, but a…
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More SC families say “YES” to organ donation in 2021 than any previous year
January 19, 2022
479 lives saved, 45,000 lives healed by SC donors During unprecedented times, South Carolinians find the courage to give. On their darkest day after learning of the loss of a…
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SC Bar Member serves as keynote speaker for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event
January 19, 2022
Attorney Doward Harvin is an SC Bar Board Member On Monday, our nation honored the life and work of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. South Carolina attorney…
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MarineMax Charleston presents Women On Water class at the Charleston Boat show
January 17, 2022
MarineMax Charleston will be hosting two Women On Water® classes at the Charleston Boat show this year. These classes will take place on Friday, January 28th, and Saturday, January 29th at 2:00…
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How to Buy a Car in 2022: Navigating The Automobile Shortage
January 14, 2022
By Mike DuBose The COVID-19 pandemic has had dramatic and wide-ranging impacts on the United States and the world as a whole. Most people are traveling, going to events, and…
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The Old Hand-Dug Well
January 12, 2022
By Tom Poland Driving a country road, I passed an old well house. It didn’t look like a wishing well. It looked rustic, more like a shed, a practical…
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The Allure of Barbed Wire & Cedar
January 6, 2022
By Tom Poland Out in the country skinny metal fence posts rule pasturelands nowadays. I seldom see old cedar-barbed wire fences, but when I do they unleash a flood…
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No Gas, No Batteries, No Electricity Required
December 16, 2021
By Tom Poland All it requires is a steady hand. It doesn’t disturb the peace on Saturday mornings. So quiet is it, I doubt it’d suffer banning in ever-vigilant…
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From beach rentals to Christmas trees, it’s all business for Pawleys Island family
December 10, 2021
Providing locals and visitors on South Carolina’s Hammock Coast® with beach chairs and umbrellas in the spring and summer, pumpkins in the fall and Christmas trees during the holidays may…
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A Vanishing Coastal Icon
December 8, 2021
By Tom Poland Photographers love to shoot them at sunrise. Riding a glittering golden sea, shrimp boats strike a classic silhouette with that orb of fire rising behind them.…
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That Legendary Everlasting Plant, Rabbit Tobacco
November 30, 2021
By Tom Poland She smoked it as a kid. Said she smoked grapevines too but it was Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, one of the everlastings, she talked about most. She and…
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Grandmom’s Fabulous Fried Pies
November 17, 2021
By Tom Poland She dried sliced apple, peaches, and pears on a slanted wooden table facing the sun. Nails prevented the fruit from sliding to the ground. Once it…
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Above, Not Below, The Jailhouse
November 10, 2021
By Tom Poland Standing in a courtroom, a malefactor dreads a dire warning. “If you don’t straighten up, I’ll put you under the jailhouse.” Uttered by many a judge,…
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Elusive Butterfly Of Fall
November 4, 2021
By Tom Poland December 1965, that’s when a catchy tune debuted. Bob Lind’s “Elusive Butterfly” used a butterfly as a metaphor for love. Some of you survivors of these…
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Star Light, Star Bright
October 27, 2021
By Tom Poland Back in the late 1980s and early ’90s, I’d leave on a Friday afternoon and head for the mountains, the Blue Ridge species. My monthly drives…
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Electric Cooperatives host “Ride Across South Carolina” to raise awareness for heart disease
October 25, 2021
The Electric Cooperative Ride Across South Carolina is a seven-day, 648-mile ride with stops at 18 cooperatives. Starting on October 25th in the Upstate and ending in the Low Country…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc, laurenscountybuzz Category: economic-development, energy, health-care, life, on-the-move
Magic In Some Alien World
October 21, 2021
By Tom Poland On a hot, windless Sunday, I found a place where wind swept up and over a cliff to pour through pines. The cooling torrent felt like…
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My Last Dog
October 13, 2021
By Tom Poland Should you walk our family land in eastern Georgia, you’ll come across several cemeteries. No, they’re not ancestors. You won’t see headstones. You’ll see wooden crosses…
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Firefly Distillery releases throwback Raspberry Sweet Tea Vodka
October 12, 2021
In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Firefly Distillery is partnering with Share Our Suzy Lowcountry, a lowcountry non-profit enhancing the quality of life for breast cancer patients in…
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How to Make the Most of this Year’s South Carolina State Fair
October 6, 2021
The 152nd South Carolina State Fair returns Oct. 13-24, 2021, with a full lineup of traditional favorites and a variety of new rides, foods, entertainment and the return of the…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: entertainment, hospitality, life, media, on-the-move
Tall Tales—Truth Can Be Elusive
October 6, 2021
By Tom Poland The last time I wrote about the nightlife, my late mom gave me a reading. She upbraided me about the evils of alcohol and told me…
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You’ve Got To Feel the Food
September 29, 2021
By Tom Poland A few years back on a fall day I attended a wild game dinner on the grounds of Hobcaw Barony’s Bellefield Stables. I sat among folks…
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