Past Life Diagnosis

Waterfront Park, Charleston, SC

Past Life Diagnosis

Here is mine. Go do yours!

Your past life diagnosis:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Ireland around the year 1400. Your profession was that of a banker, usurer, moneylender or judge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Bohemian personality, mysterious, highly gifted, capable to understand ancient books. With a magician's abilities, you could have been a servant of dark forces.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
Your task is to learn, to love and to trust the universe. You are bound to think, study, reflect, and to develop inner wisdom.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you remember now?

It is another wicked hot day but I am heading out to survey my territories. It is also "recycle used plastic bags" day and they are all crammed into my backpack so tightly it looks like I am on a cross country trek. People will be amazed the light spring in my step considering my heavy load.

PS: On a serious note, thanks to Beach Bum for this entry.

Customer Service Day

Gibbes Museum of Art, Meeting St., Charleston, S.C.

Checking google search terms that landed folks on this site is a fun hobby. This morning's crop (other than the "nice sharp boops") were pretty straight forward searches for Charleston information so I decided to do a customer service day and link people up with some of the most common ones.

charleston daily photo
baby picture magnolia cemetery charleston sc
charleston blogspot
sea shells charleston
jesus fire escape charleston
charleston web gals
15 perry street, charleston, sc
walking for excercise
american lady sex photo
trident united way
charleston blogs
how to look younger in a picture
walking in charleston blog
Strawberry chapel
display bras breast cancer
best machines at charlestown 2009
nice sharp boops in world
black tea in charleston sc
past life diagnos
joan perry charlesotn
where is philadelphia alley charleston
car flooed in charleston sc
charleston blogs

On the road - Methodist Camp Meeting Home Grimsby Beach

Grimsby Beach, Painted Ladies, Ontario, Canada

Times are sad and emotions are highly charged in Charleston right now and I've had a hard time posting regular items so, how about some pretty photos from my recent trip to Canada to fill in time?

I have in the past tracked down the rustic, wooden tent camp meeting locations in rural South Carolina so a newspaper clipping on my father's refrigerator advertising a garden tour of Grimsby Beach "painted lady" homes caught my eye. These are camp meeting homes of a different level! Wowza! Check them out!

My sister Shirley was in from Edmonton and in the mood to hit the road so we tracked them down. The only similarity to the wooden tents in South Carolina is that they are Methodist and built in a circle. It ends there. These are so decorative they are almost Disneyworld style.

The early Methodists missed the fellowship of church attendance, so each summer for a week or ten days, a mammoth camp meeting would be held so that everyone could absorb enough religious fervour to last through the long winter. The camp meeting was an important social as well as religious event. These meetings were held in various locations, but in 1859 John Bowslaugh donated the land on the shores of Lake Ontario for a permanent Ontario Methodist Camp Meeting Ground.

Because of its continued success, sixteen years later a company was incorporated to manage the site. Cottages were built and a community grew that included a grocery store, barber shop, telegraph office, hotels and even its own railway stopping. By 1888 a new temple was built and dedicated which could seat up to 7000 people. Steamers travelled daily from Toronto to land at Grimsby Park's Pier.

Gradually the camp meetings became a thing of the past. The year 1910 saw a new owner bring a mid-way, shooting gallery, merry-go-round and more. The park was now a summer resort. As time passed, the cottages became homes and the summer fun of Grimsby park turned into the more regular life of a little community.

Casual Santa

Casual Santa, Seabrook Island, S.C.

My friend Linda asked me out to Seabrook Island this past weekend to take a picture of Casual Santa for Island Life newspaper. Long braid, tattoos, khaki shorts and his dog, Santa looked quite comfy relaxing by the fire. Ask for what you want but I suspect you are going to get something beach related.

Home for Funerals

Dorothy's Home for Funerals, Cannon St., Charleston

There is something warm and friendly about the name "Home for Funerals" especially when the funeral home is this historic Charleston home on Cannon St. This is Dorothy's Home for Funerals. I've walked past it for years but this is the first time I clicked on the web site. 

Our mother Dorothy Moultrie Richardson founded Dorothy's Home for Funerals in July 1973. Her career started at the age of 13, working with her father and mother at the family owned J.B. Moultrie Funeral Home, which was founded in 1923. To serve the communities west of Charleston, she opened the Hollywood Chapel in 1983. She was one of the oldest African American female funeral directors and was active until her death July 7, 2001. Service to the community was a basic principle by which our mother and grandparents, Jacob Benjamin Moultrie and Lelia Hertz Moultrie lived. We continue to keep service as our objective and focal point.

Dorothy's Home for Funerals is a family owned and operated funeral home. The Moultrie family has served the Charleston area communitys since 1923 and are here to help families in their time of need. Our family will help your family celebrate the life of your loved one. We will help you plan a celebration of your loved one that reflects their and your family's wishes.

Okay kids, I hope everyone has a good weekend. My handyman is coming shortly to start hiding my ghastly popcorn ceiling with new sheet rock. I am covering things up to protect them from the dust and running away. Run away, run away!

Super Heroes for Heart Health

I've had pirates (Me HEARTies!) and Med in Red dresses promoting the Lowcountry Heart Walk in past year, now let me introduce a couple of our Super Heroes for Heart Health.

I do work with a bunch of good sports!

These rascals work in our business office. Debbi Tanner on the right is a Triple Heart-by-Pass Survivor herself and had heart surgery May of 1993. She has been supporting a healthy life style including eating healthy ever since. Super Sassy Survivor's fundraising web site can be found here. She is accompanied by her Super Supporter Laura Icard. Love you two ladies!

Now, what shall I wear?  Super Hero......hmmmm.

The Lowcountry Heart Walk will be held on 9/29. It is a three mile fun walk starting at Liberty Square and heading along the waterfront and back. All good stuff for a good cause. Join the fun here. I love the progress made in heart disease treatment and prevention and intend to take at least 500 walkers to the event. My fundraising site is here. I'd be delighted to see you there.

A peak at McLeod Plantation

McLeod Plantation, James Island, S.C.

I am itchy and twitchy, ready to go out for a brisk walk and it is pouring rain. I've swept the porch, replaced a light bulb ...blah, blah, blah. Weekends aren't really for housework are they? It's too wet to take a camera out at the moment but here are a few shots I took yesterday on my way home from my first zumba class (scary thought with my rhythm!).

I've driven past McLeod Plantation hundreds of times admiring the beautiful piece of property but never taken a pictures of it and yesterday I realized why. They have slapped "No Trespassing - This Means You, Joan" signs all over any easy access. I pulled around the corner and walked back but there is no sidewalk and I had to take my life in my hands walking on the edge of heavy traffic.

What a lovely spot. The line of old slave cabins leads up the avenue of the oaks to the plantation house. According to the 1860 census 74 slaves lived in 26 cabins. More here but this is a bit of the story:

William Ellis McLeod passed away at the age of 105 in the same room he was born in. In his will, he left his interest in the plantation to the Historic Charleston Foundation, with the stipulation that it be preserved as a "single family residence, to preserve the Oak Avenues, and to provide that as much of the property as possible be restricted to single family residence or residences having the lowest possible density".

It's an expensive property to maintain and if they have their way, the Friends of McLeod Vision for the Future includes:

Among activities suggested:

• Church services and concerts under the oaks on a Sunday afternoon.


• Confederate and Massachusetts 54th and 55th re-enactors setting up camp and cooking with open fires for breakfast or lunch.


• Saturday Farmer's Market selling authentic local produce.


• A James Island Founder's Day - a homecoming once a year for James Islanders.


• Cooking demonstrations, tours, story telling.


• Tours especially designed for school children.


• Restoration of the grape arbor and plantings around it for use as a small special events rental area.


• Religious, business and corporate retreats.

If anyone has any pictures of the inside of the house please steer me to them. Meanwhile, it looks like one more project for me to fix up when I win the lottery. The list keeps growing.

And the gates shall remain closed

6 Thomas St., Charleston, S.C.

I used to live on Vanderhorst St. and had always been aware that Robert Barnwell Rhett the Father of Secession lived in my house. He is listed as the occupant of 42 Vanderhorst in the 1851 census directory. Googling his name came up with his name attached to the much more impressive home on the corner of Vanderhorst and 6 Thomas St. He must have come down in life to have moved from this mansion to my old home.

I've always loved the beautiful home but was unfamiliar with the story behind the massive iron gates I have walked past hundreds of times. Here is an old Post & Courier story about the house.

The house has an enduring bit of Charleston lore associated with it. Along Vanderhorst St. (bordering the property to the south) are large and very decorative iron gates. The set of gates to the west is said to have been the spot where a woman bid farewell to her fiance, telling him as he left that she would not reopen the gates until he returned. The man was killed in the Civil War, and no subsequent occupant of the house has reopened the gates to this day; they remain locked shut.

 

 

I have lived, and I mattered

Francis Beidler Forest, S.C.

I've squeezed hands in too many hospital rooms and attended too many funerals this past week. Yesterday afternoon I watched my friend Donna be strong while she said goodbye to her husband Shane - just 44 years of age. It's been a sad Christmas for too many and I pray they find the strength they need.

I sat in Stuhr's Funeral Home among rows of friends from our hospital family and while we waited we planned our own funerals and promised to attend to each others outrageous demands - except for Gene Glave's. I don't even have a bridesmaids gown to wear to a funeral but if that is how she wants it, we will definitely need a photographer and that will be my role.

Amplesanity celebrated her birthday this week and I always enjoy her way with words. She posted this entry today:

An online article once asked, "What have you done with your life?" My response was, in part and as closely as I can recall: "I have given birth to people and ideas and dreams. I have written and spoken. I have made people think and pissed people off. I have loved and been loved. I have been good and bad and everything in between. I have failed and succeeded. I have cried and wailed and survived. I have traveled to the end of the universe and back again using the horse-cart called imagination. I have lived."

Then she wrote of speaking out loud the name of the person who passed away:

When someone dies, he or she deserves to have his or her name spoken aloud. To speak a name out loud allows the dead an opportunity to say, "I have lived, and I mattered." To speak a name out loud allows the living a moment to acknowledge and mourn all that is lost by a passing.

Shane Blew Father, Ironworker, beloved husband of my sweet friend Donna. He lived, and he mattered.

Gunpowder Tea & Percussion Caps

White Point Gardens, Charleston, S.C.

Check this out. It's from the: CHARLESTON MERCURY, November 30, 1860, p. 1, c. 2

Resolutions Aux Temps

To the Editor of the Charleston Mercury: 
                A party of young ladies, recently, while sipping inspiration from the China leaf, became warmly imbued with the spirit of the times, and after electing officers, etc., drew up the following resolutions: 
                Resolved, That we, though by Divine authority termed the "weaker vessels," are nevertheless endowed with resolute wills, and hence have the power to make resolves, and to keep them, 
                Resolved, That since the election of Lincoln to the Presidency, we consider our allegiance to the North as ended, and will therefore use our influence in favor of an immediate secession, 
                Resolved, that we honor all men who are for this movement, but are determined to secede ourselves from all who are opposed to it, 
                Resolved, That at present the best "feather in the cap" of any young man, is the "Palmetto cockade," and it makes our hearts flutter to see one mounted above a manly brow, 
                Resolved, That "gunpowder tea" shall be our favorite beverage, and "percussion caps" the only ones that we shall set, 
                Resolved, That "Yankee Doodle" is now defunct, and we can henceforth play only marches and quicksteps, and sing of the Lone Star, the Soldier's Return, etc., 
                Resolved, That the Military Institution of the State is a great institution, and her Cadets great fellows, 
                Resolved, That notwithstanding we feel duly grateful to the Yankees for their past services in making our shoes, &c., we are now seized with a decided predilection in favor of French boots, and hope to get a supply as soon as our Southern President becomes inaugurated. 
                Resolved, That since the weather is getting quite cold, and manufacturing establishments South rather scarce, we will hold on to our Northern "goods and chattels" a while longer, knowing that our silks and worsteds are from Europe, and feeling that to our calicos and cotton stuffs, at least, we have the original, the "God-given" right, 
                Resolved, That though our Palmetto shades are dearer to us than life, yet we love every State at the South--two of them especially--and dwell with delight upon the beautiful lake scenery of the one, and the mountain and grotto view--ideal-painted--of the other, 
                Resolved, That we honor the sons of Carolina in proportion to their patriotism, and are ready to yield up our hearts to the first Garibaldi who shall show himself, 
                Resolved, That we wish the world to know our views on the present issue of events, and will therefore place them at the disposal of the Charleston Mercury.  

________________________

Priceless!

Patriotic Hospitality

Pineapple welcome, Charleston, SC  

I was reading back through past blog entries recently and noticed that I used to post a lot more jokes. It's hard to come up with new good jokes but some of them were pretty funny. One of my sources was a blogging buddy who went by the name of Old Horsetail Snake. Great name, eh?!

If I remember the story Old Horsetail Snake was in his late 70's turning 80 and as he described it he was rescued from his retirement home by his sweetheart he named "Scamp". He was such a treat that I clicked old links and amazingly although he passed away in 2009, his blog still exists with joke after joke and little snippets of his life. Leaving a long trails of smiles isn't a bad legacy. Go visit if you need a smile! Old Horsetail Snake.

The Washington Post has asked its readers for their pet peeves (good or bad): 
Total strangers telling me what to do, especially square-dancer callers.
When a woman stands near me and people think her ugly baby is mine, and it is.
Big conceited bodies of water, especially Lake Superior.
I've been all over the world and have lived among every kind of culture and I can say, without any hesitation, that the most ignorant, rude, selfish and self-centered people on Earth are babies.

Baptized in Sweet Tea

Author Ken Burger, Charleston, S.C. 

Most of my volunteers aren't very interested in attending meetings. I respect that. I do everything I can not to waste their time. Every once and awhile I throw a Lunch & Learn to update the group on new medical procedures they should be aware of. This time, for a change we got together just for fun. Author, blogger, and sports reporter Ken Burger agreed to spend some time with us as a special favor. What a hit he was! He read parts of his most recent book "Baptized in Sweet Tea" and won our hearts. Thanks Ken! 

Burger’s new book ‘Baptized in Sweet Tea” is a collection of columns he wrote for the Charleston Post & Courier over the past few years. As the title hints, the common thread running through the collection is Burger’s southern-ness… and, more specifically, his identity as a born-and-bred South Carolinian. Having recently retired from a long newspaper career, Burger is now in his early 60s. While he may have been baptized in sweet tea, his essays are steeped in a bittersweet nostalgia for a way of life that’s passing into memory… and a reverence for those timeless qualities that abide.