Health Care Hero Awards

Rocky, Pet Therapy Health Care Hero, Charleston, SC   

Each year at this time I look forward to nominating a few of my volunteers for the Health Care Hero awards. One of my best looking team members took home an award for Health Care Hero this year - Rocky the pet therapy dog! Rocky serves in the Cancer Center offering a little comfort to patients receiving their chemo and infusions. He has just the right touch. Congrats Rocky!

There were many worthy recipients honored this evening. Another volunteer on my team was honored in the human volunteer category - Solveig Bracy who has hand knit over 1,200 bonnets for new born babies. The awards are sponsored by the Charleston Regional Business Journal. 

And so it begins.....

Charleston, SC    

They have more energy and Christmas spirit than I do but I am glad they do! This house is in my neighborhood but we all have that one person who goes all out for the holidays. Bless them.

Find a Ginkgo Biloba party near you!

Ginkgo Biloba leaves, Charleston, SC   

It seems to happen overnight and I added quite a few steps to my weekend walk to see if I might catch the Ginkgo Biloba leaves on the pair of trees at the Library Society building in their bright yellow party wear but they were a disappointment this year and much more brown than yellow. I found others along my way to make up for it but those two usually put on a dramatic show.

Joyful noise

Street musicians, King St., Charleston, SC   

These kids were so good! They had an admiring crowd surrounding them yesterday on King St. Their youthful adorableness didn't hurt either. I always put a buck or two in the pile before I grab a picture. Hope you made a lot of money!

Walk with me - Beaufain St.

Beaufain St., Charleston, SC  

It's fun to walk downtown Charleston on the busiest shopping day of the year when you aren't actually looking for anything to buy. I parked and walked along Beaufain St. and enjoyed all the splashes of color along the way.

Charleston gardens

Charleston Garden, Charleston, SC   

It might be fall but our gardens still look good. In fact it is raining at the moment and that should cheer things up. I took the top photo on a recent walk-about town but the shot below is from the hospital garden this afternoon.

Church Photo in Lieu of Attendance - Stono Baptist Church

Stono Baptist Church, Ravenel, SC    

I am captive at home with the sniffles this weekend so dipping into my back road photo albums for this morning's Church Photo in Lieu of Attendance.

Every photographer I know has stopped to take a picture of this sweet chapel on a hill in Ravenel. Because of that we can track the deterioration through the captured images. The piano used to be upright in place but now is flat on it's back. This time I also spotted the typo in the word "cemetery" in the sign :). Ooops.

Youth Recognition

West Ashley Optimist Club Youth Recognition, Charleston, SC   

Meet the winners of the West Ashley Optimist Club Youth Recognition awards for 2017. I am invited to nominate a student for this award each year and love getting recognition for these amazing students. I am always amazed to read off their list of accomplishments.  Congratulations!

Still dressed for Halloween

McClellanville, SC   

Someone is wearing his Halloween costume too close to Thanksgiving. Isn't there an etiquette rule covering this? No white after Labor Day, no fangs in November. 

For Steve

McClellanville, SC   

You know I have the greatest collection of sidewalk inscriptions but this was a first. I slipped away from my outdoor luncheon table, leaving my companions to chat while I took a picture of the poem in the pavement that caught my eye. It turns out I was eating lunch with the poet William P. Baldwin who had written and inscribed the poem in honor of the gentleman who had laid the patio tile before passing away. Sometimes all the pieces come together.

Backtrack here to see more of my collection of concrete thoughts.

Paddling with the poet

Paddling Honey Hill, McClellanville, SC   

I had a last minute invitation Saturday night offering me a chance to join a kayak ride this morning and luckily I was able to accept. My friend English and I joined author and poet William P. Baldwin at his home in the village of McClellanville. He had just completed writing his morning poem before helping us loading our kayaks into his truck.

We put the kayaks in at Honey Hill. The colors were so beautiful I aimed my little pocket camera at the reflections as much as my surroundings. We did see birds, bullfrogs and a few gators. We paddled in perfect peace winding through the low branches and around cypress logs capping the morning off sitting outside in the village listening to local stories over sandwiches at Boats N Hoagies. I felt very fortunate.

Now, must we do this work week business in the morning?

Cards for Heroes

Cards for Heroes, Charleston, SC   

Every year I order 1,000 holiday greeting cards and set up tables in our hospitals and health system invited staff to write a message of gratitude to be distributed to service members on active duty during the holidays.

The Red Cross does the leg work for us but all day I am touched by the meaningful messages written on these cards. Thank you ladies and gentleman in the military. We appreciated your service.

Colorful wheels in Avondale

Colorful wheels, Avondale, Charleston, SC     

This looks like one of Patch Whisky's murals behind the Mellow Mushroom restaurant in Avondale. It was a bright splash of color only improved by the scooter parked in front of it.

I only caught the shot because I went out marching the very minute I got home from work to get my walk in before dark. I'm not a fan of this daylight saving time. 

Walterboro's Red Rocking Chairs

Pull up a chair and rock, Walterboro, SC   

Red rocking chairs have become a symbol of Walterboro, SC and I caught a few of them with my camera on a recent walk through the downtown area. I do enjoy browsing the antique shops. 

Walterboro's Red Rocking Chairs: “In the South, the front porch rocking chair has long been considered an icon for Southern hospitality and home. For generations, the front porch was the gathering place for family, friends and neighbors after a long day’s work, after evening meals and on long Sunday afternoons, where everyone was welcome, and rocking chairs were aplenty.
Perhaps that’s one reason the small town of Walterboro, in Colleton County, adopted the red rocking chair as the primary symbol in their marketing campaign for the city, where red rocking chairs can also be found in front of the retail businesses, offices and restaurants along the main thoroughfare of Washington Street.
While times have changed and families tend to spend more time in front of their computers than on the front porch, the values of the people of our region have remained the same; we still believe that our quality of life is tied to hard work, family and community . . .”

The Spinster Perfect Love Club

Mills Hotel, Charleston, SC    

In 1862 a young girl in Anderson, S.C. wrote in her diary during the civil war, ending the journal entry with a pledge that she and her spinster friends would meet again at the Mills House Hotel in Charleston on November 5th, 1867 and share a bottle of Perfect Love.

We don't know if they held their meeting or not but today, 150 years later to the day we met in their honor. My friend Josephine Humphreys discovered that there is indeed a drink called Perfect Love - or Parfait Amour. She ordered it to be delivered and let the Mills House know of our plans and we had a meeting of the Spinster Perfect Love Club. It was great fun and a treat to put faces to names primarily from the Charleston History before 1945 group. Thanks for a great afternoon!

Here's the original post where we first discovered perfect love. 

"Anderson, SC, Nov 5, 1862: We, the undersigned, all spinsters, more or less young and all reasonably attractive, do hereby vow and declare, that on the 5th day of November, 1867, being five years from this date, we will meet in the parlour of the Mills House, at 12 o’clock, and drink with much solemnity a bottle of Perfect Love, in token of our present friendship and good fellowship. Those who shall meanwhile have entered into the holy bonds of matrimony will be excluded, but hereby promise that in lieu of themselves they will send to the survivors in life and maidenhood a letter describing their position as wives or widows. If one of these below-mentioned subscribers be tempted to forget her promise and refuse to come, or refuse to betray the secrets of her prison house, or write falsely, each of the subscribers who faithfully keeps hers shall be entitled to claim from the defaulter a ring, made of her hair. All this being fully settled and agreed to, we have hereunto set our hands and seals.All’s well that ends well. 

Magdalen Elizabeth Keith; Sarah Abagail Whaley; Anna Bella Keith; Anna Charlotte Keith; Members of West End Club 

from http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:40742

Not many of us if any, are actually spinsters and the drink was pretty awful but we did have a grand time!

Care for some water with your jail sentence?

Walterboro Water Tower, Walterboro, SC   

It is a dramatic water tower. I remembered a story about the base being used as a jail and according to this information that is correct. Multipurpose!

Atlas Obscura:  Constructed of reinforced concrete and standing 133 feet tall, the Walterboro Water Tower is one of only three standpipe systems in the state of South Carolina.There is a small door at the base of the tower that leads to a space that was once used as a county jail. Long since out of penal service, there are six small cells, and just a couple of windows. Some say that these cells later served as sleeping quarters for stranded travelers who needed a place to stay for a night. Not exactly five-star accommodations – or really any-star accommodations. Unless you count the star on the sheriff’s jacket that may have locked you up back in the day.  

A good year for cotton

Cotton fields, SC 

It must be a good year for cotton. The rural roads around Eutawville are blankets of white. Same effect but much easier to drive through than snow!