In many ways, good and bad, visiting Saluda was a lot like being at home. Before Saturday, my ventures into Saluda had mostly involved passing through there to get somewhere else. The only time I can remember being there for a reason was to cover a high school football game or two. I got an eyeful of the county at-large as we drove to Aiken earlier in the day. Most of what I saw would lead many people to declare that there’s nothing there. I disagree…when I see cows behind old barbed wire fences with well-weathered posts, fields and woods and ponds, I tend to think everything is there. It reminds me of where I grew up. It’s peaceful, mostly unspoiled, blissfully undeveloped and 100 percent unpretentious. Just the land like God laid it out with not much else visible but the road ahead and a few homes here and there backed way up off of it. Saluda has some interesting history, boasting as natives two people who died in The Alamo (James Bonham and William Travis) and the Saluda Old Town Site. Archeological remains indicate the site was occupied a few thousand years ago and it was the site of a 1755 treaty signing recognizing the sovereignty of the King of England (whose tail we totally whipped in a war a few years later) over Cherokee lands. In downtown Saluda, there is a mural indicating you are 10 miles from the Saluda Old Town Site. So I was just a short ride away from being able to walk my dogs on the Old Town Road. I could’ve walked them ‘till I couldn’t walk…I’m embarrassing myself and will stop now. It was getting up on 7 o’clock by the time we pulled into a bank parking lot just off the downtown business district in the Town of Saluda. A couple of things grabbed me right away. There is a nice little square with a clock and a beautiful courthouse and library in downtown. I’d like to tell you about the architecture of the courthouse and library and some of the other nicer buildings I saw, but I know my limitations. In my pay-the-bills job of being a newspaper editor, I have to help provide content for a “homes” section once a year…and I suck at it. I don’t know how to explain columns and arches and brick facades and landscaping and stuff other than to say “man, that sure is purdy.” Take my word for it, they have a nice courthouse and library. There are some features present in Saluda that bigger towns would kill for. The sidewalks are actually elevated a few feet above the street, high enough to require a guardrail in places. It’s different and stands out a bit. The Saluda Theatre is just off Main. It is on the National Historic Register, having been constructed in 1936 and could be a real showpiece, what with its two stories of stuccoed, Art Deco exterior masonry (I totally had to look that up). The classic marquee sign even remains intact. But just like the town I work in (Chester, which boasts jaw-dropping history, architecture and the distinction of having its downtown built on a steep hill), it looks like they are struggling to take advantage of those positives. For the duration of our walk, which lasted 25 or 30 minutes, we passed exactly one person. So, on Saturday evening, when a good local restaurant or bar would have a line out the door, there was zero foot traffic (or conventional traffic). That I saw, there was one business open, that being a restaurant sporting a “C” sanitation score from DHEC (salmonella ain’t a sauce, y’all). I’m guessing Saluda is in the same boat a lot of small, southern towns are in. When the mills started closing, it took jobs away from the people who bought clothes and insurance and groceries and appliances in downtown businesses. The folks who ate scrambled eggs and drank coffee in the same booth in the same cozy little hometown restaurant every morning had to move elsewhere to find work. You then have a lot of people (and businesses) who just don’t want to pay county and city taxes anymore, so they migrate further and further away from what once was sort of their ecosystem. Customer base gone, a lot of business flee downtown or close outright. There weren’t as many empty buildings in Saluda as some other downtowns I travel through, but many of those storefronts that used to sell something or offer a service are now populated by charitable groups or churches. Church and charity aren’t bad things, certainly, they are among the best of things, but they are also nonprofits that don’t pay taxes. Eroding tax base gives small towns fewer and fewer resources with which to fix things up, capitalize on strengths and do things to draw people back to the old business district. Even if a business would want to come there, where would they locate, since so much space is occupied with nonprofits? It’s a vicious cycle that is hard to stop once its begins rolling downhill. I don’t want to sound completely like Captain Bringdown here. Maybe you get a different vibe if you walk through there during business hours. There’s a multi-cultural presence and the downtown has some nice features. My dogs didn’t have any complaints. As she had been earlier in the day, Gracie was still not being cooperative on the picture front, but Tucker posed in front of the library and theatre. Without traffic or people or other pets, it was quiet and pleasant. Just like home…in a good way.
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I have some advice for the South Carolina High School League (SCHSL) as it tries to make things fair and equitable for the athletic programs of the state’s smallest schools…stop trying.
In a few months, the SCHSL will unveil its new realignment proposal, a once-every-other-year process of dividing schools into athletic classifications and regions based on student enrollment and proximity. When the currently-in-use realignment plan came out, the league made Class A, home to the school’s with the state’s lowest enrollment numbers, REALLY small, with only 39 schools. That’s only one less school than is present in AAAA and nine less than in AAAAA (which boasts more schools that any other class), but the number is actually smaller that it seems to be on the surface. Only 30 teams placed in Class A field football teams, with a number of the academies, charter schools (and crap, I don’t know, online entities, Big Barry’s Learnin’ Shed) that populate Class A only offering a handful of sports, whereas all AAA, AAAA and AAAAA schools have football programs. The SCHSL never really explained why it decided to make Class A so small, with the only explanation offered being that they always attempt to make the difference in size between the largest and smallest school in each class as narrow as possible. Moving teams like Lewisville, East Clarendon and Hannah-Pamplico up in classification did accomplish that in Class A…of course it also increased the difference in size from largest to smallest in AA at the same time, so... My suspicion is that it was the SCHSL’s well-meaning but super flawed attempt to protect the smallest of the small. Before the current realignment kicked in, Lewisville was the largest school in Class A with 365 students, while Calhoun Falls Charter was the smallest at just under 100. In no other class would you have a team potentially competing against multiple opponents almost four times its size, so to give Calhoun Falls Charter, North, Hunter-Kinard-Tyler and Creek Bridge (which all have at or under 175 students) a puncher’s chance at being competitive, they lowered Class A’s ceiling. The size discrepancy also exists in AAAAA, but that it because there are three outsized whopperjack behemoths (Wando at 4,300 students, Dorman at 3,300 and Summerville at more than 3,000) present there that dwarf everyone else. There are bigger real gaps in AA, AAA and AAAA than in Class A, but the difference in 100 and 365 is much more impactful and difficult to overcome than the difference in 1,200 and 1,600. Unfortunately, size has definitely mattered. Class A did not feature enough teams to have its own playoffs in boys or girls cross-country or girls soccer and barely had enough (12, the bare minimum) to fill a boys soccer bracket. So, the cross country and girls soccer teams had to compete in the AA playoffs where they stood no realistic chance advancing, much less winning a state title. So by trying to make the class small enough for everyone to theoretically have a chance at being competitive in the postseason, the SCHSL actually made it more difficult for Class A schools to do so in multiple sports. The sports that have been able to field their own playoff brackets have had their own struggles. Having so few schools in Class A with football teams gave us playoffs that featured two first-round hosts with records of 2-8 and one with a 1-9 mark. A situation that was going to be bad anyway got worse when two teams, both of whom would have made the playoffs (and both of whom had more than one win on the resume) were banned for the playoffs because of an on-field brawl in the last week of the regular season. In baseball, Districts I and II featured just two teams each, because the regions predetermined to fill those districts didn’t have enough teams to do so. Region II is comprised of five schools, but the Governor’s School doesn’t have a baseball team (or football for that matter) and Timmonsville folded its baseball program just before the season started. That region is guaranteed three playoffs slots, so all three schools with a baseball team made the playoffs, though one was winless in the regular season. Ideally, playoffs are a reward for a good season and are filled with teams capable of making a real run. What we got in the last year is more like “WHEW! Filled the bracket up. Thank goodness.” When you have a classification that is as small as Class A is now, there is no room for error. An on-field scrap that leads to multiple teams being suspended from the playoffs wouldn’t be a big deal in other classes, as there would be at least somewhat deserving teams with representative records to plug the holes, but not in Class A. It is rare that schools in other classes abruptly fold up a team before a season begins (or once it has already started) but that’s a reality in schools with less than 200 students. I don’t know that it has ever happened that a AA, AAA, AAAA or AAAAA school has ever closed its doors outright, but that happened in Class A with Lincoln a few years ago and with the aforementioned Creek Bridge a few weeks ago. Creek Bridge’s closure leaves Region VI with only three schools playing football, baseball and softball. So almost no matter how bad those three might be in those sports, they will likely make the playoffs. They are also left scrambling to try to fill the spots Creek Bridge previously occupied on their schedules and in many sports (baseball, basketball, softball) that is two games. The only way to safeguard against the pitfalls and instabilities inherent in very small schools is to make their classification larger. At a bare minimum, it allows Class A to field its own playoffs in almost every sport, but it also makes the competition in those playoffs more robust. At the legislative body meeting a few months back, a plan was actually pitched to reduce realignment to a simple process of taking the total number of schools, dividing them by five and that being the five classes. It wasn't perfect, but I liked the plan as it would have made the process much less arbitrary and it would have made Class A bigger (we would've had 44 or 45 schools per classification). It was roundly defeated, unfortunately, but something needs to be done. It doesn’t make sense for teams with one or no wins to be in the playoffs, much less hosting. Having a larger class also builds in fallback options for teams folding, or getting suspended or schools closing outright. I love the smallest of the small schools in our state and its great that a school with less than 100 kids can still field a football team, but there isn’t a class you can construct in which they won’t be dwarfed in size by the competition or will have a serious shot at winning state in many sports. So there is no reason to try. Bigger isn’t always better, but in this case, it is at least preferable or more workable On Saturday, I walked my two faithful hounds (Tucker and Gracie) in downtown Aiken…or, did they walk me? We’ll get back to that in a minute. I have been to Aiken County a few times in my life. I have been to a couple of high school football games, eaten barbecue and watched two horrible movies at a fantastic drive-in theater in Aiken. To my knowledge, though, I had never even seen the City of Aiken’s downtown. I have to say, I’ve been missing out. The downtown appears to have a nice mix of newer, more modern buildings alongside repurposed (a trendy word I hate and should not be using) old brick structures. I don’t know why, but old brick, the kind that were fashioned in a fiery kiln and used to build mills and warehouses back in the day, is very appealing to me. The mix of bars, shops and restaurants had drawn quite a crowd for an early Saturday morning, so it actually took a little while to find a parking spot. That problem was exaserbated by Aiken’s one-way streets, the only mild complaint I’ll offer up about the experience. Seriously, I have a hard enough of time finding my way from one place to another even with the benefit of GPS. I don’t need a sign saying “NOPE, CAN’T TURN HERE. ONE WAY STREET” to complicate matters. Eventually we did park and I got the dogs out. We hadn’t walked 50 feet when we encountered our first crosswalk. As we waited to cross the street, a lady saw Tucker and Gracie, with all their pent-up energy from a two-hour ride and the excitement that comes with new sights and smells. “Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed. She asked me about what kind of dogs they were, if they were always that hyper (as they excitedly turned and tried to walk in every direction,) then dropped the line I hear about once per walk. “Are you walking them or are they walking you?” I get it. That’s a stock line people drop whenever they see big dogs jerking their hapless owners around. I should come up with a stock answer to reply with, but for some reason I try to say something different and creative to say each time that query is posed to me. “Actually they are dragging me,” I replied. The lady wanted to pet them and both are normally all to happy to oblige anyone wanting to shower them with attention. Tucker, though, has to scout out his territory first. He likes to know where he is and what’s going on. Gracie sat still long enough for a quick head pat, then veered off in another direction. We waited quite a while for the “walk” sign to light up, so I had the chance to tell the lady about my wonderful and awful plan to walk them both in all 46 counties. She thought it was sweet that I wanted to take my little friends on so many adventures…or that’s what she said anyway. She was probably thinking something along the lines of “are you insane?” Anyway, I finally got the “walk” sign and went on my way. I turned down a side street, hoping to walk a little energy out of the dogs. In doing so, I was walking alongside one of those classic brick facades I mentioned. I passed what looked like a cool little eatery called Betsy’s Round the Corner. They had a big awning over the front door with some outside tables set up. A couple of people were eating what I guess by that time qualified as brunch (they did have chicken and waffles on the menu). I would, later in the day, receive Betsy’s as a recommendation for somewhere to eat. I didn’t get by there (I had other lunch plans) but I’ll put that on my to do list. I often joke that walking Tucker and Gracie is like walking a couple of horses, but Aiken actually is home to a lot of real horses. That became apparent as I saw equine stores in downtown along with horse statues and horse murals. I thought it would make a cool picture to get Tucker and Gracie alongside one of those murals. It’s never a problem getting Tucker to pose for photos. I don’t know if he knows exactly what a picture is, but he somehow senses you want him to do “cute”” so like a model he’ll flip his hair back and pose. Gracie lacks those photogenic sensibilities and I could not get her to hold still or even get in the frame. Oddly, the hair on top of her head was a little messed up. Maybe she just didn’t want anyone seeing her like that. You know how women can be. Anyway, after I got a picture of Tucker next to the large horse mural, three ladies approached us. They oohed and ahhed over my dogs for a minute. One of them actually had a Goldendoodle at home, just not nearly as big as Tucker. They asked if we’d had Gracie’s tail bobbed and seemed legit surprised to hear that she was just born with no tail at all. As the walk recommenced, one of them just couldn’t help themselves. “Are you walking them or are they walking you?” “I’m training them for the Iditarod,” I said. We got up to the main drag and I found it to be remarkably dog friendly. Lots of the merchants had big water bowls out front of their shops, for which my thirsty dogs were very thankful. We passed one pet store and then a dog bakery (Bone-i-Fide Bakery). Somehow, Tucker and Gracie seemed to realize those places catered to them because, honest to goodness, both turned into those two places. I’m guessing that a lot of animals actually do walk into those places, my dogs detect that scent and just sort of follow it. Maybe there is something about those places that makes them feel welcome or MAYBE my dogs can read. “Dog bakery? We gotta check this place out.” As we walked, we encountered a lot of friendly people. A group of four men and women stopped us and asked if it was OK to pet my dogs. They were settled into their surroundings by this time, so I told them sure. They told me they’d seen us coming and, wait for it… “Were you walking them or were they walking you?” “I normally attach them to a wagon and let them pull me,” I said. Shortly thereafter, a younger family saw us coming from a little ways off and waited to talk to us. The mother was out-of-her-mind in love with Tucker and Gracie. She like a lot of people, I think, is not accustomed to seeing dogs that cute that are that big. Often, people associate big dogs with being scary, not with looking like they should be riding shotgun with Big Bird. The husband asked…well, you know what he asked by now. I got the “are they walking you” line four full times. Sadly, I was out of comical rejoinders by then and just said “haha, I’m not sure” before going on my way. We would explore the city more fully later in the day. Ashley was along for this trip and wasn’t going to let the occasion of a visit to a horse capital pass by without getting to see some horses. She is an animal lover in general,(as long as those animals aren’t scary or gross) but has a real soft spot for dogs and horses. She’d done some advance research and found a horse rescue farm outside of town (Equine Rescue of Aiken), that closed at 1 p.m., so we headed that way. We got there and were invited by the rescue manager (Caroline) to walk around and visit with as many of the horses (and mules, ponies and donkeys) as we liked while she got some shoes off another horse. I’ve ridden horses a few times, but I’ve never spent much time around them, really. Horses present some interesting contrasts. They are massive, powerful, imposing creatures, but just like our dogs it seemed like all any of them actually wanted was some attention and someone to love them. All of them we approached were friendly and gentle and trust me, Ashley approached every horse in every fence she could get to. They were drawn to her and other than stomping their hooves (a way to ward off flies), they sat mostly quiet, heads extended over the top fence rails, to be stroked and petted. Semi-domesticated animals seem to have an innate sense of good hearts and sweet souls, so it wasn’t surprising they flocked to her. Caroline eventually came over and offered to take us on a tour of the facility via a souped-up golf cart. The farm was bought and established by an older couple who wanted a home for rescued horses to be their legacy. As legacies go, taking care of people or animals that can’t take care of themselves is a pretty good one, I think. The farm is expansive and beautiful, with an arena of sorts and vast horse pastures. The horses there are a mix of retired racehorses (who, for lack of a better explanation, need a place to transition to being a regular horse), abandoned horses and abused horses. Some are brought to the rescue in such a state of neglect it brings tears to her eyes, Caroline said. Some owners are so dumb or irresponsible they can’t look at an emaciated horse with its skin sunken down to its ribs and realize it needs food. The largest horse we saw, a strong-looking black beauty, was formerly an Amish plow horse that quite literally had been ridden hard her entire life. Still, the story of the rescue is a happy one as they are on schedule to place their 1,000th horse later this year. Some horses won’t ever leave, living out their lives at the rescue and that’s not a bad thing. They aren’t the kind of folks to toy with your emotions…they don’t put “we have to raise $1,000 by Friday or we’ll have to put ol’ Trigger here down” on Facebook. They do subsist primarily on donations, though, so if you’re interested in learning about what they do and making a contribution, VISIT THEIR WEBSITE HERE. Lunch was next on the itinerary and in the same way Ashley isn’t passing up happy horsey time, I’m not missing a chance to eat good barbecue. My cousin Kevin, who knows of what he speaks where smoked pig is concerned, has long cited Carolina BBQ in New Ellenton as his favorite place to swine dine. He told me that there isn’t one thing in particular on the menu that is the best in the state, but that everything is very good. We got takeout (because, dogs) and I went with a big plate that included pulled pork, hash and rice, hushpuppies and two sides. There was a lot to choose from and I often feel the need to balance all the meat and bread and things seared in hot oil with something green that grows in a garden. They had collards and green beans, but for some reason I decided to completely indulge myself, so my two side choices were mac and cheese and something called spicy corn nuggets. We found a little picnic shelter to eat in near the restaurant. Once you leave Aiken proper and go into New Ellenton, the big ranch houses and horse farms give way to a bit more humble rural setting Still, never having visited New Ellenton, I thought it would fall under the heading “Census designated place” but it’s actually a small town with a police department, a community center and town hall. As we set up under the picnic shelter, we saw a younger guy sitting a few tables over. He had earbuds in and had a backpack that was slung up on the table and he never even looked in our direction, even when I got the dogs out for a bathroom break. At one point he actually put his head down and appeared to rest, or maybe sleep a little something off. Who is to say? Kevin’s assessment of Carolina BBQ was ALMOST dead on. The pulled pork represented a minimalist approach. There wasn’t a ton of seasoning, you tasted perfectly cooked pork, smoke and I think I detected a very faint bite of either vinegar or maybe some kind pickling salt. It was very good on its own and was enhanced by the mustard-based sauce I then applied (which had some tang and a little zip courtesy of chili powder). The hushpuppies were big fat things, with a very thin, crunchy veneer and warm, sweet insides. As for the hash…I am a savory hash disciple (marking the first time those six words have likely ever been strung together in print). I was raised on hash that is meat, onion, butter, salt and pepper. A sweet tomato base was present here, but it was good. One of the better sweet hashes I’ve eaten. The spicy corn nuggets…LAW LAW THE SPICY CORN NUGGETS. They vaulted near the top of my favorite side items list. Basically it was sweet, whole corn kernals and what I think was spicy (bordering on hot) pimento cheese, battered and deep friend. The sweet corn and hot pimento cheese played so nicely together and the deep-fry treatment added a satisfying crunch. It was top-notch. I say Kevin was almost dead on because the mac and cheese was a little dry and didn’t pop with flavor like everything else. Maybe I got a last scoop that had been sitting in a warm pan for a bit, causing it to dehydrate a little. Whatever, it was well worth a trip to New Ellenton. Right behind the picnic shelter was what looked like an abandoned sports field. A large bare spot that was undoubtedly a baseball infield at one point stood out starkly from the green grass that stood everywhere else, there were some half constructed (or deconstructed) soccer nets and old wooden bleachers whose paint job and structural integrity were giving way to time and elements. Maybe it’s because I’ve covered sports for a living most of my life, but when I see a fallow field of play, one where kids should be enjoying themselves, it makes me a little sad. Maybe there is a newer, better one somewhere else in town. I sure hope so. We went back to Aiken so Ashley could hit up a few shops that caught her eye. We decided to get the pups a few treats from Bone-i-Fide Bakery. It’s a neat little place and a guy who works there (or maybe owns it) builds those cat tower things, but they aren’t just a series of little platforms. The detail was incredible and there was even an Indiana Jones-style rope bridge on one of them. I’m sure it would support the weight of any cat but, you know, not big old dogs. Ashley and I made a quick visit to the Aiken Brewing Company (her mom was along for the trip and stayed with the dogs in the car) where I did a flight of the beers they make themselves. All were good but the oatmeal porter stood as my favorite. We’d never visited Aiken before, but there were plenty of things that will bring us back. It was time to go, though. I planned to walk Tucker and Gracie in one more county on the way home…or maybe they were going to walk me. As we arrived in downtown Anderson for our second walk of the day on Saturday I made a quick, and succinct, executive decision. “Nah.” A festival of some kind was ongoing and while I like a Saturday hootenanny with classic cars and people selling boiled peanuts as much as anybody, I’d just finished getting my butt dragged up and down Main Street in Greenville by Tucker and Gracie. The abundance of unfamiliar sights, sounds and people had jacked their excitement and energy level through the roof and to quote Andy Griffith, there wasn’t so much as I could do but move with ‘em. Anderson’s roads were blocked off and there were roughly one bajillion people crammed in there for whatever was going on. I decided we’d do our walking elsewhere, since my aim is just to walk my dogs in every county, not necessarily the downtown of every county seat. I don’t know a whole lot about Anderson County, to be honest. I had a great aunt and uncle that lived there, I very nearly went to college there and I’ve passed through it going to Clemson on many a fall Saturday morning. That’s about it. In addition to there being a festival, it was apparently “Drag your old crap out in the yard and sell it” day, as we passed no less than 10 very large yard sales. With the temperature beginning to rise, I didn’t have time to peruse the merchandise, though. We needed to figure out where we walking and get on with it. We did drive past Anderson University and I have to confess I’d forgotten how pretty the campus and buildings were at the place I nearly matriculated. That would have been a good place to walk, but it was oddly busy for a Saturday during summer break and I needed as low key a locale as I could find after getting worn out in Greenville. We saw a sign for the community of Cheddar and I nearly went for it. First of all, it would probably be the very definition of “low key” and I have some history with Cheddar. I was driving back from a baseball playoff game at Belton-Honea Path several years ago, missed a turn and ended up in Cheddar. Being fairly well inept when it comes to directions and location (and with me not yet having the magical, all-knowing lady in my phone capable of giving turn-by-turn directions), I texted several people asking if they knew where Cheddar was and got a response along the lines of “IN MY REFRIGERATOR HERPDY HAW HEE.” I also got a blank map of South Carolina sent to me with a red dot on it where Cheddar was and the message “you are here” which was super helpful. I decided to pass this time. At some point we passed the Anderson Jockey Lot and there was no way in the world I was jumping into that madhouse with two crazy dogs, though any place that has a permanent building whose sole purpose is to sell mini doughnuts is OK in my book. We weighed going to Belton, but I soon spied a sign for Williamston and decided that was where we’d do our walk. I figured it wouldn’t be very crowded, it was relatively nearby and, you know, it crossed my mind that there is a Smokin’ Pig location there, one of the finest purveyors of smoked meats in the upstate and home of perhaps my single favorite side item (jalapeno cheese grits). We got to Williamston and I could see what passed for a small downtown area, but just before it came a park. There were some people having picnic/family gatherings, but it was a mostly quiet day in Mineral Spring Park, so I decided the walk would take place there. Even though there weren’t a lot of people about, we were still in an area unfamiliar to my canine companions, so they both tried to run off in different directions simultaneously. We finally got synched up, though. I spotted a covered bridge over trouble wate…no, it was actually a creek. There was a family standing on it, comprised of a mother, father and two kids. The children, who were probably about four and seven, saw us coming and their faces lit up. I could tell they where enthralled and really wanted to pet Tucker and Gracie, but their parents grabbed them, took them off the bridge and off to the side in what looked like fear. They acted like I was walking a rabid hyena and a hungry coyote instead of fluffy, happy doodles. Whatever, y’all. As I got over that covered bridge, Tucker, seeing the creek and never wanting to miss a chance to get wet, tried to double back and head for it but I kept him from doing so. They’d just gotten groomed and washed the day before and I wasn’t going to have him wallering around in some creek, plus, I’d rather not ride with a dirty, wet dog from Anderson to Union if I can help it. We found a designated trail area and walked on that as far as it went, which wasn’t very far, though we did see a colorful and interesting mural. There was an old, big drainpipe that had been converted into a walkway and we were about to go through it when Tucker pulled up. He refused to walk through that pipe and I can’t figure out for the life of me why. My first impulse was that he might have seen a snake or something in which case AHHHHH!!!!!! But there was no snake. I’m not sure what bothered him about it but I’m not going to make my buddy do something that he doesn’t want to do, so we skipped it. We passed one of those historic markers on the edge of the park, this one denoting that there was a Civil War skirmish at the location. From what I read the war was actually over at that point and some cadets from the Arsenal Academy were actually marching to Newberry to disband when they met a band of Stoneman’s Raiders. That is the most South Carolina thing I can think of…the war’s over, we are actually on our way to officially disband but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to shoot at you anyway. Man I love my state. Ashley joined us for part of the walk, which included walking over another covered bridge, which led to a little open field where an Army tank sat. Most of our walks end because I end them. About 95 percent of the time Tucker and Gracie wear me out and I have to tap out. This time, as we’d walked in Greenville already and had been walking in Williamston for a while with the temperature starting to rise, Tucker and Gracie started plopping down to rest in every bit of shade we encountered. That’s their signal that it’s time to stop, so we started to head back to the car. As we did we some of the folks who were enjoying a picnic approached us. A woman asked us what kind of dogs Tucker and Gracie were, how I managed to walk both at the same time and made general chit chat. She also asked if her kids could pet Tucker and Gracie and we said they could. Tucker, knowing he was dealing with very small children, sat down and allowed all three of them to pet him. He gets wild and wide open in new places and in big crowds, but he’s got a gentle soul and knows to be calm around little people. Gracie, copying Tucker as she often does, sat there and soaked in the attention as well. Before we got back in the car we made one last stop, that being at the mineral spring the park is named for, which sits in a gazebo. A sign says you can actually drink the water from the small spring (it’s about as big around as a manhole cover, with the water flowing out and toward the creek I mentioned earlier) but you can’t do anything else without facing a possible fine (you can’t wash clothes in it or treat it like nature’s commode, just for example). We had water in the car, but I thought maybe Tucker and Gracie would enjoy some cool, natural refreshment. Tucker sure did, approaching it licking his lips. As he went to take a sip, though, he stopped and flopped down in the spring. He’d tricked us. I again had a very succinct reaction. “NO!” I got him up out of there before anyone saw us and got to the car. We did get lunch from the Smokin’ Pig to go and other than a terrible mishap involving my baked beans (some ended up in my lap) it was excellent. I had pulled pork and smoked chicken. I’d never had the latter and it was excellent as were the beans and the jalapeno cheese grits were rocking as always. On the way home, we decided to do some of that off-the-cuff freelancing I mentioned in the Greenville entry. Ashley looked online for stuff to do in Anderson and found a goat farm. We actually went there, Tucker and Gracie weren’t sure what to make of the goats (the goats looked at them quizzically too) and we supported S.C. agriculture by buying jalapeno goat cheese (which was great), some soap and a lemon, yogurt drink, all made right on the farm. Ashley tried the yogurt drink and said it was good but tasted “like a goat.” “Good” and “tasted like a goat” don’t normally belong in the same sentence, but I tried the drink and she was right. You tasted yogurt, you tasted lemon and you got a slight musky goat taste, but it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, in a busy day that left me completely whipped, nothing at all was. Our trip to Greenville didn’t start with a bang, but it certainly ended with one. I’m a big believer in not over-planning things. If you try to plot and plan for every moment of an excursion, you rob yourself of some freedom and get so locked into a schedule you feel you have to keep that you can’t take fun detours here and there. You end up like Clark Griswold…Dinky dies and Aunt Edna dies and your wife’s sketchy cousin bums $500 off of you you’ll never get back and you finally get to Wally World AND THE MOOSE OUT FRONT SAYS THEY’RE CLOSED! So, I just sort of decided on Friday, “hey, let’s go knock Greenville and Anderson off our list tomorrow.” Tucker and Gracie were ready for a big day, having gotten a bath and hair cut Friday morning, (you’ll see from the pic at the bottom of this entry that I was in need of both a bath and shave) so I just figured we’d roll out early and see what happened. That “fly by the seat of our britches” attitude did lead to some fun detours but there is a difference between having a lax agenda and being dumb…and I was the latter. When we walked in downtown Union, we didn’t encounter many people. We passed more folks in Spartanburg, but being on the Rail Trail most of them were engrossed in their walking and biking. In downtown Greenville there would be A LOT of people, A LOT of other dogs and A LOT of general distractions for Tucker and Gracie. “Oh crap,” I said, as we parked and I looked at the throngs of people I’d somehow not considered before leaving the house. For the first time, my wife Ashley (who is recovering from some surgery) was along. We decided it would be best if I walked some energy out of Tucker and Gracie before she joined us for a short portion of the walk. What I wasn’t sure of was how I’d even get through the early portion of this adventure. Walking them on their leashes would allow entirely too much leeway for them to wander off toward people, animals, vehicles and anything else that might catch their eye. So, I made the executive decision to walk them using their roadie riders. Those are basically harnesses that have about a two-foot strap on the back with a loop at the end that you put a seatbelt through (because you do not want giant dogs bouncing freely around a moving vehicle). I got them out of the car and DADGUM were they excited. Even with very little in the way of room to wander, I thought it best to get out of the crowded main drag until they’d calmed down, so I turned to a more open area that featured some benches, public restrooms and maybe a fountain or something (I was honestly too occupied to notice). Almost immediately we were spotted by a group of younger people who looked positively goo goo eyed at my dogs. I really wanted to stop and talk and let them pet Tucker and Gracie, but they were just too wide open. They were both in an exciting, unfamiliar place, sort of like the first time I visited New Orleans as an adult. When I went there I saw, you know, some stuff I don’t often see in Union. Let’s leave it at that. Their senses were likely on fire and it was literally all I could do to hang onto those roadie rider straps and keep them moving in the same direction at the same time. My back and shoulders were sore the next day from the workout they put me through. Since I’m doing a sort of travel log, I should probably have noted what street I was walking on, but I didn’t. There was a parking deck at one end and at the other, the road t-boned into another near a Wild Wing Café. We walked back-and-forth for a solid 20 minutes. I do remember passing a number of people dining on a sort of covered patio. Some of them waved or smiled and others just looked a hair nervous. Oddly, the larger of my two dogs (Tucker) is of no threat when you are eating. He will just sit patiently and stare at you with those big brown eyes that convey the message “if you love me you’ll give me a French fry” and you can’t resist and he gets a French fry, usually. Gracie takes a less dainty approach…she’ll just lunge at your plate and jump on you and try to forcibly take what she wants. I didn’t let them get close enough to anybody for the guilt trip or simple assault to take place. There was a family waiting to go in another eatery that basically flagged us down. “You have your hands full, it looks like,” the lady said. “Yes ma’am. They’ve never been here…it’s kind of like walking two horses,” I replied. Her husband playfully petted them both, as did their kid. They said goodbye and went inside to eat. After a few more trips back-and-forth, I decided it might be OK to go back up to Main Street, but as I headed that direction, another couple stopped us. “Man, those are some big dogs. How do you walk them both at the same time?” “It’s a struggle, buddy.” This guy said he and his wife actually have a Goldendoodle, so he understood what I was going through. “But ours weighs about 50 pounds,” he said. I told him that when Tucker was a puppy, the vet told us he’d likely be on the big end of the scale for his breed…so, like, 75 pounds. As of his last weighing he was 98, which is part of what hatched this idea to walk he and Gracie in all 46 counties (exercise and weight loss). I moved on and got back up to Main Street. I must say, downtown Greenville is significantly different than it was in the recent past. I’m trying to think of a nice way to say it used to be dirty and unappealing but there really isn’t one, is there? Now, it’s clean, well-planned, there’s tons of shops and restaurants, it’s very walkable, pet-friendly and they have lots of events that draw people downtown. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Greenville. My cousin lives there, I had a very forgettable stint at a radio station elsewhere in the county and I come over for concerts occasionally (The Peace Center is great and RIP Handlebar), but it’s just a really nice, welcoming place. It wins my most improved award (a coveted and prestigious title I’m sure city leaders are proud to receive). Once we got into the more cramped confines of Main Street, we didn’t have nearly as many interactions with people. That’s understandable, since they are walking in one direction and you’re going another, usually. We did get some smiles and hellos and “ooh, big dogs” comments. Eventually, we came upon a street musician, specifically a guy playing the violin. I should point out here I have a cousin accomplished enough on that instrument to teach lessons who has assured me a violin and a fiddle are the same thing, with the only difference being the music played on it. Since this gentleman was not telling of a contest between Johnny and The Devil, I think we’ll go with violin. Tucker’s head stayed on a swivel trying to check out all his surroundings, but Gracie sat down and stared intently at the guy. I don’t know what he was playing, but in the middle of what was, for her, chaos and craziness and “holy crap what’s that” she found some peace and a serene place for a moment. I wanted to throw a dollar in the guy’s jar but my hands were full. I decided we’d come back when Ashley joined us and tip him as a thank you for entertaining my dog and to support the arts in general. We walked back to the car and got Ashley. We got someone to take a group shot of us, but about then I heard some fairly loud music. This wasn’t another busker, though. We were near a red light and a motorcycle was stopped right in front of us. “The fire is sweeping, our very street today…it’s just a shot away.” It was “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones blaring from his bike. A great song…and “a shot away” is what we like to refer to as foreshadowing. As the last bit of that song faded out and “Fast as You” by Dwight Yoakam cranked up (so the guy had good taste in music), the light turned green, he gave it the gas and as he did his motorcycle backfired. Tucker is deathly afraid of loud noises, bangs especially. When we walk at home, if he even hears the echoes of gunshots from the shooting range a few miles away, he panics. When there is thunder he hides under a table. He TRIED to bolt away from the noise but I luckily held a firm grip. Granted, he nearly ripped my shoulder out of its socket, but I held tight. The walk would have to come to a hasty end. So, we made a quick trip back to the street musician, Ashley put a dollar or two in his jar and we got back in the car. We were done with Greenville, but weren’t done walking for the day… When you go for walks and look at the road and toward s the sky as far as your eyes allow you to see, the world seems impossibly big and you feel incredibly small. When you get right down to it, though, the world really isn’t that big a place. On Thursday, Tucker, Gracie and I rode to neighboring Spartanburg for the second of our 46-couunty walks. It’s an area I know very well as I finished up my college education there, it’s my wife’s hometown, I worked a couple of jobs there (for those that know me and know the story, that would include the place where I once asked a surly boss that thought that my vocabulary was a little too fancy “when basket be empty, what me do then?”) and I was one-third of the now sadly-on-hiatus “Piedmont Pick ‘Em Show” radio program on Spartanburg’s airwaves for a number of years (for those not familiar, imagine if Keith Jackson, Jerry Clower and a jug of moonshine could somehow have a baby). I go to Spartanburg at least once a week now, but it’s easy to forget how far away it once seemed. When I was a kid, splitting my time between Chester and Santuck, rare was the occasion that we “went to town.” Hard as it seems to believe now, driving 12 miles to Union seemed like a big deal. It’s funny, I always seem to be out of something and have to run to the store about every other day. Back then, my grandma would drive to Union once-a-week at the absolute maximum. If she ran out of something, then she just wasn’t going to have until the next week when she made her next trip to the Community Cash (her grocery store of choice since they were the only one that refused to open on Sunday). Why, there was a Pizza Inn and a McDonald’s there that my dad would take me and my cousins to sometimes and for really special occasions (and I mean like someone graduated from school or got married), there was a Quincy’s. At that point, in my young mind, there was no culinary offering on planet Earth that could surpass their sirloin tips. They came with this little plastic stick jammed in one piece that said “medium” or “well done” on them that my cousins and I actually played with. Electronic devices that stimulate the senses constantly were years away from being commonplace, so those little plastic things that indicated how your sirloin tips had been cooked made decent pretend/toy spaceships in a pinch. But I digress…getting in the car and going to Spartanburg was an exciting occurrence then. There was a mall and movie theaters and an auditorium where pro wrestling TV tapings took place regularly and a restaurant that made pizza’s big enough to cover an entire tabletop and buildings that stood more than two stories tall in Spartanburg. It’s a small world and gets smaller when you get older. Getting in the car and driving 20 or so minutes to “Sparkle City” doesn’t seem like anything now, but back then, when your normal surroundings were cow pastures, woods and long dirt driveways, you had no means or travel yourself and the only lights at night came from stars and lightning bugs, it sure did. I decided we’d walk on the Rail Trail, a nice path for walking and biking that mostly runs parallel to Pine Street. For the most part, there are trees and foliage on either side, so it normally stays shady and relatively cool. I knew going in that we’d likely have less interaction with folks than we did in downtown Union. It’s not that Spartanburg residents are less friendly, it’s just that if they are on the Rail Trail, they are usually jogging or riding a bike. They are there for a reason, not just randomly standing on a street corner. I also knew I would get a workout in. There is a dog park along the Rail Trail that we used to take Tucker to fairly often. We stopped because there were some folks who had the bad habit of bringing their dogs there and leaving them unattended. As an aside, let me note that if you put your pet in a dog park and leave to run errands, you pretty much suck as a human being. They also put some little kiddie pools in the park and Tucker CAN NOT walk past water without wanting to jump in it. So he’d plop down in those pools, get soaking wet, then roll around and waller in the dirt with other dogs and turn into a muddy mess. I love my pets and want them to be happy, but washing and drying a 90-plus pound dog with thick, curly fur is not a thing I sign up for if I can help it. Being as smart as he is, though, about the time I start to turn at the Ingles, he knows where he is and what he’s close to and goes nuts. As I pulled into the parking lot for the Rail Trail, I almost couldn’t contain him. Gracie has never visited the dog park and doesn’t get torn out of her frame over stuff very often, but when Tucker gets excited so does she, so I now had almost 180 pounds of panting, hyper dog on my hands. It was all I could do to get them out of the car. Once I did, they bolted down the trail, but Tucker took a hard right into some grass. He jerked me with him as he did and Gracie had conveniently snuck up under my feet, which led to me hitting the ground. So it was an illegal chop block, basically. I don’t know how she does it, but Gracie often sneaks up behind me at home. I’ll walk to the fridge, get something out, turn to walk back to the living room and nearly get tripped as she’ll have quietly walked right behind me and sat at my heels. How does an 80-pound Labradoodle do anything quietly? She’s like a fuzzy little ninja. As I hit the ground I said a word I shouldn’t have said in public and was within earshot of two walkers (hey, sorry y’all). But, I got back on my feet, got them on the trail and started walking. It was fairly difficult to actually keep Tucker on the paved path as he kept wandering off into the grass. He also felt the need to check out every post that we passed. I think some are part of a fitness trail, so there will be a sign on the post that suggests that you do sit-ups or toe touches or something. Tucker was less interested in a full body workout than he was with the fact that other animals probably pee on those posts. He thoughtfully responded in kind so that the next person walking their dog would get jerked toward every post too. As I predicted, we didn’t have a lot of interaction with anybody on the trail. Two girls riding skateboards waved at Tucker and Gracie, we got some smiles and “heys” from people and one lady riding a bike blurted out “ooh, pretty dogs” as she sped past, but that was about it. That changed as we passed the dog park. Tucker made a beeline for the fence and started crying, desperate to get inside and play. There were only two dogs in there and both were being attended to, but not only was there a kiddy pool, there were four of them, full of water. To let him go inside would be to sign up for a car seat caked in mud, plus a wash and dry once we got home. I opted not to do that, but it was still a worthwhile stop for Tucker and Gracie. A beautiful standard poodle saw them and walked over, greeting them. Without being too graphic here, um, any relationship Tucker has with a female dog at this point is strictly plutonic, but he’s still quite the lady’s man. He and the poodle (named Belle, I soon found out) licked and sniffed at each other and as they did, a woman (Amanda) came over and introduced herself. Belle was her parents’ dog, she’d brought her to the dog park for some exercise and she was having a bit of trouble corralling her and getting a leach and collar back on her to go. Since Belle was so drawn to my dogs, she asked if I would walk them near the double-fenced gate, which would, for lack of a better term, sort of trap her for a second. “OK, Tuck, you get to be a decoy,” I said, as I walked he and Gracie to the gate. Belle followed and Amanda was able to get the leash on her. This is where the world started getting smaller. Belle, I learned, was a rescue dog and her life story was almost identical to Gracie’s. Someone decided they wanted a dog, got Belle, then decided in short order they didn’t really want a dog after all. If someone hadn’t taken her, she’d likely have gone to the pound, at which point who knows what her fate would’ve been. Luckily, as with Gracie, she now has a home that she makes a happier place. Interestingly, Amanda and her husband both once worked at a very large metro daily paper, she told me. After that, she worked for several years for a well-known watchdog group writing their press releases. I’m on that group’s email list, so though we’d never met, I’d probably gotten 100 or more emails from her over the years. She mentioned that she volunteers with a dog rescue group. I’m obviously a fan of folks that try to take care of dogs, so if you are so inclined YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT THAT GROUP AND DONATE TO THEM BY CLICKING HERE. Much to Tucker’s annoyance, we did finally have to get back to our walk. We weren’t 10 steps past the dog park when a couple approached us. “Do they bite?” “No, not unless you are food.” They both rubbed Tucker and Gracie’s fur. They commented about how big they were and how pretty both were. By the time we parted company with them and walked a little ways further, it started getting noticeably darker. At this point it was almost 9 p.m. and I had a mile-long-plus walk back to the car, so we turned around. I could hear traffic still going back-and-forth from Pine Street, but I couldn’t see much more than my faithful hounds happily trotting along, trees that bracket the Rail Trail on either side and the familiar glow bursts from lightning bugs. The world was small…and beautiful. The first leg of my whirlwind, “Dogs across S.C.” or “Tucker and Gracie’s Excellent Adventure” tour (I should totally pick a definitive name for this project) was in our home county of Union. Obviously I’ve walked my dogs in my neighborhood which is in Union plenty of times, but part of the point of doing this is to talk to whoever we might encounter and allow my faithful hounds (and myself) to see some new sights. Downtown Union isn’t new to me, since I spent four years working at a Main Street business, spent a couple of years going to a school at a location just off Main Street and drive down the road occasionally. I'd be a block over from the mill my dad worked in, a mile as the crow flies from the place I was born and the apartment my wife spent our first two years of marriage living in and would be very near a monument honoring Korean war dead that features my uncle's name. Sometimes, though, the most familiar of areas turn into the visual equivalent of background noise. You’ve seen them so often that your focus isn’t as keen and subtle changes slip by unnoticed. This would mark the first time I’d really soaked in downtown in a while.
I parked, got Tucker and Gracie out and was promptly dragged behind them for the first few minutes of our walk. Seriously, I looked like the carcass of Sherman McMasters tied to the horse in “Tombstone.” I’m a big guy by most any measure (standing almost 6’2 and weighing between 200 and 210 pounds depending on what I’ve had to eat that day) but combined they are pretty close to me weight-wise, they’ve got eight legs to my two and they have fairly boundless energy. We started off walking from the parking lot, through a breezeway to Main Street. We passed the bank where my aunt worked for years and where I’ve deposited my INCREDIBLY FAT radio and newspaper paychecks (HAHAHA LOLOL) since I was 18. A sign on the door indicates that said bank has moved to better serve customers…a nice way of saying “we closed this branch, so y’all can drive your butts to Spartanburg.” We hung a right (well, my dogs did and I just kind of hung on) and it didn’t take long until I saw someone I knew…Lindsey, who lives in our neighborhood and who used to let Tucker and Gracie out and would take them for short walks while my wife and I were at work. She’s in college now and looked like she was leaving school for the day. I waved, but then heard a voice from across the street. “Hey. What kind of breed are they?” a guy asked. “This one (I pointed to Tucker) is a Goldendoodle. This one (I pointed at Gracie) is a Labradoodle,” I said. “I’ve got a Golden myself. They’re great dogs,” he said. We crossed the street and turned to walk back in the other direction. That gave us, in fairly short order, an across-the-street view of my one-time place of employment, WBCU radio. I played Garth Brooks records, ran the board for Atlanta Braves games (when an actual person had to be sitting there to play commercials and legal IDs), broadcast Union and Jonesville High athletics, presided over radio auctions and daily meat drawings and was renowned as the best reader of obituaries in the station’s history (by a lady in Carlisle, which seems as legitimate a source for such a title as any) in my four years there. I could see the precise spot upon which I stood as I did my part of the coverage of the Olympic torch being carried down Main Street on it’s way to Atlanta in 1996. As memory serves, that event was capped off locally by a Confederate Railroad concert at Union County Stadium, because nothing says national pride and the spirit of competition quite like “Daddy Cut the Big One,” I guess. (I will admit to liking “Queen of Memphis” and “Trashy Women” don’t judge me). Had a lot of great times in that building and some of the stories from there are all-timers. A lot of interesting folks came in and out of those doors during my time there. To quote a Robert Earl Keen song I played over the AM 1460 frequency, “one’s in Hollywood, one’s a millionaire, some are gone for good, some still livin’ here.” I should note that Mr. Keen decidedly did not fit the “Garth, Reba, Vince, Lonestar, Alabama” format…but Eric Clapton and CCR aren’t religious artists and I sure enough played them on the early Sunday morning gospel caravan show when I knew the boss wasn’t listening too so… Man, if those walls could talk… A. that’d actually be pretty scary because holy crap talking walls and B. not every story is meant to be shared, particularly on a semi-family friendly meat and football blog and also since the statute of limitations may not have expired. That’s not a throwaway line…”A Current Affair” and sedation dentistry supplies figure into some of the stories and I’m not even kind of kidding. Near as I can tell, they still do things the right way in terms of what’s on the air there, keeping it local. That’s probably why they’ve succeeded where so many other stations have failed over the last 20 years. And if they ever need a certified obit reader in a pinch, I might know a guy. We then made it all the way down to the Union County Courthouse, which represented the first real patch of grass we’d seen on our walk. I don’t know about your dogs, but mine are fairly particular about where they do their business. They won’t go on concrete, they (thankfully) won’t go on floors…they must have grass upon which to relieve themselves. Tucker saw all that lush green foliage and jumped from the sidewalk to the top of the small wall that separates the courthouse yard from the pavement. He walked into the grass and Gracie, as she often does, copied what he did. “Tucker, please do me the favor of not taking a dump on the front yard of the courthouse,” I said. He actually complied and Gracie, to whom such pleas sometimes fall on deaf ears, actually followed suit. We crossed the street again and headed back in the other direction. One lady made an obvious effort to avoid us, though she did manage a kind of nervous smile. I guess some people are afraid of dogs, especially large ones, but how in the world could anyone be afraid of Tucker and Gracie? They look like extras from “The Great Muppet Caper.” It’s like having a crippling fear of Fozzie and Rowlf. Maybe she was afraid of me. That would be more understandable. The next person we encountered, a gray-bearded man on a bike, was decidedly different. “I love puppy dogs,” he announced as he petted them both. Normally, nothing distracts Tucker from seeing new sights in a new location, but attention does the trick. We took him to Washington D.C. once and as I walked him in front of the White House he actually posed for pictures with people. There was, no exaggeration, a small line of people waiting to have their pic taken with him at one point. It’s like he was the president’s dog or something. He dutiful sat and posed with his adoring public. “Aw man, this picture is gonna blow up on Facebook,” a teenage kid said that day as he threw his arm around my dog and gave a thumbs up. Gracie lives very much in the moment, so if she sees somebody she’ll just bop right on toward them hoping they’ll pet or in some way acknowledge her and if they don’t, she turns and keeps walking unfazed. This guy didn’t ask for any pics, he just told me that he has a rescue dog he got from Florida (a Pit mix) that is gentle and loves children. “He’s the sweetest boy ever,” he told me. He thanked Tucker and Gracie for their time and pedaled off. A woman then approached. “Do you know whose doll babies those are?” she asked, pointing at three abandoned toys sitting on a bench. They were obviously not mine and I thought it best that Tucker and Gracie not be allowed to get ahold of them, so I kept walking. Tucker can’t have cute stuffed toys because he destroys them. He’ll hone in on a weak spot and just gnaw until he can get the stuffing out. Oh, and Lord help us if it’s a squeaky toy, because he’ll extract the little squeaky noisemaker thing and try to eat it. We’ve bought him toys that we were assured could hold up to any level of canine abuse that didn’t last a day. A stuffed doll baby in a pretend diaper wouldn’t stand a chance. We eventually made our way to USC-Union. I noticed during our walk that many of the Main Street establishments whose commercials I played on the radio back in the 1990s were no longer in business and in some cases nothing has come in to replace what has been lost. I was happy to see, then, how much my old alma mater has grown. When I was a student there, it was comprised of two buildings. Two. Now there are four or five, there’s a college shop on Main Street, there is student housing and USC-Union fields teams in multiple sports. Some of the kids I covered as prep athletes in baseball, softball and soccer are now Bantams, competing against fairly high-level JuCo opponents. I think there was a co-ed, club softball team when I went there. I didn’t necessarily shoot my best shot academically and missed on some opportunities I shouldn't have when I went there, but I did leave with a couple of associate degrees, the foundation to go finish up my fancy book learnin’ elsewhere and was lucky enough to have a couple of professors I still consider friends…ones who actually gave a damn about their students…ones who not only tolerated a term paper/speech on Spam (the canned meat, not unwanted email solicitations), but gave me an “A” on it. Look at the place now. It’s thriving and I’m proud and I hope that the street Tucker, Gracie and I walked will thrive along with it soon. “Hey, that’s where I went to school,” I told my dogs. Before you ask…yes, I talk to my dogs, yes they are smart and often understand me and no they do not answer me. The history of people who think their dogs are talking to them, um, isn’t terribly positive. By this time, we’d been walking for at least an hour and Tucker and Gracie were finally on the verge of tapping out. The temperature was starting to spike and they plopped down in some shade. I figured we’d done enough, so I roused them from their little break and we started to head back toward the car. We passed three people standing outside a business who, I think, might have been taking a smoke break. One of them (a lady who was seated) petted Gracie on the head but didn’t say anything, one fellow looked a little scared, but the other greeted us. “Boy, those are some big dogs,” he said. “They sure are pretty, though.” We chatted for a minute and he eventually asked my name. I told him, but then got the response that I almost always get in those situations. “Hmm. Travis Jenkins. Seems like your name is familiar. Who was your daddy?” he asked. When I’m in Union, where I live but don’t work and thus don’t spend a whole lot of time, I’m often identified as “Randy’s boy” or even “Ashley’s husband” (since she’s a teacher and knows most everybody). In Chester, where I work and people theoretically at least know who I am, I’m still often “Donna’s kid” or “Lynly’s brother” or “that (bleepity bleep) from the newspaper.” I’m not super fond of that last one, but I’m more than cool with being known by who my family is, If you knew my dad or know my mom (or wife or sister), you know that it’s a compliment, actually. He and I shook hands and I got back to the parking lot to load the dogs up and take them home. It was a worthwhile trip. I got to relive some good memories and get an up-close look at a downtown I should be more familiar with than I apparently was. We didn’t encounter a lot of people, but we didn’t pass one person too absorbed in their phone not to at least smile or say hello. We did pass two joggers with ear buds in, but even they waved. It was nice people in a nice little downtown. A really good place to walk your dogs…and yourself. A long time ago, there was a commercial that purported to demonstrate how Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were invented. One gentleman was inattentively walking down the street eating a chocolate bar. A similarly oblivious fellow was walking toward him eating peanut butter. They bumped into each other and the chocolate bar ended up shoved in the peanut butter jar. “You got peanut butter on my chocolate.” “You got chocolate in my peanut butter.” “LET’S EAT IT!” they then exclaimed in unison. Now, that is very obviously not how peanut butter cups came into being. Seriously, who walks down the street with their face shoved in a jar of Jif? If you do I’m not judging you or anything…no, actually I am. That’s weird. If you want to lick Peter Pan straight out of the jar and off your dirty fingers in the privacy of your own home, that’s cool, but not in public where impressionable children are watching. I mean, the guy in the commercial wasn’t even using a spoon…but I digress. That concept, though, of two unrelated things coming together to maybe create something better than the sum of its parts actually happened to me last week. Tucker the Wonder Dog (our Goldendoodle) seemed to be favoring one of his ears. He was scratching at it some and sort of wallowing around on the floor to rub it on the carpet. Ashley was afraid he was getting an ear infection and made him a vet appointment. I took him to said appointment and as is always the case at the outset of a vet visit, Tucker was weighed. He’s a smart dog and has been to the vet enough that he knows the routine. They call us out of the waiting room, he walks through a door and hops on the scale without prompting. The nurse scribbled down his weight, then led us to a room. The vet came and checked him out and the good news was that he did not have an ear infection. It was likely a mild allergy caused by the recent weather changes and perhaps pollen. The bad news was that Tucker weighed in at a fairly beefy 98 pounds. Now, Tucker has a big frame and lots of his weight is muscle, but the 98 is about 10 pounds higher than it should be. “Mr. Tucker needs to lose a few pounds,” the vet said. This is where we go from chocolate to peanut butter. For some reason, a friend and I started discussing whether or not we have physically put our feet down in all 46 of South Carolina’s counties. I have a fierce love and loyalty of my home state and my one trick is the ability to sing the 46 counties in alphabetical order to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” (which I learned in Mrs. Shannon’s third-grade class and have never forgotten even as I would struggle to tell you my mom or sister’s phone numbers without looking them up in my contact list). Some people can play an instrument, some excel in athletic endeavors and I can rip off “Abbeville, Aiken, Allendale, Anderson etc.” with ease. As near as I can figure, I only lack about three counties. My general travels and my job covering prep sports has taken me to nearly every far-flung rural locale imaginable, but I don’t clearly recall actually putting my feet on the ground in Allendale, Hampton or Edgefield Counties. I’ve driven through Edgefield and I think Hampton, but I didn’t so much as stop for gas or to use the bathroom. Allendale and Hampton abut one another and are located such that you don’t really go through them traveling to much of anywhere. If you are there, you are there for a reason. Then came the moment that doofus eating peanut butter with his fingers and the candy bar guy collided. Both Tucker and our other dog Gracie (a Labradodle) need to shed a little weight. Exercise (mainly in the form of walking them) is a way to do that. They actually love to walk. If I announce “who wants to walk” they both get really excited and run to the closet where we keep their leashes and collars and will actually cry if I don’t hurry up and get on with the show. They also like to walk in new places, see different sights and encounter lots of doting dog-lovers. They are my loyal, happy little buddies, so I walk them whenever I can (though handling nearly 180 pounds of energetic dogs is kind of like walking a horse sometimes). So, why not walk them in all 46 counties? That way, they (and I) would get to experience some different places and people and I would get to mark the last three counties off my visit list. It’s a brilliant and terrible and logistically difficult idea. It will require some planning and trips to some of those little border towns that spill into a couple of different counties (there is a four-corners convergence of Bamberg, Colleton, Hampton and Allendale for example…I’d need to hit that area because it’s hard to justify four separate three-ish hour drives to walk in each individually), weather and temperatures certainly come into play, but I’m intent on doing it. So if you see us, please stop and say “hey.” Even if you’re walking down the street eating peanut butter straight from the jar. |
TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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