Sunday Breakfast

The unmistakable sound of bacon frying in a heavy black iron skillet. Not the fast pop pop and sizzle sounds of bacon a blaze while cooking on high, but bacon on a slow deliberate flame, somewhere between medium and low on a old gas stove. Bacon that while cooking sounds like a soft steady spring rain.



The sound of an old coffee pot, the gurgle and clanking sounds of fresh coffee brewing compliments the sound of bacon being cooked. Add the sudden zip and pop of an old metal toaster that never seems to toast the bread to perfection no matter how you set the dial and you have all the proper sounds that signal the preparation of breakfast is moving along at a comfortable pace.

This Sunday morning there is no rush, but the sky has cleared after what seems like a week of rain and there is work to be done, yet for now the only concern is to turn the eggs without breaking the yokes. I like mine over easy if I'm successful, otherwise I'll settle for scrambled. The margin for error in egg turning is very small and I have come to accept my inadequacies and lack of a steady hand required for proper and successful egg turning in a cast iron skillet.

I opened the french doors on the deck about 6 AM and the sounds of natures wildlife have filled my kitchen non stop. I often trade the intrusion of insects and rain for the sounds of the outdoors. I like a quiet breakfast, but there is nothing quiet about a Carolina Low Country morning, as nature comes alive with joyous songs of a new spring day.

My breakfast is without loud buzzers or the electronic dings of modern appliances and heaven forbid the static noise of morning news shows spiked with the jarring assaults of car dealer commercials that attack my quiet sanctuary.

Breakfast on Sunday is a reward for most days when breakfast is skipped or breakfast that is really a business meeting in disguise.

Hotel breakfasts are only acceptable if they are before 6:30 AM, before the crowds of tourists invade the quiet, or served in your room at the Four Seasons, anytime.

But the best breakfast is still served at home, where cooking a few extra few slices of bacon is always a good idea since a certain uninvited Labrador Retriever named Madison tends to show up once the smell of bacon, eggs and fresh coffee fills the morning air.

Now that all the tasks that make breakfast are done there is just one question left:

Would you like some scrambled eggs with your bacon Madison?

Summertime

Summertime like a great aunt, whose girth blocks out the Carolina blue sky, swoops down on the Low County, her gelatin like flesh moist in perspiration, a suffocating grip that refuses to let go.

The humid air from the Gulf of Mexico has marched north like Sherman's great army and will lay against the Blue Ridge Mountains until nearly October, for the Carolina Low Country is a place where summer lasts well past necessary and on into ridiculous as if there should be a 13th month called Augtember.

Throughout the "dog days" of Summer our SUV's are left running while we quick step across pavement that can give 3rd degree burns to bare feet darting into the CVS for another can of Deep Woods Off, SPF 45 sunscreen and a cold 12 pack of Miller Lite.

In summertime's pre dawn hours there's a brief respite from the sun's relentless attack, it's the only time my Black Labrador Retriever Madison and I can go for a run. But the sun is pushing against the darkness, soon it will win out and bake the sands of Folly Beach makeing it so hot that by 3 o'clock you won't be able to walk across it without your flops.

Summer's heat can make your mind wander back to Charleston summers long since forgotten. Road side stands with peach and watermelon, boiled peanuts, fireworks and shrimp are part of my childhood, as no trip to the beach was complete without all of the above.

I don't care for boiled peanuts, but I'll take a fresh peach, and a bag full of M-80's if you don't mind, both make summer's heat a little more tolerable. For some unknown reason I have not been to a park for a "summer cook out" since the late 1980's but I remember it looking much like the photo below.



By mid day Madison has made her millionth appearance at the glass door that leads to the deck, her pink tongue hangs out a short mile or more, pleading for relief. I give in and open the door, she darts inside and collapses into a pile of blackness on the cool tile floor then slowly inches closer to the a/c vent near the sink. Her panting begins to ease as the heat outside continues to climb past 90.

My niece and nephews are off to summer camp this week. If you've been to Camp Thunderbird, you know all about mystery meat and bug juice. Ask my 12 year old niece what she likes most about camp and her answer is Boys! I ask: "What about, sailing, watersking, swimming, campfires".... and Boys! She adds.

Ah the boys of summer, speaking of baseball of course, peanuts and cracker jack and beer. Add some fireworks and it's all the better.



In the late afternoon the ocean breeze builds, bringing cooler air to the Peninsula, a breeze that fails to reach Summerville and Goose Creek, where it's the perfect time for ice cream at the Dairy Queen, trips to the pool, fishing in the late evening, and bugs. Oh my God the bugs.

Cicadas that sing from dusk into late in the evening, a chourus of frogs, crickets and whatever that big thing is....did you hear it?....there it is again!

Lighting bugs, millions of them, have you noticed? They are gone. The the other day I saw one in my yard just one, where there used to be millions. I know my brother and I caught a lot of them but...

Somewhere around 9:30 hard dark comes and humidity and temperature change places, humidity goes to 99 percent and the temperature goes to 85 degrees. The dampness is everywhere, and the air becomes heavy and thick and in this stillness wet clings to everything.

By the time July 4th comes folks in New England will also revel with delight in the warmer months with trips to the shore, while we in Charleston are heading to the beach for the 13th week in a row, or avoiding the hot sun on tree covered verandas and darting in and out of our air conditioned confines.

Pity the poor Yankees whose summer ends just after labor day, where ours will seem endless come Augtember.

With morning the process will repeat its self, the dew will burn off and the temperature will soar while the himidity drops to less than 50%. Madison will guard the yard, the courtyard driveway and then give up when the temperature moves again towards 90 and she'll make another 100 or so nose prints on the window glass.

My grandmother passed away in the death grip of winter a few years ago, fitting as she lived for her garden and the warmth of summer and today her voice echos every time I go outside, "Keep that door closed, I'm not paying to air condition summertime".

A Cinderella Basketball Team and Radio

There's something nostalgic about listening to a ball game on the radio.

Over the year's I've somehow managed to memorize most of the radio stations that broadcast college games from Athens to Chapel Hill and from Charleston to Blacksburg.

It might be a Saturday afternoon and I’m listening to Carolina football, driving the back country roads as autumn's leaves swirl behind my speeding SUV. Clemson is scoreless with under two minutes left on the clock; the sunroof is open with nothing but Carolina blue sky overhead. The Carolina fight song is blaring away on the radio and yes it's almost as good as being there, I don’t mean Williams-Brice Stadium, I mean heaven.

The ability of someone 100 or more miles away to convey the emotions and feeling of a game with noting more than his voice is an amazing talent.

I'm a fan of the play by play, it's not that I don't appreciate the color commentary but today all the stats come from a computer screen, and somehow end up being nothing but dry pointless drivel.

But the capacity to describe a ball in flight and the emotion that follows a miracle catch or a stolen base is a talent that lends it's self very well to broadcasting the sport of baseball, football and of course basketball.

Perhaps the most famous play by play is that of Joe Starkey calling a kickoff return during the final seconds of a game between the University of California "CAL", Golden Bears and the Stanford University, Cardinals. Now known as simply as "The Play".



“All right, here we go with the kickoff. Harmon will probably try to squib it and he does. The ball comes loose and the Bears have to get out of bounds. Rodgers is along the sideline, another lateral, they're still in deep trouble at midfield, the ball is still loose as they get it to Rodgers! They get it back now to the 30, they're down to the 20... Oh, the band is out on the field!! He's gonna go into the end zone! He's gone into the end zone!!

..... AND THE BEARS! ..... THE BEARS HAVE WON!

The Bears have won! Oh, my God! The most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heart-rending... exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football! California has Won the Big Game over Stanford. The Bears have won it! There will be no extra point!"

Even now more than 25 years later, by Joe's words, even without the grainy video you have a sense of how it all unfolded. His words alone still echo the last seconds of that football game back in November 1982.

On Friday evening I shot down the on ramp, pressed the accelerator and watched the speed edge up close to 70 as the North I-26 sign flashed by overhead in the fading light of a spring evening. Heading towards Charlotte, I turned on the radio, poked the scan button and quickly found the Davidson vs. Goliath (AKA Wisconsin) basketball game.

"Curry shoots for 3 its GOOD!, Down the court... Richards steals the ball! Back the other way to Curry in the corner, he’s all by himself. Korbbenhoft sprints for Curry, jumps stumbles Curry shoots 3 points smooth, so smooth. Davidson is up 54 - 45 and there's 13:03 to play, the Wildcat fans are on their feet!"

The next 20 minutes are pure joy listening to the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball game from the Motor City and the massive Ford Field as Stephen Curry works his magic and places himself firmly in NCAA history.

When Curry left the court for good with 59 seconds on the clock it was to a standing ovation, the entire arena was on their feet. Even the Wisconsin Badger pep section stood acknowledging his greatness.

How do I know? Because of the magic of radio and a voice nearly 900 miles away, while still miles outside of Charlotte on a cool March Evening.

I wonder if this is how it felt to hear the play by play while stationed in post war Germany and listening to the final Yankees vs. Dodgers game during the 1947 World Series. The sound of Seabiscut defeating War Admiral back in 1938 or Roosevelt’s address to the nation after Pearl Harbor.

Radio was all the rage as the technology of the day 60 some years ago. Not surprising is that radio audiences are now markedly small compared to television. The reason is you have to listen and to do so you must be void of chips and beer and idle conversations in the background if you want to “see” the game. Driving in my car is my only refuge of quiet.

And so March Madness continues in 2008 when on Sunday at 5PM Davidson takes on Kansas.



Do you care to guess where I'll be?

Why.... sitting in front of a 50 inch flat screen with the rest of America of course!

Go Wildcats and thank you radio!

Breakfast

A cool rain has come to Charleston this morning. The forecast that was calling for strong winds and thunderstorms has been down graded to a steady rain, perhaps the first of many spring showers to come.

Now in early morning darkness Charleston has slowly begun to waken, and traffic is still sparse for today is Presidents day. Banks are closed as is the Post Office and many government offices but everything else is up and running including the sprinklers at the Coastal Carolina Savings Bank despite the steady rain.

I’ve always found sprinklers running in the rain one of mankind’s oddest achievements, like stoplights that show red for a painfully long time without another car in sight.

Long before sprinkler systems and traffic lights a plenty, a day of steady Low Country rain was a day off from work in the fields. Rainy days meant a time to catch up on some tractor maintenance or pull that starter off the pickup and fix the front door that has been sticking since fall.

A Monday rain was even better since week long projects had yet to be started and some things could wait. Years ago breakfast on a farm was an amazing adventure and many times I witnessed this daily occurrence that was normal to my farm raised cousins.

By 5:30 a half a dozen pick-up trucks were parked in the yard of the main farm house. As headlights illuminated the down pour, rain coats dashed up the gravel drive and were left in a red and yellow pile of dripping wetness just outside the back door that was well lit by a single light under the covered porch.

As best I could tell half of the young men who dripped their way into the large farm house kitchen were true family the other half hired farms hands who might as well been adopted, as each gave my great aunt a quick good morning kiss on the cheek before sitting down to breakfast while outside the rain continued.

Of course this event happened on sunny mornings as well since tradition held that my great aunt fixed breakfast at the Coleman Farm every morning. Sons who lived down the road and next door came as did the hired help; all were treated like family, so for me it was sometimes hard to tell who was who.



Sausage, bacon, grits, scrambled eggs, coffee, biscuits and toast made the rounds. As a chair was pushed back and an empty plate removed, someone else would quickly fill the void. Most who departed did so with coffee in hand and a warm sausage biscuit wrapped in a paper napkin in the pocket, which went a long way to make working in the rain nearly enjoyable.

One by one or in pairs they left heading out the door after a quick hug from my great aunt, grabing their rain coat and then vanishing into the pre dawn darkness. The sounds of bacon frying subsided and rain came harder as the last of the pickup lights twisted around the drive and down the road, at just after six in the morning, signaling the end to one of mankind’s greatest inventions, breakfast.

Two Lane Black Top Highways

Two lane highways were once considered the lifeline of our country, but today people would rather drive the interstate. Most will go out of their way to avoid a two lane highway, which might explain why people have a hard time interpreting the yellow lines, that mark the no-passing zones and crisscross the Carolina Low Country.



Passing a tractor trailer full of pine logs is art form that few people seem to have mastered as well. Even so I prefer the deserted back roads of my Carolina countryside to the crowded and fast paced interstate.

I like to put the windows down, open the sun roof and let the country air swirl around me as I cruise past homes and businesses that time has forgotten. Old towns like Harleyville, Holly Hill and Union Crossroads that haven’t changed in fifty years.

I’ll take Highway 176 and 601 from Charleston to Columbia. Out there you’ll find the time honored courtesy of the two finger wave, the steering wheel salute and the tip of the hat. My God for all these people know, I could be a serial killer, yet they take the time to say hello before disappearing in the rear view mirror faster than I can say “have a nice day”.

Out there they have sign posts that point to towns I’ve never heard of, and roads that all end up at the same place. In our hurry up world back tracking is a sin, but in the countryside it’s a chance to repeat part of your life again, a do over, a mulligan and a chance to spot that 1957 Chevy on the North Side of a dilapidated old barn you just missed going in the opposite direction.

I once pulled over and watched two combines race a thunderstorm, with each turn at the end of the field the darkening squall line gained ground. Lighting flashed in the distance and its brightness reflected off the cab windows of each John Deer tractor as the thunder echoed across the field.

The air became silent and though they were nearly ¼ mile away I could hear the farm hands yell that the storm was coming on fast. Then dust started to spin in circles and the leaves danced across the two lane black top ahead of the green rolling mass of angry sky.

Out on I-26 traffic came to a halt as the rain came and with it the wind hard and fast as cars slowed to a crawl in both directions, perhaps a thousand cars in a mere ¼ mile of interstate. While down the two lane it was only my car, two combines and a truck against mother nature.

The combines slowed and pivoted to a stop in a low valley away from the tall tress and the far from the crest of the hill. While lighting jolted the ground, they emptied their loads one on each side of the truck and as the soybeans poured into the bed so did the rain.

And when the storm passed I moved back on to the open road with not a car in sight while over on the interstate the back log of traffic wouldn’t clear for another ten minutes.


Photo By The Author

The road twists and turns and then straightens for as far as the eye can see and at the top of the hill in my rear view mirror I can see a thunderstorm fading into the dusty redness of the late evening sky as another day comes to a close and I thank Henry Ford for cars and my South Carolina ancestors for two lane black top highways that time has forgotten.

Toads, Frogs and Crows

Its 2 AM when I step out my back door into the moist humid and nearly suffocating night air. The back yard is filled with the deafening sounds of crickets and cicadas. In the distance the sounds of frogs and their deep throated croaking is a reminder of summer nights long ago.

My grandparents had a "place in the country"… every city boy's dream. A pond, a corn field, just like one shoeless Joe might walk out of, and a place to shoot your BB gun with no one around to tell you not to shoot at anything.

My cousin Bill was "old enough" to have his own BB gun at a time when my BB gun was really my dad's. Gift wrapped and labeled from Santa somehow it was snatched from my hands right there in front of the family Christmas Tree, shortly after I pointed it at my brother, pulled the trigger and yelled POW!

Not much you can do with a BB gun living in the city anyways, but in the country everything is a target for mayhem and mischief.

My cousin Bill was the best shooter I ever met. He was a good shot at about 10 feet; a little better at 5 and damn fine marksmen at point blank range.

Bill's target of choice, was the cat across the gravel road. But the cat had wised up and didn't come across the road after the second time Bill walked up to it and pulled the trigger. Soon just the sight of my red haired cousin would send the cat running for cover.

Tin cans and paper targets were good things to shoot at but Bill prefered live things like cats and crows. But the darn crows were so high up on the telephone wires that even when you hit one they'd just shake their wings and sit there.

I asked Bill why he was shooting at the crows…. And he would just say "you saw the movie "The Birds" right?"

Then he'd go on to explain… "well them birds want to peck our eyes out so I got to teach them a lesson".



Seemed to me that shooting the crows was not a really good idea since they never bothered me before, and I'd never seen these crows attack anyone except the cat across the street. I didn't think pissing off these large black birds was all that bright an idea.

I think I related to the crows, because the one time Bill had shot me with the BB gun and I would have certianly pecked his eyes out had grandma let loose of my arm.

Now there's not much to do out in the country at night. Keep in mind this was way before Sony play stations and the internet.

So what do two young boys do out in the country at night???

Well if you have 3 acre yard with a bunch of mercury vapor lamps, that's what they used to call them, and a pond and you get a lot of bugs. Thousands of bugs flying around the yard and of course they are attracted to the light.

Well, guess what else is attracted to the light and the bugs?

Frogs!

Or more correctly toads and that's where sharpshooter Bill comes into the picture.

Yeap game warden, toad population control expert, hired gun and one hell of a good shot at point blank range, that would be my cousin Bill and I was part of the posse.

During those hot summer nights in the country Bill must have executed thousands of tresspassing frogs and toads. Frog guts all over the path to the pond and in the garden and on the driveway.

The next morning my grandfather would walk around the yard and garden and wonder why the aliens were killing the frogs and not leaving crop circles instead?

I suppose I busted a cap or two on a toad, don't know why but it just wasn't that much fun, and so I never stayed out that long when Bill was doing his night job.

Maybe it was because those crows, the ones in the movie... they always attacked at night!

Sounds of Spring

The sound of frogs and crickets has returned to my backyard. Well, really they are about a 1/4 mile away down at the tidal creek. But the open expanse of golf course fairway allows the soothing sound of clicks and chirps to travel to my bedroom window effortlessly.

I don't remember when they stopped, sometime around the first frost I'd guess, but their return is a wonderful reminder that spring is nearly here.

Which made me think about all the other sounds I think are awesome.

Rain at Augusta National during Masters Week.

The North Beach on Green Turtle Cay on any day. You just got to be there.

Blue Sky Basin Vail, CO at 4 PM in January. The wind against the spruce and fur trees and the snow under your skis.

LAX at Midnight the silence.

Times Square on New Year's Eve, the calliope of mankind's drunkenness.

Turn 4 at Lowes Motor Speedyway during the final lap of the 600 it's hard to say whether the crowd or the cars are louder.

The Freight Apron at Atlanta's Hartsfield International during the 2AM push. The rise and fall of jet engines on departing flights There is something symbolic about that sound. I don't what but symbolic just the same.

Breakfast at the Fairmont in New Orleans during an early morning thunderstorm in July. It's the sound, the feeling of the big easy, linen and china, a slower pace that's even slower when there no reason to hurry.

The arches at Union Station St. Louis at Mid Day Christmas week. If you don't know I'm not sure I can explain. If you do know I'll let you whisper it to me.

Sea Buoy at Bar Harbor Maine on a foggy night in October.

A 800 foot container ship passing under you while standing on the Ravenel Bridge Charleston at high tide.

That cat that moans and groans on the roof above my bedroom before an approaching storm.

I wonder if anyone else is listening?

Mailboxes

I have a great job, but it requires that I commute to work about 150 miles each way, Charlotte to Charleston and back. I have a dozen ways to get to Charleston so you will often find me in my Lexus SUV screaming down I-77 and I-26 on most days but on others I'll take the more enjoyable Highway 601 with different side trips and short cuts.

Mailboxes are everywhere.... big, small, new, and beat to hell.... I watch the miles go by and the rural mailbox has become my mile post.... weathered and rusted, their faded red metal flags are bent, broken, and often missing. The doors seem to fall victim as well.... rusting off, or just worn out by too many bills.

I see the kudzu overtake them during the humid summer afternoons and the frost cover them in the early dawn of winter. A new mailbox this week will meet a high school prankster the next. Beer bottles or baseball bat rural mailboxes live in the danger zone. Logging trucks and drunks in pickup trucks take their toll as well.

Years ago, when I was a young boy, I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house in the country. There in the land of farm and ranch a walk down the gravel drive to the mailbox was the high point of every day, except Sunday. Maybe that's why I don't like Sundays there’s no mail!

I don't think I sent my grandmother many cards or letters. I know she sent 100's to me over the years. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, my Birthday, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas not to mention countless congratulations for event big and insignificant. I’d usually reply with a phone call or wait just to visit in person. 

Now many years later she is of course gone. I would guess in her 98 years she made the trip to the mailbox 29 thousand seven hundred and fifty-five times. (98 years minus say 3 (old enough to make the walk on her own) times 365 less 52 for those Sundays and well 29,755) Sadly I think she might have found a card or letter from me 10 or maybe 20 of those 29,000 plus trips to the mailbox.

My parents are text and email smart and although they live just a few miles from my home I find it as easy just to text my mom as call. We text message or email dinner plans, trip info and such. But still they send cards, birthdays, Easter, v-day, you name it my mom sends a card. Her sister my Aunt is all about eCards, they are fun but it's not the same as a real card or letter. 

Real letters are a dying art. My bills are mostly paperless. What the letter carrier brings to my rural mail box approved by the postmaster general as if he or she personally stopped by to make sure it was up to spec can hardly be considered mail as it normally consists of five or six parts junk to one mildly important insurance statement or notice. 

Occasionally I might get a real letter, but most are just notes attached to some item or card that needed to be sent. I have letters that my great grandfather wrote back in the 1930's now those were the days when a letter was something to read, ponder and respond to thoughtfully.

I suspect that letters will go the way of the black and white TV, and the telegraph, western union sent its last telegraph back in January of 2007. I have kept some letters, a few from women I’ve know, those from my grandfather and his father, and many that my grandmother sent.

I wish that I had sent her more letters for many years later I now understand how much they meant to her. That daily trip to the mailbox was her walk of hope and the path to her dreams.

I watch the miles go by and the seasons change and I count the mail boxes.