Category Archives: Opinions
The joy of getting old, part 2
Editor’s note: This is the continuation of a column that began in last week’s issue.
When old friends drop by for an occasional visit, they often pick up my binoculars from beside my easy chair and ask 
if they are new. I innocently answer “No, I use them to read the football scores as they scroll across the bottom of my TV screen”. I explain that I must get a new television, since the screen has dimmed to the point that I can hardly read the fine print.
My grandchildren are the joy of my life. I truly love to see them and play with them. I am often mystified as to why some of them seem to be growing up so fast. In the not-so-distant past, I was able to outrun all of them. I could catch and toss them in the air with ease. Now, by the time I can get my recliner up to launching speed to propel me from its comforting grip, they are well beyond my grasp and running headlong for the street. Not only do I have trouble remembering their names, I
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What seniors need for winter
Where are three things we seniors need to get through a cold winter: flashlights, insulated mittens and space blankets.
Check your battery and flashlight supply and stock up on what you need. One of the big-box stores has small flashlights, about 4 inches long, for $1, and they come with three AAA batteries. (At that price it’s cheaper to buy new flashlights than the batteries that go in them.) While they won’t light up your whole house (20 lumens), they are small enough to carry in a pocket and get you from room to room if the power goes out. Keep a few of them scattered around the house: kitchen counter, dining-room table, nightstand and right inside the
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How not to spend $1.8B in new SC revenue: tax cuts
When tax collections dropped during the Great Recession, it didn’t mean S.C. tax rates were too low; it meant we were going through a recession. The Legislature didn’t raise taxes; it cut spending.
Yet today, when our unemployment rate is at an all-time low and our economy is expanding, the same leaders who were applauding that approach a decade ago are saying that robust revenue growth means we need to cut taxes.
We don’t disagree that some tax rates are too high — others probably are too low — and that our overall tax system is overdue for an overhaul. But saying that revenue growth in a good economy means we need to cut taxes makes no more sense
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Will Bradley-Boggs House rise again?
Great David Franklin Bradley’s ghost! It looks like Pickens’ Bradley-Boggs House will rise again.
Or at least a building that looks a lot like it and has a good bit of the original materials in it.
The city of Pickens’ Board of Architectural Review has approved detailed plans presented by owner Charles Monks, who intends to build a microbrewery there.
The new structure will stand at 118 Main St., on the same lot from which the iconic landmark graced the streetscape for more than a century and a half until it was torn down in July.
“It looks almost exactly like what was there,” city planning and zoning director Jennifer Vissage said of the rendering
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Ignore advice from the fashion experts
There used to be a television show titled “What Not to Wear” featuring ordinary people going about their lives in horrible clothes that didn’t serve them in their professional lives.
It was interesting. A couple of experts in fashion would swoop in unexpectedly, throw away the victim’s entire wardrobe and give them $5,000 to replace it with.
Then they’d supervise their shopping expeditions in New York to help them learn how to dress appropriately.
I’m thankful I was never selected as a candidate, because I really love my around-the-house and yard clothes and would hate to give them up.
As long as we live on a farm, we must accept the fact that good clothes are not to be worn. If they are to stay good, they must remain hanging in
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The joy of getting old, part 1
As the little pills rolled into my open palm the other morning, I stared at them for a moment and thought, “are these things keeping me alive?”
It was then I realized I had finally gotten old. No, I don’t mean the grandfatherly, humped-shoulder, carry-the-prodding-cane-type old. I had reached the mythical, elusive middle-aged years that all my older friends had been telling me about.
Older friends … wait a moment, I don’t have that many older friends left. Much to my chagrin, when I find myself in a group, I am noticeably the oldest one. Could this be just a coincidence? Have I somehow missed the
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Courier Letters to the Editor 11-13-19
Nasty local elections
Dear Editor,
I have lived in Pickens 20 years, and I think last week’s election was nastier and more chaotic than most.
Elections have always had their dose of inaccurate, false and outright slanderous statements. And don’t be fooled, much of it comes from the opposition campaign. The oldest trick in the book is the candidate stays positive aiming to look like Mr. Nice Guy to the voters, but his volunteers sling the mud at the opposition. We saw too much of that in the Easley election. Average voters do not care enough about who wins a local election to get on social media and smear a candidate with baseless statements and lies. Most of the time that person is a friend, relative or volunteer of
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Appreciate your right to vote
I wasn’t around 100 years ago, but I can imagine what discussions about the radical notion of allowing women to vote must have sounded like around here in the year 1919.
“Well, you know we’ll be on the road to ruination if we let these ladies vote,” Jasper P. Goodbody might have said, snapping the strap on his suspenders for emphasis.
“Yeah, they’ll even try to elect a woman president one of these days and make a law requiring men to help out with the cookin’ and cleanin’,” his buddy Willie T. Melonhead might reply, spewing a stream of tobacco juice out the corner of his mouth to punctuate his disdain for the dystopian future he imagined women’s suffrage would bring about.
I’m sorry, ladies, but our Founding Fathers didn’t think y’all were smart
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An ode to Cynthia’s ‘leaves’
Oh how majestic a tree may be
It fills one with inspiration
When Cynthia sees the leaves a-fallin’
They fill her with anticipation
When the ground is covered to the hilt
It makes her want to wilt
With nary a leaf left on a tree
They make her want to flee
But with rake so true and head so somber
She proceeds to give them all a number
Ah one, ah two, ah three
Aw, that’s too boring for thee
Methinks I shall name them
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Courier Letters to the Editor 11-6-19
In memory of Harward
Dear Editor,
I was shocked and hurt to hear about Lucy Harward passing away. She was a very special, smart, kind lady who shared her talents with others at the Pickens Senior Center.
She founded the Fiber Arts Center there, where she taught fiber arts skills and actively volunteered. Her special creations are displayed there. She was recognized many times for her quilts and designed the quilt square for the
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