Category Archives: Opinions
Nothing can keep us from God’s love
Memories can be a wonderful place to visit when they are pleasant and filled with peace and joy. On the other hand, not all of our experiences have been good and can be more like a haunted house on a dark and stormy night.
We all have our collections of thoughts and our own task of trying to figure out a way to deal with them. As most of us know, there are positive ways and negative ways to handle our past experiences. We can look around and see that many people are not doing such a good job when it comes to emotional management. The Lord wants us to give our problems to Him and allow Him to bring true healing, as His way is always the best way.
Some will say “you have not walked in my shoes,” and this is very true. However, this does not mean the light of God’s love cannot bring you
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Courier Letters to the Editor 8-29-18
Hidden gem in Rocky Bottom
Dear Editor,
I moved to the Carolinas from Upstate New York about 20 years ago. I then moved to Rocky Bottom in Sunset around 16 years ago. I fell in love with the people and the landscape of the area. I do remodeling and maintenance work around the Upstate, and I have been asked to do some minor repairs to the Rocky Bottom Camp of the Blind.
It seems that the people of this state and even those of Pickens County don’t know about this gem of a place at the bottom of South Carolina’s tallest mountain, Sassafrass Mountain. It includes activities such as miniature golf, basketball, volleyball, hiking, a swimming pool and more. The blind children and adults from South Carolina enjoy all these activities with the aid of beepers, bells and such on the balls or holes at the miniature golf course.
From what I understand, a lot of the money that they had raised through fundraising was lost at an investment firm in Pickens, where I heard a lot of other people took big losses.
A lot of church groups, children and adults come for week-long stays. It
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Community newspapers are not a public enemy
Let’s make one thing crystal clear … the press is not the enemy of the American people.
It is hard to believe any thinking citizen in South Carolina or around 
the country would actually believe that. Yet some do.
These attacks against the media by President Trump — mostly against the national press — have gone on far too long and likely won’t stop. But we as citizens must stop believing them and not let community newspapers be tarred by their brush.
Our Founding Fathers stood up for a free press, and so should you.
We need newspapers in our communities to monitor government spending, cover police activities and report on our utility companies. And to cover our community life: weddings, funerals, school news,
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School back in session
This week the School District of Pickens County will begin the 2018-2019 school year. We will welcome more than 16,000 students to school this year, along with more than 1,800 teachers, staff and 
administrators. This year proves to be one of the most exciting for many reasons, and here are just a few.
• Two new magnet schools. The Central Academy for the Arts and the McKissick Academy for Science and Technology will launch this fall. These two schools will allow students to be immersed in the arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum.
• School resource officers in every school. This year the school district will have a full-time law enforcement officer in each of our schools, in addition to many other safety measures that have been implemented throughout the district. We are one of only a few school
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It pays to look before you leap
You never get too old to learn something. That’s nice. Because sometimes just keeping up takes a lot of energy.
Suppose you go online to book a trip and want to find the cheapest 
flight. It’s a good idea to compare rates on several sites. But don’t book a flight or pay for travel insurance until you check out the policy for canceling or changing flights.
Don’t use a booking site that has consistently bad reviews from customers. For example, Southwest Airlines doesn’t have a penalty fee for changing the dates of your flight. It’s a good thing to know. But many others do.
Also, if you think you need travel insurance and a brief scan tells you
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Medicare Advantage: Changes loom in 2019
Every year from October to December, seniors need to sign up for the next year’s Medicare Advantage plan … or stay with the same one. 
Sometimes the choices are difficult. This year it will be even harder, due to changes that have been made to the plans.
In the past, if you needed a wheelchair ramp to get in and out of your house, the expense for that was on you. Medicare would, of course, pay for surgery and a hospital stay if you fell down the stairs trying to get out of the house because you had no ramp, but
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The view from the front porch
In the early morning in the rain, we can sit on the front porch with the first cup of coffee and watch beads of rain roll down the center of the elephant ears and drop off to the leaves below.
The rain beads look white, and it’s as though someone broke a string of pearls and dropped them out from the porch roof.
It is a magic trick of the weather. But the light has to be just right for this to happen.
When the rain stops later in the day, and early evening approaches, a cloud of yellow swallowtail butterflies flutter around the lantana on the walkway. This afternoon, I counted 13 on the lantana there and six on the butterfly bush nearby. There were other smaller butterflies — not as showy as the swallowtails, but beautiful in their own way.
I don’t know where butterflies go when it rains, because I never see them
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Letters to the Editor
What to do when being pulled over
Dear Editor,
I had a pleasant surprise last week.
I was driving to Lowe’s in Easley, heading east on Highway 93. Coming the other way was a state trooper in one of those Camaros (I think), and I noticed him pass me and turn around. Ut-oh, I thought. The officer then got behind me, and the blue lights came on.
When I was working at a local newspaper a few years ago, I wrote an article on what to do when you get pulled over. Thinking back to that article, I immediately put my right turn signal on to let the officer know I saw him, and turned into a parking lot near the Plez-U.
I then rolled down the window all the way, put my car in park, shut it off,
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Heading back to school
Here we are once again, it is back to school time! With that brings excitement, possibly dread, hope and sometimes chaos. I will admit, I am glad my wife and I are past that particular stage in life with our children, 
but there is also some sadness knowing those times are past. We aren’t here to talk about me, though, we are here to share some back to school information “From the Eyes of a First Responder.”
Slow down … bet you have heard that before, and you know it is still true. Speed is one of the leading causes of accidents. Traffic is going to increase and be bad for a little while. Parents and students are having to learn new schools and routines. There is road construction and closures. Student drivers are on the road. Pedestrian traffic will increase.
Oh, and then there are those big, yellow school buses. Every year we see
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Listen for the sound of thundering hooves
Silky was one of the most beautiful mares we ever had. She came from a stable in Lexington, Ky., and was trained for buggy racing. Fowler bought her at a horse auction in Kingsport, Tenn., and brought her home. She was probably 
not fast enough on the track to be competitive, most likely the reason she was sold.
She was a little high-strung, but she was a thing of beauty racking along the road pulling our buggy.
The rack is the pace trained buggy horses must exhibit to pull a buggy as fast and smoothly as possible.
Trained gaited horses are supposed to exhibit the rapid forward motion. It isn’t to be confused with a trot, which
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