Category Archives: Lifestyles
Create and hide unbreakable Easter eggs
Easter is one of the most important days of the year for Christians. Easter Sunday is filled with symbolism and tradition, some of which harken back to early Christianity, while others trace 
their origins to paganism.
The Easter Bunny and Easter eggs are two Easter traditions with less extensive histories. The Easter Bunny, according to sources including History.com, first arrived in America in the 1700s via German settlers who brought with them their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase.” Children would make nests where the rabbit could lay its colored eggs. Eventually, the custom spread from Pennsylvania, where many German immigrants settled, to other areas around the country.
Eggs are symbolic of new life and rebirth in many cultures. To Christians, eggs represent the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Another theory suggests that Christians were once forbidden to eat during the Lenten season
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Yards of Yarn
Local residents had a chance to reminisce about the area’s textile heritage with Yards of Yarn at the Hagood Community 
Center in Pickens. The community center was the perfect site for the show about the history of textile mills in the Upstate, as it was once a mill school in the heart of the Pickens textile mill village. Those in attendance had a chance to hear stories and look at old photos and other artifacts and mementos from the textile mill communities of the early 1900s. Upstate musicians Hunter Holmes and Steve McGaha also performed songs of the era and gave historical perspectives of the songs.
Kerry Gilstrap/Courier
Beloved children’s classic coming to Liberty High stage this weekend
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
LIBERTY —
he story of a pig in danger and the smart, resourceful spider trying to save him may be geared toward children, but Liberty 
High School theater teacher Jean Scales Toole says it has a message for everyone.
“I love this story,” Toole said. “I love what it has to say. It is not just a children’s book. If you really listen, there are some true life lessons in this play.”
One of her favorite scenes is one where Wilbur the pig asks Charlotte the spider “Why did you do this for me? I haven’t done anything for you,” Toole said.
“And she says ‘By helping you, perhaps I lifted my own life a
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From slavery to the White House Part 2
Keckley joins the
Lincoln family
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
In part one of our story last week, Elizabeth Keckley, a talented seamstress and slave, had been told by her master that she 
could buy her and her son’s freedom for $1,200. She managed to raise the money, buy their freedom and amazingly work for ladies of the upper class. This included the family of Sen. Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederate States of America.
A daughter of Union Maj. Gen. Edwin Vose Sumner was one of Elizabeth’s patrons. “Bull Head” Sumner inspired a legend that a musket ball once bounced off his head. He also had a great booming voice. His daughter asked Elizabeth to make a dress
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From slavery to the White House
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
Elizabeth Keckley was a talented and intelligent slave who became a successful dressmaker and managed to buy her freedom. Because of her adroit skills in clothing design, she amazingly became a close friend of the families of Jefferson Davis and Abraham in Washington, D.C. President Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, became a very close 
friend and confidant of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth lived longer as a slave than as a free dressmaker for Mrs. Lincoln. She later wrote a tell-all book about her unusual life. The book included private details about the Lincoln family and provoked great controversy and broke several traditional boundaries. Individuals felt deeply offended when a black former slave felt free to publish intimate, personal details concerning the lives of upper-class white people. The Civil War was about freeing people like Elizabeth Keckley, and involved, in the most critical way, both Jefferson Davis’ and Abraham
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Love Potions from Around the World
When mixed with herbs, the eggs of Uganda’s gray 
crowned crane — a bird that mates for life — are said to increase affection and monogamy.
In Africa, the bark of the yohimbe tree is said to have certain aphrodisiac qualities when steeped in hot water and consumed as tea.
The people of Madura Island in East Java are known for their jamu ramuan, a concoction of herbs that, when ingested, restores youth to women and makes them more desirable to their husbands.
On Dragobete day, the Romanian day of love, frozen snow is collected and its water used as
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The science of love
In the last several years, researchers in the scientific community have studied the brain to gain a better 
understanding of what happens, psychologically and physiologically, when two people fall in love.
Major television networks like ABC and newsmagazines like Time have presented special segments and articles detailing what researchers discovered in their quest to understand love — scientifically speaking.
Most people generally don’t think about love or romance in
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Valentine’s customs then and now
Valentine’s Day is a holiday during February that commemorates love and romance and also the patron Saint Valentine. The history of St. Valentine is shrouded somewhat in 
mystery, and there are beliefs that many different people went by the name St. Valentine. One such individual was a holy priest who served in Rome, Italy. Some historians surmise that he was jailed for defiance during the reign of Claudius II,
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Springing to new life
After closing, Holly Springs school reborn as valuable community center
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
March 14, 2016, was another “date which will live in infamy” for many in our Holly Springs community. It was also sad for families connected to Albert R. Lewis Elementary School. That was the date the Pickens County School Board voted 4-to-2 to close the two schools.
I was four days old when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. My oldest brother, Nat, was a month old when FDR spoke those words on Dec. 7, 1941, after the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor. The word “infamy” means a disgrace or the very opposite of fame. My late uncle, Fred Moody, my late mother’s brother, was there serving in the army at Pearl Harbor, and survived the attack.
I have a little propensity to “protest too much” as Queen Gertrude said in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” While that may be true, let me quickly say that I spent years at both of those closed schools, and therefore should at least have my say. Without overdoing
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Big Flavors for the Big Game
Make mouths water at
your Super Bowl party
When hosting a Super Bowl party, it’s easy to assume the focus would be 
on the score or the award-winning commercials, but it’s actually a great reason to indulge in flavor-filled bites. When the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles face off this Sunday with the Lombardi Trophy on the line, let your guests obsess over the game while you serve up ooey-gooey dips, saucy wings and football-themed
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