On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

Olivia Fowler

The last time I wrote about relations marrying each other, I got into a lot of trouble, as I linked this practice to abnormalities in the offspring of such unions. There were some complaints about this, and some called me insensitive.

After tracing three lines back on my mother’s side, I have discovered that my own family is riddled with marriages between second cousins, so much so that we now know many of what we believed were second cousins are actually also fourth and fifth cousins on different family lines. Now I’m kind of afraid to look too closely into the fourth line on Mama’s side.

Fowler says this explains a lot about my family. And it’s true that there are an awful lot of “forceful” outspoken people in my family. And there are a few Grandmama always referred to as “high-strung,” which of course translates to “crazy.”

For example, “Aunt Sally isn’t able to come to the reunion becomes she’s having a bad time with her nerves.” This means Aunt Sally is at home in a straitjacket or under sedation, or

All About Ben

By Ben Robinson

Today I am dealing with a computer virus. This obviously is a lethal virus, because it is aimed at those of us who are not really that bright.

Ben Robinson

Each time I try to save anything to the computer, a message will come up telling me that I have a virus and suggesting ways I can deal with it. Each way the computer suggests involves me purchasing a program online to solve the problem. It makes one wonder if the virus was not somehow sent with these messages of how to solve the problem. Each one has a price attached for the “savior” program.

So I am here struggling to get this column into the system. Last week I had to write my column twice before I got lucky enough to have it land in a place where it could be used. Of course, if I wrote the column twice, I felt the first one was better.

Rocky said he will work with my computer after deadline, and he’s probably smart enough to fix it. But I’m not, so for the next day or so I will be struggling.

We’re continuing to struggle raising funds for my Kentucky trip. I was going to use my tax refund to cover the cost. As I wrote last week, my state check was used to pay an old hospital bill. So I became nervous about my federal check also being

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

Olivia Fowler

I spent several days last week with my cousins on a road trip to Alexandria, Va., for a family gathering. My cousin Becky flew into Greensboro, I drove to Winston-Salem and my cousin Liz and I picked Becky up at the airport. Liz had some really great chopped barbecue from Little Richard’s and we took a sandwich to the airport for Becky.

She lives in Miami and doesn’t get authentic Carolina barbecue very often. Becky had only one suitcase for our journey. Granted, it was the biggest suitcase I’ve ever seen, but as she pointed out, at least she was able to pack everything into the one bag.

We loaded up Liz’s Prius the next morning with all our luggage and hit the road. Liz and I took turns driving. We had good directions to the hotel and found it fairly easily.

We were scheduled for a tour and dinner at Arlington House and were ready to leave on time.

Another cousin from Wilmington rode with us to act as our guide, as she’d once lived in the area some years back.

We arrived within view of Arlington National Cemetery and exited onto what appeared to be the correct ramp. Halfway up the exit ramp, we realized we would wind up going the wrong way on a major highway into Washington.

If this happened, we would never recover and would miss the entire evening at Arlington House.

So Liz pulled over to the far right of the ramp and proceeded to back down the exit ramp so we could get back onto the highway.

Other cars were traveling up the ramp, and she couldn’t see clearly to back so Becky and Charlotte directed her as to when to stop and when to go. In this way, we were able to get back onto the highway, find the correct exit and arrive safely at our destination. It seemed like a good thing to do to me, and it worked. Liz made me proud. After all, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” And yes, we could have been killed or arrested, but we were not.

After a great evening at Arlington House and the best crab dip I’ve ever eaten (I got the recipe from the chef and will run it on the food page soon), we prepared to go back to the hotel. Before our group departed, I took time out to stop a cousin and ask if he would be willing to bail us out if we were arrested. He said he’d be glad to do it, as he’d brought plenty of cash with him. That’s what family is for, and I felt we’d covered all our bases.

Of course we got lost driving back to the hotel and found ourselves in a dark and deserted area beside the Potomac River. We looked for someone to ask directions of and came upon a large group of young men standing around with bikes.

Becky said, “Should we ask them for directions?” We all said, “No!” I thought they looked like a gang, although we weren’t sure gang members ride bikes, but thought that if we erred it should be on the side of caution. Just because we’re not normally a cautious bunch doesn’t mean we can’t occasionally show good judgment.

Fortunately, in just a minute we saw a police car idling in the street. We pulled up beside it and asked for directions, and the officer kindly gave us great directions back to the George Washington Bridge, and we were soon safely home.

The next day we took a two-hour walking tour of old Alexandria, conducted by an indefatigable 81-year-old guide who held up a lot better than we did.

We saw the tavern, still in operation, where George Washington ate lunch when he came into town from Mount Vernon on business. We toured the church where he worshiped and where Robert E. Lee was confirmed. And we heard a great program presented by a noted historian who specializes in the Civil War era.

The next morning we left for Petersburg to spend some time with more cousins and visit an old family home in Chesterfield County, where we were caught trespassing and confronted by the irate present-day owner. I thought it was worth taking the chance, have no regrets and we all got some excellent pictures. Becky worked hard to soothe the savage beast, and we didn’t go to jail again. Not this time, anyway. But boy did we have fun. We had many other adventures, but I’ll save those stories for another time.

By Pickens Public Works Director Cory Cox

CORY COX

About six months ago, I joined the City of Pickens as the director of public works. The goal of this short article is take a few moments to introduce myself and share with you my vision for the City of Pickens Public Works Department.

First, I would like to thank City Council, mayor David Owens and city administrator Katherine Hendricks for giving me this tremendous opportunity. I am a graduate of Clemson University’s civil engineering department and a licensed engineer. I started my career in the private sector as a consulting engineer to many of the Upstate cities, counties and municipalities. I hope to take my previous experiences with other local governments and make improvements to our current systems that not only meet the needs of the city’s residents and businesses but also fit well with the vision and direction provided by our City Council.

Previously the city operated the streets/sanitation and water maintenance departments separately. The

All About Ben

By Ben Robinson

Ben Robinson

So its 3:30 on a Monday afternoon, and I’m still struggling with this computer. I came in this morning, bright and early. Well, early at least. With nothing else to write, I started working on my weekly column. It was about my tax refund check, which the state kept almost all of to pay old hospital bills.

I wrote how I did not much appreciate the state determining how I would spend my money. The hospital spends lots of time and money to make sure I am aware of the bills (everyone I know gets to bill me for my last hospital stay). While I was in the hospital, I mentioned I had no insurance and was not sure how I would pay. The nurse said, “Don’t worry about it,” and sure enough, I get about eight chances a day to pay them.

The latest is that they set up with the government to take whatever tax return I thought I would have and use it to pay my bills, randomly, of

Analyzing TIF ruling

Dear Editor,

TIF is short for Tax Increment Financing. First, a city creates a TIF area. From that day on, the county, city and the school district (taxing authorities) agree any tax revenue generated from the appreciation of property in that area will not go to the taxing authorities, but instead will be invested in the TIF area within restrictions under the law. The aim is to revitalize that area of the city with an injection of investment funded by that TIF revenue.

The county and school district had two main complaints in their lawsuit against the Clemson TIF.

Under the law, the investment must be limited in size and scope, and a cost estimate of those redevelopment projects must be made known and adhered to. The cost estimate of the projects in the TIF was $10.4 million. By law, the TIF spending must be limited to that $10.4 million figure. Anything

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

There’s no such thing as completing a task on Fowler Farm. One thing always leads to another. For example, consider the responsibilities attached to owning dogs. A person may think it’s a simple thing, but I assure you, it is not.

Olivia Fowler

We have four outside dogs and a fenced-in backyard. You would think all four would live happily there, as there is a deck upon which they sun, ample housing, lots of shade and a plentiful supply of water and food.

But, sadly, that is not the case. Due to gender issues which are too complex to explain lucidly, two live in the backyard and two on the front porch, more or less.

The two in the backyard, Kewpie and Diablo, are only outside the fence if we are home. Then they can play with the others. But if we aren’t home and there’s no supervision, they are confined inside the fence. They have absolutely no road sense, and there are also some top-dog issues between our one unneutered male and our two neutered ones.

The porch dogs, Red Dog, our boxer mix, and Sebastian, one of the rat terriers, sleep on the porch in their insulated dog house in winter. They have a heat lamp for cold nights and curl into

All about Ben

By Ben Robinson

My sister gave me a book last weekend to add to my reading rotation. It’s a biography of former President Ronald Reagan, written by his son, also named Ronald Reagan.

Ben Robinson

I’m not sure whether she gave it to me because I used to be a fan of the former President during my college days, or if she knew I have been pretty much ready to read matchbook covers lately. Perhaps she just thought, “Give it to Ben, and I won’t have to keep up with it.” Whatever the case, I am reading it now.

The book so far does not seem to be recounting the political career of Reagan, but the Reagans’ family history. Ron Jr., it seems, wanted to look into his family roots.

I understand that, as several years ago, I looked into my family roots.

On my mother’s side it’s complicated. She was a Melton growing up, and her grandmother was Elizabeth Melton. I remember her, because we used to get comic books from my cousin Mike Moser through grandma. But here’s the catch: Grandma’s maiden name was Melton. One story I heard was that my grandfather came from up north and may have been in some trouble. So when he settled in South Carolina,

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

Olivia Fowler

Saturday was a great day, because I discovered relatives I didn’t know I had. Fowler is related to everybody in the county, but I’m not, or at least that’s what I thought until I went to the fifth annual Reunion of Upcountry Families at Southern Wesleyan University.

And there, I found relatives I didn’t know existed.

My people hail from Eastern North Carolina and Tidewater Virginia. While wandering around the room scanning family genealogy tables, I discovered the Masters/Southerland table, which had a large graphic behind it listing all the family

Merck choice natural, easy and smooth

Dear Editor,

On April 10, in a 6 to 0 vote, the Pickens County School Board named Dr. Danny Merck the new superintendent. Some asked why the school board didn’t implement a thorough search/selection process, examining many applicants, doing interviews and then making a selection? Actually, we did all that, but some may not realize it because the process began years ago.

The last few years, the board has focused on promoting from within, beit for assistant