On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

When we have an especially hot summer day, my thoughts turn to the river, because that’s where I want to be.

Olivia Fowler

One of the reasons I love the Twelve Mile River is how it calls to my heart. Floating down Twelve Mile takes me straight back to childhood, when my brother and cousins and I spent countless hours immersed in the icy waters of the Lumber River.

That river is where I learned to swim. Uncle Walter had a unique teaching method. His swimming school only held one class. If you passed you were certified to swim upstream against the current. If you flunked, you were in danger of drowning.

The first and only lesson given could be titled the “sink or swim” class.

The victim, or student, depending on your viewpoint, usually enrolled in Uncle

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

Now that the class of 2014 has exited the building we will see how they adjust to their new world. I always feel compassion for these young people as they enter the adult world. Many of the achievements of high school are not especially valued outside.

Olivia Fowler

For good high school athletes who excelled in sports but didn’t get athletic scholarships they will learn, perhaps for the first time, that their athletic records will not advance them in the outside world. For those who have grown used to accolades and admiration it can be very tough to learn that outside the world of high school they will not be given a free pass if they don’t produce in other areas.

On the plus side however they’ve learned many valuable lessons about leadership, loyalty, teamwork, sportsmanship, initiative and persistence. They also learn many

Tax increase unnecessary

Dear Editor,

You’ve heard the saying, “revenue is not the problem, spending is the problem.”

Facts from the S.C. Comptroller support that saying and are evidence we should study issues and vote wisely June 10. S.C. general fund revenues increased from around $5 billion in 2004 to about $7 billion in 2014. During the same period, the entire budget, which includes fees and other sources of income, grew from $15 billion to around $26 billion; more than $1 billion average annual growth in state

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

Olivia Fowler

We don’t need television. We have our animals. The same could be said of them, as I’m sure we provide as much entertainment for them as they do for us.

Sunday afternoon provided just such a situation.

Rosa and her baby goats (kids) have been occupying our backyard, which has displaced two of the rat terriers. Kewpie and Diablo have temporarily relocated to the front porch.

However, now that the babies are here and doing well, Fowler said we could move them back into the former bird dog pen, now the temporary goat pen.

And so, late Sunday afternoon after he and Buddy returned from their horseback riding expedition, they decided it would be a good time to move our goat family. A storm was predicted, and we all thought they needed more shelter than that offered by the deck, especially if it should hail.

So Fowler and Buddy went into the backyard, keeping all the dogs at bay, as they’re just a little too interested in the goats, with plans to move the babies and Rosa.

But the babies were nowhere to be found. Buddy was afraid a hawk might have snatched them up, as they’re no bigger than the average cat.

So we’d all looked everywhere we could think of when Buddy found them hidden away in the center of a clump of pompas grass. I suppose Rosa thought we looked suspicious and hid her offspring there to protect them from potential predators.

Fowler went and got the rope as he planned to lasso Rosa. All the dogs followed him. They knew something important was about to happen. Rosa, unfortunately, had other plans. She warily looked out at us from beneath the deck and stood between us and her babies.

An attempt was made to lure her out, but she ignored it. She acted as though she’d never seen any of us before and completely disregarded the fact that earlier in the day she had eaten honeysuckle vine from Fowler’s hand.

So they decided to catch her by other means. One would go under the deck while the other would grab Rosa as she ran out. The dogs had their faces pressed against the fence, ready to go into action. They knew more than we did.

Goats are not described as nimble-footed for nothing. Rosa can run like a greyhound and jump like an antelope. She can weave in and out like a downhill skier. She can circle the perimeter of the backyard three times in the time it takes a human to come out from underneath the deck.

She is obviously training for the Olympics.

Every time she circled the yard the dogs ran with her on the outside of the fence. She eyed them, warily bleating in protest. The dogs were also very vocal, assuring Fowler that if he would only let them inside the fence they’d make short work of Rosa and her family. It was chaos, and it was not controlled.

Finally it was decided that subterfuge was needed. Surely, we thought, if we couldn’t outrun Rosa we could possibly outwit her.

The babies were removed from their nest in the pompas grass and delivered into my care. Dolly, the tiny nanny, settled down after a few bleats and stretched out in my lap to be petted. Buster, the little billy, was a different matter and bleated frantically while struggling to escape. He had to be restrained.

Rosa became frantic. She would approach the babies but would not come close enough for capture. Numerous attempts to lasso her failed. Numerous attempts to grab her horns as she darted past also failed. After about an hour of this fruitless pastime we were worn out and exasperated. Finally, I released her children from captivity, and they rushed toward their mother. While she was distractedly checking them out, Buddy managed to sneak up and bull dog her. He held tightly to her horns while she had a goat fit.

Then they dragged her down to the goat pen while the children were carried down more peacefully.

Buddy said he had to go home, although he was invited to help catch any other animal on Fowler Farm that took his fancy. He said he would decline that invitation but would perhaps take it up another day.

Fowler transferred all the feed and water containers and then let the terriers back into their domain. They gave us superior looks as though to say, “You idiots. You could have avoided all this if you’d just let us help.”

Fowler says in four months when the babies are weaned we will sell the entire kit and caboodle. I believe this is a wise decision, as if we kept them we wouldn’t have time to do anything else, and we do have lives to live. Meanwhile, we’ll wait it out. How long can four months be?

The on-time graduation rate in our school district has risen 4 percentage points the past four years to 76.8 percent. Our district is doing better than most, and I think we’ll reach our goal of 80 percent. However, the overall approach throughout the state will not yield the result that’s needed — 90 percent or more.

This statewide issue is not fully understood. Only 67 percent of eighth graders in S.C. are at or above grade level in mathematics, and 70 percent are at or above grade level in English. It is not surprising so many students then fail to amass the required 24 high school credits to graduate on time, if at all.

I don’t think the problem is an academic one, though. For years now, I’ve believed the low graduation rate has its roots in the breakdown of the family, and the social, psychological and behavioral issues that spawn from that.

An elementary student not reading at grade level, likely that’s due to his parents not reading with him at home. That has to do with relationship at home — a social issue. Not an academic one at the school.

I recently spoke with students who had dropped out and later enrolled in a GED program. I asked, why

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

Olivia Fowler

Today was a spectacular day. Rosa, our goat, has been spending time in the backyard grazing, as she is an expectant mother and needs the extra nutrition. She has a collar, and each morning she is led from the goat pen to the fenced-in backyard, where she is staked out. She has a bucket of fresh water and access to shade.

Rosa doesn’t bleat unless she has something specific to say. I was in the kitchen and heard her calling, so I stepped out the backdoor and saw she had wound her chain around the stake and couldn’t reach her water or the shade.

So, I went out and untangled her and led her down beneath the oak tree. She had turned over her water bucket, so I refilled it and carried it to her.

She was panting, and I assumed she was too hot.

Fowler was pounding stakes in the tomato rows when I looked out again to check on Rosa. She was calling out. There in the

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