Olivia Fowler

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

How many passwords do you have and where do you keep them? This can be a troubling issue. We need passwords to order on eBay, listen to voicemail, access Facebook, our bank accounts, our tax records, my high school website, medical records, email, other online services and on and on.

We are advised not to use our birthdates, pet’s name, anniversary dates or children’s names or birthdates. Some passwords must be numerical. Some must be a combination of letters and numbers. There are various combinations required. For instance, 12 characters with at least two numbers. Some letters may have to be upper case and some lower case.

On The Way
By Olivia Fowler

How superstitious are you? It’s likely you’ll say you aren’t superstitious at all. And maybe you believe that to be true.

But do you step on cracks on the sidewalk? Walk under ladders? Avoid black cats?

Do you think four-leaf clovers lucky? What happens if a mirror is cracked? Do you believe the person who gets the short end of the wishbone is lucky? Or is it the long end?

I haven’t come across a wishbone in a long time, not since they changed the way they cut up chickens in the meat department.
When I see my horoscope, I do read it. It’s interesting to me, and I can’t say I actually believe any of the predictions, but I do consider it entertainment.

Someone told me a few months back that Mercury is in retrograde, which meant all things electrical would be likely to malfunction. I didn’t know what that meant and asked for an explanation. It was something to do with the planet Mercury and the Sun, but it’s hard for me to remember things I don’t understand, so I dismissed it all as hooey. That’s a nice way to say I thought it was nonsense.

However, during the time between Thanksgiving and now strange things have happened. Each incident could not be considered strange when evaluated singly, but lump them all together and a different picture is formed.

It started with my computer. It quit working abruptly one press day. That’s nothing new. Computers are often problematic and pride themselves on breaking down when most needed.

Life As I Know IT
By Nicole Daughhetee

True story: Hurricane Andrew hit Miami in August 1992 — the summer before my junior year of high school. We lost power in the city for at least a week, prompting a city-wide curfew.

I can remember sitting out on our balcony, staring up at the night sky filled with stars, awed and amazed by the twinkling sight. Normally all the city lights of Miami choke out these celestial beings, and only a few ultra-bright, magical bodies managed to outshine the neon condominiums and illuminated streets.

Even though I had a boyfriend, who quite frankly was an immature jerk most of the time, I sat on our balcony and prayed that God would someday send me a soul-mate, the love of my life, the person He was perfectly preparing for me, the way He was preparing me for my love.
Over time I pushed the thought into the recesses of my mind — without ever truly giving up hope — and life carried on, as is its tendency.

I got married, had a baby girl, and then I got divorced. I got remarried, had another daughter and am going through South Carolina’s mandated yearlong separation period before I can file for divorce No. 2.
Judgmental people might look at my situation and say that I don’t take marriage seriously or that I simply quit when things get a little rocky. They would be wrong. The fact of the matter is, while I did everything I could to save my marriages, I truly believe they were doomed from the start for one very simply reason: neither of my marriages had a firm foundation in God.

Life As I Know It
By Nicole Daughhetee

Most of the readers who have followed my column during my writing tenure at the Courier know that I have an extremely unique family unit.

I am the only child of a single mother. The dynamic of our living situation forced the bond that we share as mother and daughter. As I have entered into adulthood, the close-knit nature of our relationship is one born out of choice. Our living arrangement was born out of financial necessity.

There are certainly moments when it is difficult living with a 69-year-old woman who is, at this point, rather stuck in her ways; likewise, I’m sure there are times when my mother would love to have five minutes of peace and quiet, which is rare living in a household with an outspoken daughter and two granddaughters who inherited my spunk and creativity times 10.

On The Way
by Olivia Fowler

Years ago my minister wrote a piece on the importance of attitude that included the following quote by Charles Swindoll., an evangelical Christian minister.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”

On The Way
By Olivia Fowler

In 1972 President Richard Nixon signed into law Title IX, the law that compels our society to make available to girls and women those opportunities enjoyed by boys and men.

The law states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

That was 41 years. Nobody could have imagined the changes that were coming. The bill was introduced by two Congresswomen, Patsy Mink of Hawaii and Edith Green of Oregon. Mink was the first woman of color to be elected to congress.

She entered politics because doors to other careers were slammed in her face. She was turned down by 20 medical schools because she was both female and a person of color, a common practice at that time. She shifted her focus to law. After earning her law degree, she discovered that no law firm would give her a job. That’s when she entered the political arena, fought for changes and won.

Life As I Know It
By Nicole Daughhetee

Lottery tickets: I don’t buy them on a regular basis, but only because I know that statistically speaking I have a greater chance of being hit by lightning than I do winning the lottery. When there are ginormous jackpots, I might try my luck, figuring I really have nothing to lose but a dollar.

On those occasions, I find myself bargaining with God, even though I know He isn’t a wheeler-dealer. Given the opportunity for great creative license, my mind can certainly construct an elaborate “what I would do if I won the lottery” fantasy. I know I am not alone in this regard.

I would like to think that if I were to ever win the lottery and become a millionaire that I would remain grounded. This is always part of my prayerful pitch to God: not only will I remain level-headed, but I would be a most philanthropic person because, even with what little I have to offer financially, I already am.
My plan for the winning lottery money is quite simple actually, perhaps even bordering on methodically boring: Ten percent of my winnings would go directly to God for all of the blessings in my life. I adamantly believe in tithing and giving back to God what He has so generously given to me.

All about Ben
By Ben Robinson

I know I’m unemployed, so getting sleep should not be a a problem.

It’s tough to be late for a job I don’t have.

But lately I have been giving my nephew Kevin a ride to work. That’s no problem. I don’t mind, because I’m hoping I can somehow convince my car that I’m going to my job, not Kevin’s, just so it doesn’t get discouraged like I do.

And when I pick Kevin up, he usually has five or six places he needs to stop on the way home, which never are actually on the way home. But I drive him around anyhow, because it’s not like I have any other place I need to go.

Between Kevin’s work schedule and the time we waste after his working hours, I’m not getting as much sleep as I had been. Kevin’s 20 years younger than I am, so he doesn’t require as much sleep.

LIFE AS I KNOW IT
By Nicole Daughhetee

I have to initiate conversations with my children that my mother never had to navigate when I was growing up and her parents never even dreamed of when she was a little girl. Trite or cliché as it might sound — life really used to be so much simpler than it is today.

For all of the conveniences it offers, technology has opened a veritable Pandora’s Box of potential dangers and portals for nefarious-minded individuals to reach into the lives of those of us trying to live the best way we know how.

Brian gifted the girls with tablets for Christmas. They have been cautioned, ad nauseaum (the only Latin phrase in my repertoire), about taking care of this hand-held, high-tech gadget because of its value, which means not leaving it outside or on the floor; keeping it in a protective case; being mindful of water or other liquids which would drown its inner wizardry and so on. You get the picture.

ON THE WAY
by Olivia Fowler

As this is being written, there is a ladybug crawling up the cord connected to the computer. It is just one among many which typically cluster in groups on the chandelier and on the walls and ceiling of our dining room.

We find it somewhat disconcerting to be seated at the table and watch ladybugs drop from the chandelier arms into the spaghetti, especially since they are hard to see in the sauce.

Although it’s no comfort to know these particular ladybugs are not native to our country, it should be noted that native ladybugs do not share some of this import’s bad habits.

The Japanese ladybug, sometimes called the harlequin if you’re in Great Britain, was introduced to our shores 25 years ago to help control aphids on crops.

They’re larger than native ladybugs and come in a variety of colors and a different number of spots.