Lowcountry History Tour

Cap'n JoeBob, seen here on his boat narrating this short South Carolina history doc from the S.C. Intercoastal Waterways, and I used to work together for years in small dark rooms all day long editing corporate videos for The Home Depot. We never got a whole lot of corporate-y work done for all our chronic Lowcountry daydreaming and reminiscing. Bless our hearts, we tried though. Kinda.

Needless to say, Joey made it out of the ATL and back to Paradise faster'n I did. I do get to visit when time/life permit though; Joe and his wife Annie's southern hospitality is as rich and plentiful as their kindness and friendship. Here's a recent outing... in what is now Joey's backyard.

Shout-Out To MY Social Network Peeps

I wish I had thought at the event last night (see below entry) to point out that not only do I read my social network peeps' blogs before I read "real news" (and I was able to make that point at least), but that these blogs matter to me in the greatest way possible because they ARE... my social network.

And we all know, no newspaper or TV station or magazine can really rival a person's unique social network... no matter what the age or the generation. And when these media outlets (and investors?) understand that, then we can all move forward, kindasortamaybe, together. But the peeps always go first.

That bring me to another point I must make... I can't begin to tell you what it meant to me to be standing nervously at the front of a room filled with all kinds of writers and old media and journalists and PR folk, and be able to see my social media support team right there in the front row. That is simply immeasurably value that goes so deeply beyond the incessant "monetization of blogs" yadayadayada.

Then again, it can always be measured in the value we place in the bonds of strong friendship.

Thank you guys. Y'all being there meant the world to me, and was the reason the event was so successful. Here's that blogroll that's worth anyone's daily drop-in:

Being Amber Rhea
Radical Georgia Moderate
Drifting Through The Grift
My Urban Report
Narcissistic Graffiti
Going Through The Motions

Back On The Chain Gang

I have a friend I think about every day. I shouldn't say "friend" because she "de-friended" me a long long time ago, 1986 I believe. I did something terrible to her, stiffed her for the rent I think, mooched her drugs, I can't remember, something of that nature, the details of that particular year are very very hazy, and she lost her place while I was busy losing my mind. (No worries though; I've long since found it.)

Things were kinda crazy back then. Oh to hell with that half-truth; things were very crazy... from about 1979-1987 for me. It's a miracle I survived any day of those particular eight years, come to think about it. But I did, thanks to the self-centered discipline the shark tank of corporate America requires. And here I am, 2007, where I've worked for so long and so very hard on all my issues, improved, learned responsibility and discipline and self-control and hard work a long long time ago. Full adulthood essentially, and I like it that way.

I can't remember anyone being more holier than the next back then, though. We were all pretty deranged and wild. My friend certainly was. But she didn't need trouble like me, so she jettisoned our friendship at the first sign of the fun coming to a screeching halt. She hasn't spoken to me since.

She's lived literally just a few miles from me ever since 1986. The only time I ever crack open a phone book is once a year when they arrive, and I check to see if my old friend is still at the same place nearby. She is. I've never once, in over twenty years now, laid eyes on her, despite us both having lived around Buckhead all this time.

I doubt there's a day that's gone by where I haven't thought about her. I once tried to make amends and repair the friendship in 1987, but I was too tainted, too destructive in her mind to every be anything but an object of her hatred and scorn. I can understand; we all need to have our little squirrely places to go to loath and hate and resent someone, create our little enemy base of operations in our minds and hearts, least we ever start stumbling towards the divine and learn to seriously forgive.

Lord knows I have ugliness in me sometimes I can't begin to describe, and it comes around and worms its evil way into my best and brightest moments even. Just like in some White Stripes song. I have a certain stone I sleep in, when I remember to, that seems to keep the worst of the worst dreams at bay though; I've not a drop of Russian blood in me, but I once read that Russian women, back in the good 'ole imperial days, used to require that their jewelers loan them pieces so they could sleep in the jewels first; only if they had good dreams while they slept would they consent to purchasing a particular gem.

Anyways... back to the story. I can't help but wonder if I'll ever have the opportunity to repair this friendship. I doubt it, as this person made it quite clear that she hates me with every breath she takes. But that doesn't stop me from remembering what wonderful, marvelous friends we once were, and how we met... in a philosophy class...

Sunburned and hungover, my usual condition for classes, when I bothered to show up for any that is, I plopped down in a seat next to her the first day of the term and first day of that class. When I straightened up enough to look around me, I glanced over at __________ and to my utter delight, saw that she had that dyed-black punk hair that was the fashion for about four of us at the Greek-laden, prep-nation school we endured for so long. Mine was sometimes pink. She was also wearing bizzaro Flannery O'Conner cat-eyed glasses. I leaned over and mouthed, "Love those glasses!" We were inseparable from that moment on, until we moved to Atlanta... where all the dark times began.

To be continued...

Bum Rush Friends And Family

March 22 is kinda a busy day to stop and think and do for others. Pray like a Buddhist too. My friend and neighbor, the incomparable Jenna Schuh (above photo), mom to Ava's BFFs Eliza and Gillian and wife of Dr. J, begins cancer treatment today for some form of lymphoma. We don't know much more about what kind of lymphoma this is until today's biopsy results are back.

I lot of you probably know Jenna too. As one friend said, Jenna was "ground zero" for the Athens, GA hipster scene in the eighties as she opened The Grit there then. Jenna and I met when we were simultaneously pregnant with our now-seven year olds, bursting at the seams quite literally with babies and new mom-to-be pride. She and Jonathan had just moved to Atlanta, two houses down from me.

My life, nor Ava's, has simply never been the same since! Her cancer diagnosis hasn't even really sunk in yet. I just know she's scared and frightened and worn down with stress and pain right now, drinking a lot of orange juice for some energy and listening to Lucinda Williams' latest.

Jenna hasn't gotten to the "Fuck You Cancer" phase of this yet, but all I can say is... cancer had better get the hell outta Dodge now. When Ms. Schuh sets her famous light and fury into it, I know she and we are going to come out on the winning side of this hell.

(Stefan getting Nigerian SPAM, so I had to remove his email address. Ooopps!)

This post put together to, what else, Mine Again by Black Lab. BRTC.

Go All Oprah

OK... I give you fair warning! This post is pretty damn Oprah-esque. It was originally written at the request of a dear friend who was soliciting letters of recommendation as she goes before the the Georgia Board of Nurses (talk about a bunch of hard ass old hags) to seek her nursing certification to begin an entirely new career path. (The friend aced nursing school, FYI.) But I want to share it since it does seem to get of the heart of The Sisterhood. Here you go...

Thanksgiving and Christmas are when we focus on family, but this Thanksgiving I found myself thinking more of my friendships, and being grateful for them, as while we don’t choose our families, we do choose our friends. And seems I’ve chosen wisely in this arena. And of that I am so proud.

While I’ve made dubious choices in my life, found relationships with family members complicated and difficult, and struggled professionally on occasion, the one thing I have excelled at all through my 40-something years is friendship. Miraculously, I have chosen good and abiding friends, ones who have become friends for a lifetime, friends for the duration, through the often complex and perplexing peaks and valleys any one life will offer up any one of us.

The ties that bind us as friends are eternal. Something instinctive brought us together to go through this world with that particular friend’s hand of kindness and guidance on our shoulder. _____________ is that kind of friend.

As I got older, I found relationships and friendships with new people to be more transient, more disposable, less reliable. We incorporate different people to meet different needs at different times in our lives. And then we move on. I never thought that _____________ and I would forge the kind of friendship that can stand the test of time and last a lifetime.

When I met her, I thought she was the consummate professional woman: polished, accomplished and in charge of her world. We seemed to be so different; she had it all: a former beauty queen turned working mom with the all-American life, while I was more of a free-spirit in a whole other place, politically and socially, with no big plans other than to make some money and have a good time. I figured our lives had no great similarities, no big ties that would ever bind us. I never gave the thought of us becoming more than professional acquaintances a second thought.

And then something happened that drew us together: our lives got tough. Really tough. Our individual realities, different as they were, simply became harsh and unforgiving. Perfection and ease and reliability became non-existent at about the same time for us. _____________ and I found ourselves, side by side, struggling to make sense of some cruel twists and turns our lives had unexpectedly taken.

We had no other place to turn to make sense of it all other than by reaching out a hand of friendship to this other new person we’d met. Something instinctive took over and ____________ and I just started talking. And we talked and we talked and we talked. And we gathered the kids and visited and began to look out for one another.

Despite being subjected to the cruelest, harshest, deeply painful realities a woman will ever have to work through, her excessively painful divorce and the low points that brought ___________ down, way down on occasion, but never kept her there for long, __________’s amazingly kind and generous heart towards others never once let me down. And it’s never, ever let her kids down either. It is simply always there. It shines through the dark places.

While I know there were times in ____________'s life when she was blinded by the pain and suffering she was going through, and thus might have made unwise choices for herself. But never once has she ever made an unwise or unloving choice for anyone else in her life – not for those who depend on her, be it her many close and dear friends, nor for her children.

Since _____________ has been a friend to me, there’s never been a point where I would, for a moment, ever doubt her friendship. The reality is that sometimes we go for months without seeing each other when we get caught-up in the daily demands of being busy, stressed mothers with loads of various duties, and laundry, to juggle. But I know that should I ever need her to be there for me, to listen to me, to nod kindly, to encourage me through yet another of life’s extreme and unexpected milestones, she’d be there in a heartbeat, in a flash. She would just be there -- instinctively.

I’ve seen _____________, time and time again lay aside any and all of her pressing concerns to be there for me, a friend. She’s that kind of mother instinctively, but more so, she’s that kind of friend -- instinctively. And that is a rare quality; it is a unique gift she holds.

When others must question and deliberate and agonize over simple choices for themselves and for the family and friends in their lives, or they must rely on others to make those choices for them, ___________relies on her heart and her faith to show her where to go and how to love.

More importantly, she relies on a beautifully, soulful life and heart to care for the people in her life. I can’t think of any single person I’ve ever met who is more of a natural caregiver.

To sum it up, there are few people who govern their lives with the excess of humanity that ______________ shows on any given, ordinary day of her remarkable and courageous and persevering life -- be it as a mother or as a friend.

The Long Road Home

I took the whole day today to drive I-20 East and back again to Columbia, SC, for the funeral of one of the most lovely and memorable and inspiring person I ever knew, and likely ever will -- Mrs. Elizabeth Carrison Waite Manning.

Mrs. Manning, or Betty as she was fondly called, died a terrible, lingering death from Alzheimer's. To witness such a vibrant, original life utterly crippled by such an awful disease is another blog altogether.

What was beautiful and forceful and fascinating was the life Betty Manning lived with zeal and wit and fascinating aplomb, and so was the immeasurable influence she had on the host of people who trooped in and out of her divinely welcoming life and home.

I was the beneficiary of Mrs. Manning's wordly presence and grace due to my friendship with her only child, Elizabeth Carrison Manning Dorn. Here is Elizabeth with her mother, just as the Alzheimer's was setting in for Betty. I wish I had a picture from long ago, with a display of the fiery red hair Mrs. Manning always had set to perfection.

I met Elizabeth on the day my family moved from Charleston to Columbia, to the apartment near USC on Green Street. Upon arrival at Green Street, mid-sixties or so, I promptly set off down the new street to make a new friend, where I ran promptly right in to Elizabeth. We were five or six-years old. We've been friends ever since.

Elizabeth cared for her mother ceaselessly and with complete compassion until the moment she died, all the while being a devoted wife and mother herself to three young children. She was never far from her mother's side most of the time, so it seemed. We can only wish for our own daughters to grow up to be just a tiny bit like Elizabeth. Chances are they will, as long as we make certain they have her kind and always on the sunny-side perspective in their young lives as they grow and learn.

Elizabeth's loyalty and devotion to her many friends, weird ones or not, is legendary. She learned from a master, after all. Her mother immediately welcomed me and all of my rather freakish family into her grand home at 1828 Green Street. Mrs. Manning was a bona fide Grande Dame, and that's just what Grande Dames do. Elizabeth's father, Bernard, was much more imposing, but welcoming too in his own glaring, towering way. I doubt he muttered "dirty hippies" more than four or five times, although he was surrounded by a university full of them at the time.

Another childhood friend, whom I was delightfully reunited with after a nineteen-year absence today at the funeral, Dorothy Fowles Kendall, happens to be a fellow blogger -- a wonderful writer with almost perfect recall of every event and and every absurdity and every person from our childhood in downtown Columbia during the turbulent sixties.

Dorothy blogs today's funeral, cherished tidbits and many dusty memories of our shared history with the Mannings here. But don't believe everything she says! Particularly the bit about how I started the infamous birthday Barbie incident. (She started it.)