Each new day imparts an honor I will always praise and cherish: to awaken in America and know that I am home.
Parked in dappled morning sunlight, with Table Rock Mountain in the background, this is my 2000 Toyota Solara, bought brand-new 20 years ago in Charlotte, NC, but has spent almost all those years in SC. Since day one, I’ve always parked this car with the intent of avoiding dings on the doors, seeking out the end of parking aisles and going as close to the curb as possible, to give other cars plenty of room.
20 years, no door dings.
Read MoreRecently I was looking through old photographs, trying to find something worth posting that I had not already put on gab. When I got all the way back to the photographs that I took with my first digital camera, a Canon S95 point-and-shoot, I immediately saw the difference in the quality of the photographs. Much of the loss of quality came from my inexperience with photography. But a great deal of it came from the fact that my camera had a tiny sensor with a somewhat inferior lens attached. Today’s photograph is one of those old photos. I spent a lot of time trying to get to look halfway decent, not because I would ever be able to make it into a great photograph, but because of what this particular scene means to me.
Read MoreThere is a story about this place that I will not tell today, perhaps later. But if you knew that story you would wonder how I managed to sit so peacefully on this wooden bench on the dam for Pinnacle Lake, facing the majestic Table Rock Mountain. This photograph was taken in the spring of 2013. Many years ago, long before I had received therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, I experienced a day at Table Rock that held no peace for me.
Read MoreIt was quite early in the morning, especially considering the one-hour drive that got me there. Dawn had broken at Lake Oolenoy in Table Rock State Park, but most of the lake was still in shadow. I stood on a pier near where Carrick Creek feeds the lake. The morning and the wind were quiet. I looked out across 67 acres of smooth dark waters.
Read MoreCan you imagine if this building was not property of the park, but instead, your vacation home? Imagine waking up to nature’s display of swirling clouds, lifting fog, swaths of the mountain lit up by the morning sun as clouds roll past it. What a morning, what a life that would be.
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