Ten Things I Plan to do Before January 1st

As an admitted lover of all things South Carolina and one who has been deprived of all things South Carolina for almost a year now, I’ve begun thinking about the things I want to do when I get home. I’ve created a bucket list of sorts – no, I’m not planning to die anytime soon, just couldn’t think of anything else to call it.

So here in no particular order (well, number 1 is pretty dang important) are the top ten things I want to do before the end of the year:


10. The Georgetown Wooden Boat Show (Saturday October 16, 2010)

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but I am a boat nut. I love all things nautical, even pursued a degree in marine science because of this addiction. I don’t need a special reason to go to Georgetown but throw in a boat show and you might consider getting out of the fast lane if you’re in front of me on the way to the Low Country.

What will you see? Boats! Boatbuilding! What more could you ask for? Yeah, I realize that if you weren’t born with Docksiders on that this may not be your cup of tea but check it out anyway. They traditionally have family boat building, a National Boatbuilding Challenge (two man teams try to build a boat the fastest and then race it on the Sampit, the whole thing lasts less than 4 hours to give you some idea of just how fast these guys move). There is music, food, art, plays and all kinds of kid’s activities. There are wooden vessels of every type from surf boards to antique speed boats to tall ships. It’s been a while since I’ve been but I will not miss it this year. Cost – mostly free until the boat bug bites.


9. Family Camping (date to be determined, but not October 16th)

For the last 15 or so years, a group of friends has gotten together to go camping in the mountains, sometimes in North Carolina, sometimes in South Carolina. Other than deciding what camp ground to go to and the menu, we don’t make many plans for the weekend. The cell phones, IPods and TV are exchanged for some conversation, singing and quiet contemplation. We’ve hiked trails, fished, roasted marshmallows and mountain biked. The group varies from year to year, loosely organized around a Sunday School Class though membership has never been a requirement. A great friend is the impetus behind the trip; he has led it every year save one when his wife had to have an appendectomy. Cost –minimal, I spent $200 the year I bought a new tent but $70-80 a family usually covers the food and campground fees, the reward is priceless.

Here's a link to help get you started - South Carolina State Parks


8. Summerfest – York, South Carolina (August 27-28, 2010)

Okay, I’ll admit it, York is a Podunk little town but it happens to be my wife’s birthplace and where we got married so I’m a bit partial to the place. The festival began in the 1984 after the demise of two other local festivals. Every year, 50,000 people from all over the NC/SC line and beyond converge on York for a little slice of what life used to be like. Many of the local churches and civic organizations use Summerfest as a fund raiser – it is small town Americana at its best. There’s a craft show on Main Street, a car show, live music, runs, rides, an antique sale and tons of other stuff. Frankly, there is something for everyone. My three boys can stay entertained the whole day for about $5 each – in fact, several years they’ve actually made money selling rubber band guns with their grandfather. A couple of “fair” warnings; we’re talking about York SC in August, it is hot and you will need the Sun Screen. Cost – the $5 cost of a vendor lunch to “the sky’s the limit” for antiques (BTW, if you're at the antique sale and  talk to two old bald guys, one with glasses who answers to Johnny and the other a bit shorter who answers to Bobbie, feel free to buy something from them)


7. Beach Sweep/River Sweep (9 a.m. to 12 noon - September 18, 2010)

Need a little political statement here – A real environmentalist picks up trash, bumper stickers on your Prius don’t get it done.

River Sweep is a half day event designed to clean up the places we play in Columbia (and Statewide), namely the Congaree, Saluda and Broad rivers as well as Lake Murray. I’ve filled my canoe with trashbags in two different years and will be back on the river this year for the first time in a long time. You’ll see more about this in another blog but put it on your calendar now.

Cost – One day, three hours really to make a world of diference

6. Viva La Vista (September 25, 2010 - 2 p.m. until the last encore)

Food, fun and music in the Vista centered on the intersection of Gervais and Lincoln. Most restaurants are open with specials for this event; most of the stores are open with sales and specials as well. The only oddity for this event is that you use tokens (purchased at the event) to pay instead of cash so that the organizers can get their cut. This event generally draws a good crowd but it probably is not a “family event” if you plan to stay late for the entertainment. If you need a new idea for a date night, this is a good event because not only do you get credit for this date night but you can preview most of the better restaurants in the Vista for the next one. Parking is free if you’re willing to walk a block or two. Cost – the event is free but the cost is variable depending on how much you eat and drink, count on at least $20 an adult.



5. Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering (September 18, 2010)

Okay, I’ve already admitted that I don’t need a special reason to drive to the Low Country but this is one of those events I’ve always wanted to attend. Here’s the problem, I’m going to participate in River Sweep as well (also on the 18th) so I’ve got a little planning to do. The event is held at Boone Hall plantation in Mount Pleasant – Boone Hall, for the uninformed is worth the drive to visit even if there isn’t a gathering or festival going on. (http://boonehallplantation.com/) Few people realize the significant number of Scots/Irish descendants that populate our fair state. There’s music, games (Scottish Games, not for the faint of heart) food (including real Scottish food – again, not for the faint of heart), dancing and hairy legged men in dresses – what more could you ask for?

4. Candlelight Tour of Historic Brattonsville

Another disclaimer here, I’m a member of the Cultural and Heritage Museums (C&HM)that run Historic Brattonsville and the York County Museums (at least I was, I may be about time to renew). Additionally, my father in law's wife is a docent for the C&HM.

Historic Brattonsvile is one of those places that you see the signs for and wonder, “…what is that?”. Put simply, Brattonsville is upstate SC, circa 1760-1880 or so. Remember the Scots Irish thing? Well Brattonsville is the living embodiment of it. A gentleman named William Bratton purchased land and built a home on Fishing Creek in what was then North Carolina sometime in 1770. Bratton rose to prominence during the American Revolution and at the conclusion adopted that most southern of monikers, Colonel Bratton. The fortunate sighting of the homestead allowed him to take advantage of the trade in that area and to prosper financially and socially. His obituary said of him, “…He was one of the old revolutionary characters, worthy to be remembered. . . His services were zealously devoted to his country throughout the Revolutionary war and for many years afterward in the [State] Legislature. . . He has left a widow and numerous family, besides a large circle of friends and acquaintances to lament his loss.” Many of the original structures, altered through history and restored now stand on the site of the original homestead. Every year in December, they have a candlelight tour that I’ve always wanted to see – this is the year. The Candlelight tour is December 11th and 12th from 3-9 p.m. Cost - $6 for adults, $3 for youths, children under 3 are free.

A couple of other events that I’ve been to at Brattonsville and definitely worth a “look see” are the reenactment of “The Battle of Huck’s Defeat” on July 10 and a “Civil war Reenactment” 23-24 Oct. Both events will fascinate “children of all ages”. They involve period dressed re-enactors, encampments and re-enacted battles complete with formations, muskets, drums and horse mounted cavalry.

3. Lights Before Christmas at Riverbanks Zoo, November 19- January 2

I’ve been and I’m going back, it’s just that much fun. From their web site:

The only place in town where it snows every night!

Bring the kids and the camera and see why Lights Before Christmas

has continued as a family tradition for more than 20 years.

* Nearly one million twinkling lights *

* Countless animated images *

* Dazzling Music in Motion Lights Spectacular *

* Larger-than-life holiday cards created by local students *

* Nightly visits with Santa-through Christmas Eve *

* Warm memories and holiday cheer around the Jingle Bell Bonfire *

* Hot cocoa, marshmallows and other festive foods available for purchase *

* THE POLAR EXPRESS 4-D Experience *

Cost – Free for Zoo Members (a worthwhile membership BTW), Prices for this year aren’t published yet

2. Carolina – Clemson Game, Nov 27th

If I have to explain the importance of this one, you, to use the vernacular, “…ain’t from around here…”. This game is such a big deal that it used to be held on Thursdays and was a state holiday known as “Big Thursday”.

I’m a USC Graduate but I’ve never been to Death Valley, for one reason or another, I just never made the trip. It may be that my aversion to orange has prevented me from making the trip or it might be that every time I get that close to the mountains I keep going till I find a trout stream but for one reason or another, I just never made it. This is the year – anybody got tickets?  Cost - whatever you budget will bear.

Number one was easy:


1. Have dinner at my own table, with my own family, go to church on Sunday and sit on a pew with my wife, my kids and my parents, meet friends at San Jose’s for lunch after church, go to Wal-Mart, cast a line, paddle the Congaree (once again, if I have to explain this one to you, you ain’t from around here.)



For a great list of events and festivals in South Carolina, go to SCIWAY (South Carolina’s Information Highway – I don’t know what happened to the H either).

If you’ve got an idea for an event that all three of my readers might be interested in, send me a note, I’d love to hear from you.

To Hell in A Handbasket

We’re “going to Hell in a handbasket”. I’ve heard that “alliterative locution” used by people from all walks of life, all ages and all regions of the country. The phrase dates back to at least 1865 in a book entitled The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details by I. Windslow Ayer.  Ayer was referring to the steadfast determination of the Confederate Soldiers held under deplorable conditions at the Union’s prisoner of war camp at Chicago, IL named Camp Douglas. What he said was were the Confederate Soldiers given half a chance, they would "...send their captors to Hell in a handbasket..." (For the record, slavery was wrong and so was Ayer – most of the confined Confederates just wanted to go home, the book is interesting nonetheless)

Since then, the phrase has come to mean someone is headed to certain disaster without effort or in great haste.

I read about a Supreme Court decision today that makes me think we’re not “going to hell in a handbasket” but rather, we’re going in a shopping cart, full speed, downhill, just as fast as those little wheels can turn.


Actually, it wasn’t officially a Supreme Court decision at all, it was a “non-decision”, known as Certorari Denied. To quote Rush’s song (the band, not the pundit) Freewill, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” In effect, the Supreme Court said the case lacked sufficient merit for their august body to look at it.


Here’s the case, Boy Scouts v. Barnes-Wallace, 08-1222. Fundamentally, the American Civil Liberties Union, which generally is interested in none of the above, sued the Boy Scouts on behalf of a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple. The two couples felt the city of San Diego was violating the oft misinterpreted “separation of church and state” by leasing 18 acres to the Scouts. 18 acres that the Scouts have leased since 1918.


Wait, it gets much better. Neither couple had ever made any effort to visit the area in question, nor had either of their children expressed a desire to join the Boy Scouts. Hold it, I’m not done yet, the Scouts, who had been paying roughly $2,500 dollars a year for the right to use the space exclusively for a few weeks each year offered to make $1,700,000 dollars worth of improvements to the area and had already contributed $2,500,000 to the city owned aquatic center in Mission Bay. On top of all that, the Scouts only had exclusive use of the area for the few weeks of the year that they ran summer camp and allowed anyone to use the area the rest of the year.


The case has been going on since 2003 when the ACLU, sued in US District court. The presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. “ruled in 2003 that the city failed to follow its usual procedures and engaged in “private, exclusive negotiations” with the Boy Scouts, culminating in a long-term lease of the park property.  Judge Jones found the lease violated federal law that prohibits government promoting religion, noting that belief in God was central to the Boy Scouts of America’s principles.”


Judge Jones got one thing right; a belief in God is a requirement to be a Scout. The most basic part of Scouting is the Scout Oath:

On my honor I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my country

and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong,

mentally awake, and morally straight.

 
Every boy learns that oath as one of the first requirements to earn the title “Tenderfoot Scout”. Unfortunately he got the rest of it wrong.


Here is the entire "religious dogma" of the Boy Scouts:


The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God and, therefore, recognizes the religious element in the training of the member, but it is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training. Its policy is that the home and organization or group with which the member is connected shall give definite attention to religious life.

Only persons willing to subscribe to these precepts …shall be entitled to certificates of leadership.

That’s it folks – recognize that we have a responsibility to God. If that makes them a religious organization and forbids them from using public property, we need to kick the House and Senate out of the Capital because they open with a prayer at every session – we’ve gone too far towards the politically correct lunatic fringe and the Supreme Court was wrong not to correct the District Court Judge’s idiotic ruling.

(Colonel's note: After I wrote this, I reflected on something I had heard during a visit to Washington, D.C. many years ago - each session of the Court begins with the Marshall entering the chambers and intoning this behest: "God Save the United States and this Honorable Court".  I confirmed that this is in fact the way every new session begins to this date and I wholeheartedly support the sentiment - that said, the Court needs to vacate their building, they're promoting religion)


As for the Scouts being an organization that promotes religion, I guess he missed the fact that 1/3rd of the “chartering organizations” or sponsors are civic and educational groups. He probably also missed that there is in fact at least one organization of every major flavor of religion in the United States from LDS to Jewish Synagogues to Buddhists serving as the chartering organization for the other 2/3rds. It only makes sense that churches would sponsor an organization that holds as a tenant a belief in God. However and this is a big however folks, a requirement for a belief in God isn’t establishing a religion. Nowhere in the camp was there a religious symbol, nothing in the scout emblems displayed had any religious connotation.


Every one of our last 19 Presidents has realized the value of Scouting (Theodore Roosevelt was already out of office in 1910 when the Scouts were founded but he was named the first and only Chief Citizen Scout because of his vigorous support). Our 34th President summarized the value of Scouting best:

“The Boy Scout movement merits the unstinted support of every American who wants to make his country and his world a better place in which to live. Its emphasis on community service and tolerance and world friendship promotes a speedier attainment of the enduring peace among men for which we all strive. By developing among its members both a spirit of sturdiness, self-reliance, and a realization of the need for cooperative effort in every major enterprise, the movement is a prime force in preparing tomorrow’s men for their duty to themselves, their country, and their world. Here in the United States, the Boy Scouts of America have accomplished much in its years of service. But today, more than ever before, we need expansion of its membership and influence.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, US President 1953-1961


It's time to put on the brakes, climb out of the cart and start planning our course rather than just going along for the ride.  The Supreme Court should have heard the case and ruled for the Boy Scouts.  The case will now bounce back to the lower courts where, hopefully, more intelligent rulings can be found.


I’ve been involved with Boy Scouting for more than 20 years. Oddly, only two of those years were as a Scout. I wasn’t much of a Scout frankly, I wanted to camp and hike, the rest didn’t seem important.


Years later, I was asked to help run a Boy Scout Camp. That experience changed my life. For the first time, I understood what the Scout Oath and Law were about. At about the same time, I was leaving active duty in the Army to return to college as an ROTC cadet. That sense of duty and basic belief has carried me through the last 23 years. The groundwork laid in those two years as a Scout and the summer on the staff has made all the difference for me. Since then, I’ve served as a Scoutmaster, Assistant Scoutmaster, Merit Badge Counselor and just a dad driving the van. Scouting changes lives and that positive model is needed more now than ever in an age of “whatever”.


Want to avoid the "whatever" ethical standard in your boy? Try Scouting, he may hate it, that's okay, but he may get it and it just might make all the difference. He may find a meaning in the Scout Law that I didn't internalize till later.

A Scout is

 trustworthy,

 loyal,

 helpful,

 friendly,

 courteous,

 kind,

 obedient,

 cheerful,

 thrifty,

 brave,

 clean

 and reverent.

So what can you do if you'd like to support the Boy Scouts on this issue?  If your work place has a United Way Campaign, designate your donation to support Scouting. Consider a direct donation if not.  Volunteer to help a troop, you don't need to be Bear Grylls (an Eagle Scout by the way) or Clive Cussler (ditto - he found the Hunley), or Bill Gates (Eagle Scout) or any of the 39 Eagle Scout Astronauts, innumerable military or business leaders, sports stars or just "Average Joes" who have been Boy Scouts, you just need to be someone who recognizes that there is a God, and who wants to help.  Write a letter to the editor about the case or just talk about how you feel about the issue with your friends - maybe you'll find a kindred spirit who feels the same way and realize that there are others out there who think that values and character count.  Believe me, there are more of us than there are of the "whatever crowd". 

Trust me on this one, I'm a Boy Scout.


P.S. If you want to know what religious freedom really is, the freedom of religion the US Constitution is talking about, you can find it in the Bible, in the book of Joshua:


Joshua 24:15 - But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.


As ol’Bob Dylan said – But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed. You're gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord…