He's Back

Mr. Charleston is home from turkey day in North Carolina with the grandkids.  A great time was had by all but I'm glad to be home and back in the blogosphere.  A few photos I think you will enjoy.

A visit to nearby Ft. Mill, South Carolina and a park known as the Greenway.  This is the homeplace of the Rev. Billy Graham's grandfather, described by Billy as a "hard drinking, hard cursing man."  He must have scared the bejesus out of his tribe for he spawned eight preachers.  Does eight preachers constitute a movement?  An interesting thing about the cabin is the pink mortar, from the red clay content.

A detail of a nearby cabin moved to the site from three miles away.  The park is traversed by the Nation Ford Road, part of the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road which was the original road between the Philadelphia area and Florida.  This cabin was the homestead of a soldier who fought in the Civil War and walked the road home from the surrender at Appomattox.  It was a cool, rainy day when we were there and I tried to imagine myself in that place and time faced with a 250-mile walk home while cold, tired, and hungry through a dangerous countryside ravaged by four years of brutal war. I can't imagine it.  I'm far too fat and comfortable.  But sometimes I get close enough that it makes me shiver.

Two generations of Charlestons, daughter (Amy) and granddaughter (Hayes), walking the Nation Ford Rd. down to the Steele Creek ford from which the road got it's name.

The Kensington Plantation house near the Congaree Swamp in Wateree, South Carolina.  I have tried for years to see this place but it was never open when I went past on my journeys to and from Florida and North Carolina.  The gates happened to be open for some maintenance workers this time past so I took the opportunity to get some photos.  Originally the manor house for a 3,300-acre plantation, the photo doesn't do the 12,000 sq. ft. house justice.  Another one of those time-lapse moments when you try to imagine life on a plantation worked by slaves.  An interesting sidebar, the percentage of Southerners who owned slaves... approximately 1%.  Hummm.  Sound familiar?

2nd Annual Islamic Pit Babe Review

As the Formula One season draws to a close, it's time again to take a look at the seemingly incompatible relationship between one of the richest, most gauche, immoral and outright depraved expenditures of resources on earth and... Islam?

Formula One represents the absolute heights of cutting edge engineering and design technology.  There is no other sport on earth quite like it.  The only other one that comes to mind is the American's Cup yachting competition and it occurs only every 4-years.  The cost of campaigning an F1 car for a season is a closely held secret, but it's been estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of $200 million for each car and most teams have two cars at the track and two in reserve.  Ferrari employs over 600 people in its F1 effort alone.  It is a sport that attracts the most glamorous of the glamorous.  Celebrities and royalty walk the paddock.  The drivers and team managers are multimillionaires.  7-time world champion Michael Schumacher is a billionaire who's salary as a driver was $40 million a year!  Champagne, caviar and beautiful women.

How, one might ask, can this sport possibly be welcome in Islamic countries?  But it is.  In fact, as the F1 circus makes its world-wide tour it has stops in 5 Islamic nations: Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey.  The following photos are representative of the beautiful Islamic women in the F1 paddock, but more importantly, they represent a peek into the modern, liberated Islam that you simply won't find in any local Western news media.

Abu Dhabi

Bahrain

Malaysia

Malaysia

Singapore

Singapore

Turkey

Turkey

Not exactly your grandmother's burka eh?

Mr Charleston is off to visit grandkids.  See you on the flip side.  Happy Thanksgiving.    Peace

Mr. Charleston Exposed

I don't normally indulge in these things, but... (you can see where this is going) Susan, over at I Think, Therefore I Yam , challenged me to one of those Truth or Dare thingy's where you receive an award and therefore, you are obligated to tell seven secrets about yourself that inquiring minds want to know.  To begin with, it's pretty much impossible for me to dredge up seven secrets out of the seven-thousand or so hiding in the closet and I wouldn't put you through that anyway, but I will share something you might find interesting, or at least, amusing.

Not long ago a young woman asked me where I was from and I replied that I was a 9th-generation-or-so Florida Cracker and that I was raised in a fish camp. I wasn't surprised that she was a little astonished as few families in this neck of the woods have been around as long as ours (1786), but I turned out to be the one astonished when she asked, "What's a fish camp?" It had never occurred to me that there might be people in this world who had never heard of a fish camp.  A little nonplussed I yammered, "Why, it's a place where you rent boats to go fishing."  So, these several days later while lost in a muse another brilliant insight struck me, "If there's one person in this world who had no clue about fish camps, maybe there are others!"

This folks... is a fish camp.  Photo of the homestead 1946.  My parents purchased the camp soon after I came along and just after WWII.  At the time, we lived so far in the woods that there was no electricity.  I clearly remember wind-up phones and the iceman bringing a block of ice for the fridge.   But we were in high cotton because, thanks to a naturally pressurized artesian well, we had indoor plumbing.  Our neighbors had an out-house.  A two-holer.  They also had the only two-story tar paper shack I have seen to this day.

This was the office-kitchen-store-bait shop-dining room-dance hall main building.  It was a log cabin with a coquina chimney.  Note cane poles leaning against the house and picnic tables under the trees.  I still live on this property today although now, it's inside of the beltway.

My dad in a little boat he had turned into a trawler.  The net would yield washtubs of shrimp, a soft-shell crab or two, and a cornucopia of other creatures.  While my older brother helped my dad sort out the shrimp, I would poke through the teeming load of adventure laid out before me.  Tiny fish all all kinds, crabs, starfish, jellyfish and worms.  I especially liked the small puffer fish.  We, of course, released everything back into the water.  A lifetime of respect and love for Mother Nature.

Sometimes, the river was dead still.  On a hot, sultry day, you couldn't see the separation of water and air on the horizon.  They just sort of blended together.

Mr. C catching a ride with Uncle Dennis.  One of the two buildings in the background housed a generator which dad would crank-up on Saturday nights for the weekly fish fry and dance.  The generator would drive the lights and the jukebox.  Hank Williams as he was meant to be heard.  But I must say, my folks were fond of Swing and that's what was played mostly.  Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and company.

Grandfather keeping an eye on me.

This photo has nothing to do with the fish camp.  It's my great-aunt and great-great uncle posing amongst their charges at the Jacksonville Alligator Farm, which they managed.  It's just a cool photo.  There were plenty of gators in the river where we swam.  We reached a truce with each other early on.  If they didn't get too close, we wouldn't clobber them with a stick.

So there you have it fellow travelers, Mr. Charleston bared to his roots.  Is this OK Susan?

Intelligent Design

I recently ran across something I first encountered while in college.  I remember how profoundly it affected me at the time and how it pretty much set the foundation for my spiritual beliefs, whatever they are.  If pressed, I would probably answer agnostic, but only because I am easily confused and the feeble attempts of most of the world's "great religions" only cloud the water further.  Regardless, the philosophical and mathematic "proofs" of a Prime Mover, Intelligent Design, God... call it what you will, are undeniable and worth a revisit if only for the all-encompassing beauty of it.



It's worthy of note that the Fibonacci Numbers referenced here were written in 1202 A.D. by Leonardo of Pisa. However, the first record of this equation goes even further back to early Indian mathematics related to Sanskrit. In other words, this has been around and understood an awfully long time, time enough, you would think, for us to have gotten our act together in some sort of cosmic harmony.

If it had happened to me, I would have killed them myself.

Over the years I have heard one group after another come up with all kinds of reasons, proofs, and studies claiming that punishment does not deter crime.  I don't agree.  Do I believe there are too many people incarcerated for non-violent crimes, yes.  Do I believe that there are far too many offenses where the punishment is worse than the crime, yes.  Do I believe that the Justice-Industrial-Complex is way out of whack, emphatically yes.  But I do not agree that harsh punishment, even execution, is a futile deterrent.

Case in point:

A wild scene unfolded in a South Carolina courtroom on Thursday when two former lovers became hysterical after receiving a pair of life sentences for the murder of a three-year-old girl.  The defendants, both 25, were living together as a couple in 2009, when police discovered the toddler covered in cuts and bruises, the Charleston Post and Courrier reports.  Butts, identified as the child's godmother, was caring for Serenity while her mother, Ieshia Richardson, moved from Detroit.

You will never convince me that anyone who knew these women or their families won't think twice.



In my view, execution would have been a proper sentence for these two. Now, the taxpayers are on the hook for the $2-million or so it's going to take to support this trash for the rest of their lives.  I have two three-year-old granddaughters. Had anyone done to them what these women did to that little girl, I would have killed them myself.

A Walk Through Occupy Baja

Sunday morning dawned overcast, rainy and chilly here in Baja Georgia.  I had read in the paper a couple of days ago that the Occupy Jacksonville movement was underway and that they were determined to create a 24-hour presence like their Wall Street brethren.  I decided to take a ride downtown and see if this was for real or just another fair weather occupation.

I was greeted by the erstwhile group who had taken up camp in front of city hall.  I thought the traffic signal was a nice touch.

This encompasses the entire Occupy movement here in Baja, an area of the country painted solidly red.  The protesters wanted to set up shop in a large, central-plaza park across the street but park rules, in an effort to discourage the homeless, prohibit camping.   Camping is also prohibited on the sidewalk so the protestors had to stay within the narrow orange brickwork between the sidewalk and the street.  But still, they seemed to be in good spirits and even offered me an apple.

Meanwhile, across the street in the central park, the real occupiers of downtown were lining up for lunch, along with Bibles, being distributed by a small Christian church.  People on the front lines trying to make a difference.  Conspicuous by their absence were congregates of the 20,000-member First Baptist Mega-Church located just one block away.

Residents enjoying their lunch and a card game.  Note iPod headphones.  I guess life on the street for some ain't as austere as we've been led to believe.

Another resident, enjoying her brown-bag lunch and a new Bible, loudly proclaiming to one of the church members, "Ya'll oughtta be gittin' paid for this!"  "Ya'll shouldn't be out here doin' this for free."  I'm not sure which is the case, she doesn't understand Christian charity or Economics 101.  Apparently, both.  But she was happy.

Another resident, who disturbingly looked like she could be any one of us, found a quiet spot to read her Bible and enjoy lunch.

An interesting juxtaposition, the facade of Baja's new $350 million courthouse located two blocks from the square.  Justice has its cost.

The facade of another $350-million Baja boondoggle.  A place where, in Jesse Jackson's words, "My people can entertain you" before they visit a more familiar facade.

A Love Song For The Ages... or is that Aged!

Spooktacular Weekend

Decided at the last minute to hitch a ride up to North Carolina with daughter #2 to visit daughter #1 and party with the grandkids over All Hallow's Eve.  Let me tell you, Halloween ain't what it used to be.  But first, I guess I should share that I live in a pretty secluded house at the end of a sparsely populated street and therefore, rarely get any trick-or-treaters at my door.  Now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time a goblin visited my abode during what is becoming America's most rapidly growing holiday, (I always thought a holiday meant a day off work.) one that's beginning to rival Christmas for sales of junk and New Year's Eve for partying in the streets.

I really didn't realize the full truth of that last statement until this past weekend.  Daughter #2 lives in a fairly new development, one of nice homes and an active homeowners association that organizes community events that bring neighbors together.  Halloween is such an event.  While not sponsored by the association per se, all of the residents agree to work together to make it a real event for the kids and a party for the adults.  It was the perfect trick-or-treat fest with hundreds of spooks of all kinds parading throughout the neighborhood collecting treats that were mostly goodies from health conscious parents.

Our crew (4 grandkids and friends) ready for action.

Some people are simply over the top.  This is the morning-after shot and doesn't begin to illustrate the full extent of this place.  Man-made fog, lights, characters in costume jumping out at the tricksters.  A tunnel with a dead man rising from a coffin.  Hundreds of spooky characters, cob webs, tombstones and colored lights.  The kids loved it, and I must say, so did I, but I can't imagine even beginning to duplicate it.  The owner told me it took he and his family 40-hours over three days to erect it.

I couldn't resist a day in the mountains and the fall colors.  Had some beautiful shots to share with you but an evil flash card ate most all of them.  This is from the top of Morrow Mountain State Park just east of Charlotte.

A B&B I ran across in Ansonville, NC, a pretty little town near the Uwharrie National Forest and Morrow Mountain Park.