Millions of Exaggerations

New Blog

2010-06-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know that I have moved this blog over to exaggerations.wordpress.com so, update your "follows" if you want to keep in the loop :) I'd certainly be happy if you did! Anyway, there's a new post over there so now is a great time to go and check it out!

A Funeral, Some History, and a Big Ole Steaming Pile of HUH?

2010-06-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

I gotta say, as far as weeks go, this past one really sucked. Why? Glad you asked…

On Tuesday morning, I got the call I feel like I’ve been waiting years for, my great-grandmother (and last remaining grand parent) passed away. It’s funny the reaction you get from people when you tell them you have a death in the family and then the entirely different reaction when you tell them it was your great-grandmother. The closest I can describe it is as going from “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss” to “Oh, well that’s not so bad, is it?” Grandma, to me, was never any different from my other grandparents and I was fortunate enough as a child to get to spend a good amount of time with her in that capacity. I think the times I became most upset this past week over her passing was when I recalled her laugh, which she pretty much did anytime she spoke. I always found comfort knowing that she was in the world, but I know that she has had a rough few years and is in a much better place where oil never spills, no one straps bombs to themselves, and you ALWAYS get the correct change. I’m thankful that I have a lot of memories of a healthy and happy Grandma, and very much thankful that I can still hear that laugh in my head.

The funeral was Thursday morning in Laurens, SC. A few Wikipedia provided tidbits about Laurens: It was named after Henry Laurens who was president of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War. Population was close to 10,000 in 2000. The earliest reference to the name Laurens was in a town charter in 1873, but prior to this it is thought that it was called Laurensville. It was the home of blues musician Pink Anderson, who if you are versed in useless trivia, is also where the Pink in Pink Floyd came from.

Laurens is also the childhood home of the lead singer of Kool and the Gang. I can’t help but wonder if there are cover bands like Lukewarm and the Crew doing their own renditions of Ladies Night in Laurens somewhere.

I got to spend a bit of time with some relatives at my Uncle Bud’s house. He’s actually more like my great-uncle since he’s Grandma’s son. We pretty much sat in his sun room and talked and watched all the purple martins he had roosting outside. Bud has an even hundred gourds up and every one of them has martins in residence. It was good to just sit and watch them.

Now’s probably a good time to mention that since Tuesday, I’ve had a middle and outer ear infection in my right ear. Good times, right? Even now my hearing is far from 100% in my right ear. This makes the slight hearing loss in my left ear from playing in bands a little more troublesome. So, for the majority of the week, I’ve been saying “Huh?” and turning my “good” ear towards people…kinda like you’d do when imitating old people when you were a kid. I feel like that one has come back and bit me squarely on the butt.

Ear infections are not only painful, but they age you a lot. Here is a photo of me at the funeral.

So, besides the ear thing plus Grandma passing, it was a pretty uneventful week. Nate and I ventured out to “Historic Camden” Sunday in an attempt to come up with something blog worthy, but I don’t know if it was the heat, the ear, or what, but I admit that I came up short this week.

The most interesting find was the grave of Abraham Lincoln’s brother-in-law right here in Camden. I don’t know why, but I feel this to be intensely interesting that someone so close to such famous people is buried right in the town I live in, in the old Quaker Cemetery specifically. Dr. GRC Todd apparently worked and served as a surgeon during the Civil War in Camden. At one point he was arrested and charged with the death of a white woman and her baby. The newspaper at the time cited her death as the result of an abortion from Dr. Todd, which he was subsequently arrested for and charged with malpractice and with performing a criminal operation. Dr Todd died from a self-administered chloroform overdose. There was no mention in the material I read that indicated if this was a suicide or an accident, however it was noted that after the death of his wife, he suffered deep melancholy. Scandelous!

One of my absolute favorites of this location is the grave of Agnes of Glasgow. Who was she? I have no idea. The etched scrawl in the headstone simply says "Here lies the body of Agnes of Glasgow, departed this life Feb. 12, 1780. Aged 20." There are a lot of different stories swimming around about this enigmatic yet real person named Agnes. The seemingly traditionally accepted story is that she followed her lover, who was a British Soldier coming over to fight in the Revolutionary War, but she died before finding him. It is also said that a man named King Haigler and his men buried her under the cover of darkness. I'm not sure if King Haigler was a part of the Wateree Indians or if he was the great Catawba chief. In any case, the story of Agnes is open to the imagination and I've read of some really juicy theories as to who she was. If anyone wants to know more, perhaps I'll do some in-depth digging and dedicate a post to Agnes and/or King Haigler. The stories are fantastic! Maybe I'll even do it if you don't ask. So there.

Below are just a few pictures I snapped while I was out and about Sunday. Enjoy!

The Kershaw-Cornwallis House. This is a reconstruction of the original that was burned by the Union troops in 1865. I'm told that the vehicles are an accurate representation of transportation of that era.

These are old Quaker graves,which have no markings identifying the person laid to rest here. Makes you wonder why they even bothered with the bricks.

That's weird because Nate was right behind me in the car when I took this pict-OH MY GOD A GHOST!!!!!!!! Just kidding. It really is Nate. You're so gullible.

As always, I love feedback, so don’t hesitate to leave me some below!

Passing

2010-05-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Rest In Peace Estelle Brewer Templeton AKA Grandma

Weekend Adventures 5/21/10 - 5/23/10

2010-05-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my first Weekend Adventures post! Yay! For those less enthusiastic, Um...yep.

As listed in my previous post, Friday was a day of baseball and what a day it was! My buddy Joe and I left straight from work and went by his parents' to change out of our work clothes and in to proper baseball game attending attire. His folks live in a high rise just on the other side of the Congaree River with an awesome view of Columbia, the river, and even the baseball stadium. Joe's dad took me out on the balcony to show me the view and regrettably, I didn't get any pictures but it was a pretty awesome view. It'll just have to be a secret I am keeping from you. So there.

After donning appropriate fan attire, we headed out to a place called Vella's for some pre-game chicken wings.

The atmosphere was pretty typical sports bar motif except they had a pretty cool mural on the wall for various South Carolina Sports teams. The service was pretty good as well, but the wings were average at best.

Once leaving there, it was finally time to head to the stadium. Since Vella's is only a mile and a half from the ball field, it was pretty short hop back across the Congaree. Parking was pretty scarce and we were worried that we may not find something close, but Joe let the attendant know that he is in a wheelchair and we were given a pretty close spot. I don't know if they forgot to charge us or what, but we didn't have to pay the $10 for the spot.

Rather than going to our ticketed seats, we found a great spot in the handicap section of left field...right about where a good bit of home runs are hit. As you can see from the picture of Joe, we were pretty close to the scoreboard.

The stadium was jammed packed with people. In fact, it was a record breaking attendance for the 2-year-old stadium at 8,242 fans in attendance. The section we were in was full of some great and informative (see below) fans. These games are absolutely a blast when you have a crowd that is in to the game. From where we were, we could see right into the Florida bullpen and were super close to the left fielder.

Speaking of the left fielder...

As I mentioned above, we had a very informative crowd around us. They knew, for instance, that the left fielder for Florida, #18 was named Tyler (here is his info for all interested). The Carolina fans were just absolutely great and asked this young man a number of times about his mom and his girlfriend. There were frequent reminders for him not to look back towards us so he could keep his head in the game and show lots of hustle out there. Someone even suggested to #18, in a voice very akin to Arnold Schwarzenegger, that he may have gotten the wrong size jersey and should pump some iron to fill it up.

This is #18 just after expressing his thanks to the crowd for their concern for his mother

In the end though, Carolina lost the game and the SEC regular season championship. It was still a lot of fun and it was exciting that Carolina could have tied the series and made for one heck of a great show the next day for game 3...which sadly, I did not attend. I received a voice mail from Joe Saturday morning telling me that there had been some sort of family emergency and he couldn't make it to the game. Since I couldn't find anyone else to go with and because I was not feeling well (sinuses, cold, etc) I elected to not go either. I watched the game on TV and it was a fantastic game that I have been kicking myself for missing.

Saturday was pretty uneventful. My wife, Amy, invited her friend April over for some knitting and general girl time. I hung around long enough for chicken wings (what is with me and chicken wings this weekend???) then retired early on account of not feeling well.

Sunday was fantastic! We took a trip to McBee (pronounced Mac-bee...trust me...do not say it the other way nor argue over it...i'm pretty sure there have been lives lost over this. In private, I say it just like its spelled, but I comply when around locals). McBee is a small town (population about 700) in Chesterfield county and was named for railroad executive VE "Bunch" McBee. The heart of McBee is this heavenly place called McLeod Farms where you can get fresh produce and all sorts of home made stuff like jellies, jams, and bread.

McLeod Farms has been around since 1916 and remains family owned and operated. The farm's signature fruit is peaches. They grow 30 varieties of peach on 700 acres of land. In late March, the farm begins to harvest its 15 acres of strawberries, which are always very tasty. They pretty much grow any number of things all throughout the year, but the peaches and the strawberries were our hauls this go round.

Amy, Tammy, and April a shoppin'

Nate with a "kiddie" scoop

Right next door to the roadside market is McLeod Farms' Antique Museum and is packed to the gills with antique cars, tractors, and memorabilia. Nate loves to play on all the antique tractors here and we have to refer to the market as the tractor place so he'll know where it is we're going. It is definitely worth a look since you're already there and its 100% free.

To the rear of the market and the museum is Big's Meats and More which not only has fresh cuts of meat but serves up some super awesome food...I highly recommend their steak salad.

Sadly, Big's closes at 3pm (which seems ridiculous to me during the busy season), so we were not able to get some yummy fresh cooked food. We did, however settle for some ice cream before heading back home. (Note in the picture how everyone is conveniently avoiding the camera except for April who is texting as usual).

And that pretty much wraps up the weekend. Don't you just feel like you were on an insanely awesome adventure? Stay tuned for next weekend where I'm planning to tour some historical sites, so you won't want to miss it (unless you don't like history in which case you'd probably be okay to miss it but you really shouldn't because...well...because I'll make you feel bad. So there.).

Feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, or requests! I'll leave you all with a picture of Nate's cuteness. Please let me know if you can figure out what he's doing...cause I don't have a clue. Enjoy!

Baseball, Baseball Everywhere!

2010-05-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

So, I'm not typically a huge sports guy. I mean, I will watch football on occasion but usually this is only with other people who actually are football fans and I'm riding off of their enthusiasm. In my childhood, though, I loved baseball. Somewhere between salary strikes and adolescence I stopped caring about it. I've noticed, though, for the past few years, I've been gradually coming back to the game. What started out with playing baseball games on PS3, moved to watching on TV, and has escalated to actually attending my first real game a few weeks ago on 5/5/10 to watch the South Carolina Gamecocks play the Winthrop Eagles...and now I am hooked.

Tonight, I have plans to attend South Carolina vs Florida for a series that will determine the SEC regular season champs! I'm pretty excited about this. Last night was game 1 of 3 and Carolina lost, so I'm hoping for a tied win tonight because I have tickets for the game tomorrow too and that would just make for some really great baseball!

Behold my ticket picture-taking skillz

Hello

2010-05-11T16:22:00.001-07:00

Listen,

I've told you a million times. Stop exaggerating.

-Me

PS/FYI/CYA/TMI/ASAP - I'm trying this blogging thing again.