Lincoln

My "L" post for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge is not a place, but a person.

150 years ago, April 14, 1865, was Good Friday.  Just a few days before, April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General U.S. Grant.  Although this action did NOT end the Civil War, (and I am one of many who believe it has never truly ended), many had rejoiced at the news.

But not everyone.

Some of those "not everyones" plotted to assassinate the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and two of his successors - the Vice-President and the Secretary of State, to totally disrupt the United States government.

The night of April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, his wife, Henry Rathbone (an Army officer) and Rathbone's fiance,  watched a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC.  In those days Presidents were not guarded.

At around 10:15pm, an acclaimed actor and Confederate sympathizer,  John Wilkes Booth, entered Lincoln's private box and shot Lincoln in the back of his head.  The wound proved to be fatal.  Lincoln died the next day.

So what is so beautiful about that?  Well, 150 years later, the ways we pay tribute to Abraham Lincoln show how deep he is embedded in our national consciousness.

In Columbia, South Carolina, the capital of the first state to secede from the Union after Lincoln was elected President, I found this silver maple bust of Abraham Lincoln in a university museum exhibit called Crafting Civil (War) Conversations last month.

 In New York City, this plaque, near to one of the entrances to the High Line (on West 30th between 9th and 10th Avenues) tells a story of long ago.

In Vandalia, Illinois, I found a duplicate of a Lincoln Life Mask made in 1960.

In Vandalia, I also found a city park .  Lincoln began his political career in Vandalia, a city where his memory is constantly honored.  I once blogged about eating a tuna sandwich on that bench.

The aftermath of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln still echoes in our country even today, 150 years later.  Many cites or towns in our nation are called Lincoln or a variation (i.e. Lincoln Park) but not all of them are named after Abraham Lincoln (I found, for example, at least one error in this map).  Even today, there are people who revere Lincoln's memory and people who despise it.

However you feel, Lincoln has become an integral part of America the Beautiful.

Kansas

K day at the Blogging from A to Z Challenge brings me back to a memory of long ago.

So far I've had such a fun time crafting posts for each letter of the alphabet, in order, using my theme of America the Beautiful

It's time to talk about a state almost at the center of the United States - Kansas.

Not long after I moved to Kansas in 1977, due to my husband being stationed at McConnell Air Force Base near Wichita, Kansas, this song came out.

"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas.
All we are is dust in the wind.....

When I found out I was to be living in Wichita, Kansas, I was less than happy (to put it mildly).  I was hoping to go to graduate school to become a librarian, and the nearest library school to Wichita was in Emporia, some 90 miles away.  This was long before the days of the Internet and today's type of distance education.  And, as someone who grew up in New York City, I just knew that Wichita was part of the Western Frontier, complete with tumbling tumbleweeds and wild cowboys smashing up saloons on Saturday night.  OK, maybe not the cowboy part, but I was convinced Wichita was an archaic cowtown filled with wind, dust and tornadoes.

I had obviously watched too many Westerns while growing up in the 50's and 60's.  Although the wind part is true.

Wichita was a total surprise to me.  It was literally love at first sight.

Once I  found the Mid-America All-Indian Center, and attended my first Wichita River Festival, I was hooked.  For the first six months I lived in Wichita, I lived in walking distance of the Mid-America All-Indian Center.

This print (?) by the late Native American artist Woody Crumbo still hangs on my wall

What symbolized Wichita for me (besides discovering the works of Woody Crumbo) were the works of Native American artist Blackbear Boisin.  One of these works was a statue called the Keeper of the Plains that stood at the confluence of the Arkansas (pronounced by Wichitans "ar-KAN-sas") and Little Arkansas rivers.  When planning this post, I wondered if the statue still existed.

It does, and, after recent renovations, it is more breathtaking than ever.

There is even a mystery surrounding my first few months in Wichita I have not yet solved.  Wouldn't it be great if one of my readers could give me a lead?

Perhaps, one day, I will return and see how Kansas has become in the over thirty years since I lived there.

Civil War Sunday - The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Today, I have a challenge.  More and more, foreign readers enjoy my United States-based blog, and I have to make Sundays, when I write about American history (specifically our Civil War), interesting to them.  I also want to make history interesting to all of my readers, because too many of them were taught history in a way that makes them equate history with boredom.

So, today, lets go back 150 years and a handful of days.  Back in 1861, a portion of the United States had split off, formed the Confederate States of America, and had been fighting a war against the United States for some four years.  Let's go back to April, 1865.

On April 9, 1865, according to what too many of us seem to have learned in school, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and the Civil War was over.  Right?

Not exactly. The true story is fascinating, and, to tell it, I need to backtrack a bit.

Starting with the election of third party candidate Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States in November, 1860, certain Southern states felt the need to secede from the United States.

To this day, the first state to secede, South Carolina, has a copy of the Ordinance of Secession in an honored place in their state capital at Columbia, which I visited last month.

Then, in April, 1861, shots were fired at a fort in Charleston Harbor (again, South Carolina) called Ft. Sumter and active hostilities began.

The first major battle was fought near  Bull Run Creek near Manassas, in Virginia and that, in a way, is where today's story starts. The Battle of what Northerners call First Bull Run and Southerners call First Manassas (yes, both sides even named the Civil War battles differently)  started with shots fired at a house owned by a man by the name of Wilbur McLean.  His house was being used as a headquarters by Confederate General, P.G.T. Beauregard, who was also the Confederate general who commanded the defenses of Charleston, and whose aides ordered the shots be fired on Ft. Sumter.

So First Bull Run was fought on McLean's property.  A cannonball even fell in his kitchen.

In August of 1861, a major battle was fought many miles away, in Missouri - Wilson's Creek - which so many people have never heard of because the Western battles are almost never mentioned.  As I've blogged about so many times, the western events of the Civil War tend to be ignored in our popular education.  (I'll get back to that, later, too.)  But for now, back to McLean.

Some time after the First and Second Battles of Bull Run/Manassas, McLean decided things weren't too safe in his part of Northern Virginia for him, his family, or his business, so he moved south, to a small settlement he felt was safely away from the war.  Its name was Appomattox Court House.

The keen reader may see where this story is headed, but please bear with me a few more minutes.

On January 31, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was promoted to general-in-chief of the Confederate forces. On April 2, Petersburg, Virginia (which had been under siege for months) fell.  Lee felt the nearby Confederate capital, Richmond, was no longer defensible. He withdrew his troops and Richmond fell on April 3.

Lee, realizing he was surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, started to send dispatches to Union General U.S. Grant on April 7 while he continued to fight on.  On April 9, 1865, Palm Sunday, Lee met with Grant in a parlor in the most impressive house in a nearby community....yes, Wilbur McLean's house in Appomattox Court House Virginia.

As I've said so many times before, you can't make this stuff up.

After Lee's surrender, troops from both sides swept through the house. They bought (or took) McLean's belongings from the parlor where the surrender had taken place as souvenirs.  General George Armstrong Custer (later of fame at Little Big Horn) ended up with the table that the surrender was signed on.  (Custer's widow bequeathed the table to the Smithsonian.)

But, Lee did not surrender the entire Confederate Army, just the army he personally commanded, the Army of Northern Virginia.  And the Civil War was not over.  This wasn't even the largest surrender of Confederate troops, which would not take place until April 26, at Bennett Place, between Greensboro and  Raleigh, North Carolina. And the war dragged on in the West.  The last large Confederate surrender came at Galveston, Texas, on June 2, 1865.  Once again, the western theatre of war has been neglected.

And, in my view, the war never ended - just the active hostilities.  In fact, a Confederate flag still flies on the grounds of the state capital in Columbia, South Carolina.

But the first surrender made the other surrenders of the various Confederate armies just a matter of time.

With Lee's surrender, though, you may wonder if I intend to continue Civil War Sunday.  Yes, at least for the immediate future.  Some of the after-stories are just as fascinating as the war stories.

History, after all, is the history of US (as someone else said) - the United States, and the human race.

Jabber Waulkie

Beware, my reader, of the Jabber Waulkie!

Today is "J" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  We are almost halfway through this annual April challenge, where bloggers must make a daily blog post (exclusing Sundays) in the order of each letter of the English alphabet.  26 days, 26 letters, 26 days of fun.

My theme is America the Beautiful and today I am bringing you to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York - Seneca Lake, in particular.

Before I tell you about the Jabber Waulkie, I need to explain a little about the Finger Lakes.   These are a series of some 14 lakes, aligned north to south, and so long and narrow they look like fingers from above.  The arrangement of the lakes makes for a microclime that has milder weather than the surrounding parts of New York, and the clime is perfect for growing grapes.  Someone is even trying to get a tea plantation established, a post for another day.

As a result some of the Finger Lakes, such as Seneca (the "middle finger"), have become one of the premier wine making regions of the United States.   In some places along the the Eastern shore of Seneca Lake, you find winery after winery.  If there were sidewalks, you could practically walk (or stagger, after a while) from winery to winery.

And, there is something else about Seneca Lake.  It has its own monster, just like Nessie of Loch Ness and Champ of Lake Champlain.

Its name, supposedly, is Jabber Waulkie.  The Native Americans of the region claimed Seneca Lake was bottomless and had a monster.  In 1899, it was supposedly killed. Or not.  The lake is some 618 feet deep, and the bottom is below sea level, so who knows?

Seems all Internet discussions of Jabber Waulkie point to one winery in particular, JR Dill. What the heck.  I visited the winery, and had some Jabber Waulkie wine. (I liked it.)

Each winery has its own special touch.  At J.R Dill, their tasting bar has beautiful glass embedded in it.

I highly recommend visiting the Finger Lakes even if you aren't a wine drinker.  If you are interested, I can write some more blog posts about the region.

I wanted to close by giving shout outs to some fellow A to Z'ers.  I've found several interesting blogs in my A to Z journey.  These aren't all of them; hopefully will include some more links next week.

CollectInTexasGal (vintage photos and memories of growing up in Texas)
Rosie Amber
Hungry Enough to Eat Six (food blog, doing vintage cookbooks this month.
And, one I have to give an "R" rating to, but I enjoy this most hilarious (and, at times, raunchy, and totally inappropriate ) blog and its send up of Martha Stewart for the month of April.  The rest of the time she is...well, who she is.  Life by Chocolate.  (Hopefully, no one gets offended.)

Tomorrow-off day, will be my usual Civil War Sunday theme.  On Monday, off to somewhere with a K.

Impossible

I dream the Impossible dream, on this I day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

My theme is America the Beautiful.  Today, I blog about a flower that creates beauty in many parts of the United States.

Look upon this beautiful flower.  It is called a Camilla.

Camden, South Carolina, 2015

Here is another.

 Summerville, South Carolina, 2014

By now, you are asking why I am using this for my "I" post.  Well, the theme for today is Impossible.

I fell in love with camellias for the first time in 2010, when I visited Americus, Georgia in late March.  I saw shrubs in bloom with what seemed to be roses.  But they obviously weren't roses.

I pondered what the flowers were, and then it came to me.

They were camellias.  They bloom through the winter in some places.  The plants have beautiful evergreen foliage. They have been my dream plant in years, as in "dream on".

Where I live, in upstate New York, we don't have much of anything in bloom in late March.

The common wisdom says camillas are impossible to grow where I live.  I am positive I saw a camellia blooming once in Brooklyn, which is USDA zone 6b, but would be pushing it, even for the most hardy of Camillas.  In my zone 5b garden, they would be a no go.

Or, would they?  After reading an article in the NY Times about camillas, my heart started to beat faster.  Because there is a camilla nursery near Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  A camilla nursery the author of the article trusts.  And (be still my heart) they had a single white camilla called Survivor.  It's rated to zone 6A.

With protection, would it grow for me in my zone 5b garden? (we got to -8 at my house this winter.)  Would I travel to Chapel Hill  to buy one of these plants, bring it home, and try the impossible?

Yes, we would.  And we did.  Meet April Rose, the hardiest camilla the nursery said they sold.

She (and yes, to me the plant is a "she") wasn't in bloom, but she had several buds.  So we bought her, and we carried her around on a vacation.  During that time, her first bloom opened.

Now, our job is to keep her alive through next winter.  On Pinterest, I found a photo of another April Rose pinned by someone on Cape Cod, which is northeast of us, in Massachusetts.

Maybe we can do it, too.

Thrive, April Rose, Thrive!  Make my Impossible Dream come true!

High (Line)

A beautiful echinacea plant blooming in the heart of....

Manhattan?  Just the thing for a dreary spring day in the Northeast U.S..

My post for the letter H in the Blogging from A to Z challenge is devoted to a park that surprises many who visit New York City - the High Line.  My theme is America the Beautiful.  And, right now, the Northeast United States is starved for spring.

If you think that New York City is a city devoid of green, think again. 

Take a walk on the High Line, especially in summer, and you will see a different New York City than you have ever imagined.

Let us climb these stairs and let me take you on a walk on the High Line -  a walk my spouse and I took back in July of 2013.  At the time, the High Line was not yet completed - it is, now.

The High Line is an elevated park in Manhattan (the borough of New York City that most people think of when they think of New York City) that was originally an elevated freight line.  The last train ran in 1980.  The first part of the High Line opened in 2009.

Taken from below

The park features the most beautiful displays of prairie and other wildflowers, trees plus artworks (sculpture, etc.), water features, and refreshment vendors.  You can download a flower guide from the High Line website if you are interested in the flowers you see in season.

Here is one of the pieces of art on display when we walked.  These change periodically, and you can download a guide to the art, too.

From the High Line you see a combination of old and new buildings.

So many people walk on the High Line that advertisers target them with clever signs.

I will leave you with one more view of flowers thriving in Manhattan.

You'll never think of New York City in the same way again.

Garden

Let's visit a garden in South Carolina for this "G" day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.
My theme is America the Beautiful.

The word "garden" is inadequate when it comes to describing what I am about to show you. 
Let's try some other words.  Masterpiece.  Unbelievable.  Inspiring.

Pearl Fryar is a 75 year old man living in Bishopville, South Carolina.  My husband and I met Mr. Fryar in late March, outside his home.  He was sitting on his tractor, and was happy to talk.

This is his home.

Mr. Fryar told us that he had come to Bishopville from the borough of Queens, in New York City, when his job transferred him to this area around 1976.  He and his wife, both African-Americans, purchased a lot - really, a cornfield- in an all white neighborhood, in order to build a house.  To say that his new neighbors were not happy with people of color moving in might be an understatement.

They said African Americans couldn't keep up their yards. Mr. Fryar decided to prove them wrong - with love.  He took a three minute course in topiary and the rest has become, as they say, history.

Welcome to the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, also known as Pearl Fryar's backyard.  Yes, his backyard.

When you view these plants, keep in mind that this man is self taught, and many of these plants are throwaway plants, or donations. (Now, Pearl has helpers, and donations are always welcome. Admission is free).

The artwork is made from scrap metal.  Love is the topic of many of the art pieces.

These pictures don't begin to show the beauty of this garden.

Like all of his art work, Pearl Fryar seeks to inspire, and to spread love. On the left, this says "Hate hurts".  Another message is:  "You can be somebody."

Admission is free, but donations are accepted.  The gardens are open Tuesday through Saturday.

Now, people come from all over the world to meet Pearl Fryar, the gardener of love.  And those neighbors?  Well, many have turned their yards to topiary, too.

One plant.  One man.  This garden is full of lessons, if we allow it to teach us.

Flowertown

We are up to the letter F at the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge, where thousands of bloggers are blogging six days a week, basing their blog posts on one letter of the alphabet.  I am using the theme of America the Beautiful for most of my posts.

Queen Anne's Lace from Last Year with Snow Topping

I appreciate flowers so much at this time of year.  Here is an example of a typical flower you may find where I live in upstate New York (photo taken yesterday by my "guest photographer") in early April.

On the other hand....

Summerville, South Carolina, is called "Flowertown in the Pines".

Flowers.  As in, REAL FLOWERS.

We will not see azaleas for several more weeks where I live in upstate New York. But, in Summerville, South Carolina, the azaleas are in bloom right now.

This picture was taken in Summerville (about 25 miles, or 41 km from Charleston, South Carolina) during last year's Flowertown Festival. This festival normally takes place at the end of March or beginning of April in their Azalea Park.


Appropriately, this variety is called the Pride of Summerville.

Here is a purple azalea.

One more shot, this time azaleas near water.

There is a lot more to this park than azaleas.  It is worth a visit if you are in the area.

Spring takes a long time to come where I live.  But I have my memories of South Carolina warmth and beauty to sustain me until then.  One day, the breezes will turn warm and we will be complaining that it is too hot.

But the heat will bring the flowers, and I will be happy.

Do you have a favorite flower?

Tomorrow - a garden people come from over the world to see.  And it is in someone's yard.

Earthquake (Bolts)

"E" day at the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Charleston, South Carolina, lives under a triple threat of disaster:  earthquake,  hurricane and tsunami.  Actually, make it four - flood, too.

These people are survivors, and it shows in their historic buildings.

If you walk through downtown Charleston, you will see buildings with strange metal objects on the walls.  Everything in Charleston has a story, and these objects are no exception.

Here is one of these close up.  If you think they are decorations, you are only partially right.

On the afternoon of September 1, 1886 a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit Charleston.  Almost every building in the city was damaged, and damage extended as far north as Maine and as far west as Iowa.

Back in 1865, in the closing months of the United States Civil War, Union troops had burned down a lot of Charleston (the city where the war started).  Times had been hard.  Even by 1886, the city, and the people, didn't have many resources to rebuild.

So they did the next best thing.  They took the buildings, put them back together as best they could, and ran long iron rods through the walls for reinforcement.  The end plates, called gib plates, anchor the rods.  Many have a decorated cap and are decorated with lions heads, stars or even wings.

The Peter Bocquet House, above, dates from 1770 and would have been lost to history if not for what the people of Charleston had to do out of necessity.

Here's one more for you, on either side of the window above.

No one knows if these "earthquake bolts" will work until the next "big one" comes. 

Civil War Sunday - The Making of a Country

Today, Sunday, is a "free day" from the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  On Sundays I normally feature a "Civil War Sunday" based on my thoughts on the United States Civil War.  I am not a buff or a historian, just someone who enjoys learning about history.

As so many have pointed out, there are several months in the history of the United States that shaped, for good or for bad, what our country is today.  One of these months was April, 1865.

One hundred fifty years ago yesterday, a sitting president of the United States walked the street of a smoldering, defeated city.  In these, the final days of the Civil War, the city of Richmond, Virginia (the capital of the Confederate States of America) had been abandoned by its defenders.  On April 2, 1865, orders were given to evacuate the city, and fires were set to destroy what the fleeing people could not carry.

On April 3, the city of Richmond fell to Federal troops.  The Confederate government fled to Danville, Virginia (and eventually, to several other points South as the war ended and Virginia was increasingly full of Federal troops).  One of those fleeing was its President, Jefferson Davis.  Today, near Richmond, his name exists - in highway signs, in historical markers, and in other ways.

(Richmond, Virginia, is rich in history, and well worth a visit.  Shamefully, I have only passed through, on a train, and have never stopped.)

On April 4, the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, walked the streets of Richmond with his son, Tad.  This would be unimaginable today.

In the coming days, Confederate generals, starting with Robert E. Lee (on April 9, 1865-Palm Sunday), would surrender their troops.  (Contrary to popular belief, Lee's surrender DID NOT end the war.)  President Lincoln would be assassinated and the Vice-President (a native of a Confederate state) would assume the Presidency. 

There was the possibility of the Confederates continuing the Civil War in a guerrilla action.

If that had happened, the United States might not exist today.  Guerrilla wars are not easy to fight, as the U.S. learned, to its sorrow, in the 20th century.

If it wasn't for the Civil War, our country would not be the country it is today.  Others have written more eloquently on this topic, but, until the Civil War, our primary allegiance was to our state  We were citizens of New York, of Virginia, of whichever state we lived in.  After the war, and into today, we still are proud of where we were born, but we are citizens of the United States.

On April 5, 1865, our nation had no idea what was to come in the month of April.  Join me every Sunday this month, and explore this history with me.  Next Sunday - Lee's surrender.

(Tomorrow -the letter E in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.)

Departures

It was a spring morning Thursday in Mt. Airy,  North Carolina, the boyhood home of the late actor Andy Griffith (and the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry the "Andy Griffith Show" took place in).  The birds had started to sing around 4:30 am and one finally woke me up.

Purple Bush flowering in Mt. Airy, North Carolina

We had to get up early to depart for home, as our vacation was over.  I knew early on that this morning departure would be the topic of my D post for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  (Tomorrow is an off day, and I will continue my Civil War Sunday feature.  Monday I will be back with a post starting with the letter E.)

The Southern air reluctantly gave up its sweet smell of spring to my Northern nostrils.  In the 5:30 am dark, I could not see the line of blooming Bradford pears or the flowering purple bush that had gladdened my heart the evening before.

The birds sang even more strongly as sunrise approached, some of their tunes unfamiliar to me.  Was their song a promise that spring would finally come to New York?  I don't speak Bird, so I don't know.

We headed out after a quick breakfast.

Mt. Airy is close to the North Carolina/Virginia border, near an area called Fancy Gap.  It is scenic, but early morning fogs can be deadly - over the years there have been several deadly pileups.  The most recent ones I know of were in March and May of 2013 - three dead in a 75 car pileup in the March incident.

The Interstate (I-77 heading north into Virginia) is heavily lined with reflectors and signs warning of fog.  On the edges of each exit, we saw lines of tractor trailers which had parked there for the night, glowing in the reflected light.  Their lights were on and they were getting ready to head out, too.  There was to be no fog this morning.

Not long after, the eastern horizon started to redden.  The display went on for what seemed to be forever, as the rolling hills lined with farms slowly became visible.

The sun finally rose.

It was time to head home to upstate New York.

Commemoration

Today is C day at the Blogging from A to Z Challenge,and, sadly today's letter is no challenge for me at all.

My theme is America the Beautiful.  But sometimes, our beautiful country has a moment of tragic ugliness.

On April 3, 2009, a gunman burst into an adult education classroom at the American Civic Association, blocks from where I work in downtown Binghamton, New York.  Within minutes, 14 people (including the gunman) were dead.

My first blog post, April 10, 2009, was taken from an email I sent to some friends after receiving phone calls and emails asking if I was all right.  It wasn't quite an eye witness report, but you can, if you want, call it the impressions of someone on the fringe of a tragic event.

Today, a monument on the edge of downtown Binghamton, New York commemorates the lives of those lost.

Through the months and years, I've blogged about the aftermath of the shooting a number of times.  I didn't know any of the dead personally, although I work with someone whose mother in law was in the building (she wasn't injured, but spent hours hiding with others in a room, until rescued by police).  In some way, it  changed the lives of everyone living or working in Binghamton  Additionally, for me, it was the triggering event for starting my blog.

Roberta King, a mother and grandmother, was the teacher - a substitute teacher, at that.  She took the class from the normal teacher, who had taken the day off to celebrate her 40th wedding anniversary.

Those who died that day (I refuse to call them "victims") came from all over the world.  Here are some of the monuments to the dead.

Marc Bernard and his wife came from Haiti to seek a better life here in Binghamton.

They left two orphaned children

Dolores Yigal came from the Philippines.

And Maria Zobniw came here as young child from the Ukraine. 

Each of the dead has a soaring bird as a symbol

Although I don't show the monuments of all the dead, they are all cherished and remembered today by our community and their families.

In a way, it is hard to believe that six years have passed since that day.

Is there a special day (good or bad) in your life that you commemorate?

Bookstores

Today is B day at the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, , where my theme for the month will be America the Beautiful. My personal challenge is also to use photos on my phone, and on my computer, and not let them languish any longer in cyber darkness.

My fear about A to Z has come true - in a good way.  Thank you, everyone who commented on my blog yesterday.  I am not in a position to reply to most of your comments.  I am hoping for tonight, but the next two or three days may be a little difficult for me.  Please bear with me, and thank you for reading.

Today, I am blogging about a bookstore in a small city about 25 miles (41 km) from Charleston, South Carolina called Summerville.

I so love running across independent bookstores when I travel.  This one was closed when I came to see the azaleas blooming in a nearby park last April.  From a distance, this is what the store looked like.

It was a Little Bookstore.

No, wait.  It was a Very Little Bookstore. 

This was the view through the window.

I understand this is a children's bookstore. Too bad it was closed.  I still would have enjoyed checking it out.

So this year I returned and - guess what.  It was closed.  Bad timing!

You have your chain bookstores, you have your massive online stores, and you have indie stores, full of heart, love, and knowledge.  They are a lovely part of America the Beautiful.  One day, I may make it to this bookstore, which is over 800 miles from where I live in upstate New York.

I hope to blog about Summerville, South Carolina some more as the A to Z challenge continues.


Do you have a favorite indie bookstore?

Autism

Today starts the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, where thousands of bloggers are beginning a month long challenge to blog six days a week basing the blog on one letter of the alphabet. We blog for six days a week and Sundays are a "free" day.

Today, April 1, our blog posts are to about a topic beginning with "A". Tomorrow, "B", and so forth.

Blogging about A for Autism is a natural for me.

I am the proud sister in law of a man in his 50's with autism, a developmental disability that impacts the ability of a person to interact socially and communicate with others.  Autism is a spectrum disorder - some individuals can live lives with less help than others.  Many never live up to their full potential, although there is increasing hope for good jobs.

Sign in Charleston, South Carolina, March 2015

Autism has been in my life for almost forty-five years. It entered my life almost to the day I started to date my spouse.  It entered quietly in the form of his younger brother. 



The world my brother in law grew up in influenced a lot of his life, as it does for us all.  It also influenced the choices that were made for him - both in childhood and adulthood.  That world also shaped his personality and how he behaves now.  This was a world without early intervention, without special education programs.

Last year, my spouse gained guardianship of his brother.  That does not make my spouse the boss of my brother in law - no, far from it.  Rather, it makes him his brother's advocate.

For his entire life, "B" has lived with his mother in New York State.  My father in law passed away over 15 years ago. Since then, it's been just the two of them in a house that once was the home to an entire family.  "B"'s siblings, including my spouse, grew up and left.  B grew up and is still there.  He has lived in the same house for almost his entire life.  He has his own room, and his own bathroom.

People with autism do not cope well with change.

Some major changes are coming to "B"'s life as his mother ages.  We know he is aware of that on some level, but his thoughts are unknown to us.  Autism makes it so difficult for him to communicate with us. We suspect he has a rich inner life, but it will be forever locked away from those of us who love him.

Do you have an individual on the "spectrum" in your life?