Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

Throwback Thursday post: This appeared in Blue Fish magazine in May 2014 but I never posted it here. I have only a few patches of memories of my grandmothers. They both died before I hit my teen years, and my recollections are hazy at best. My mother’s mother died when I was five. My recollections of her are of a tiny wisp of a gentle lady who wore shoes so small they almost fit me for dress-up when I was a very young girl. My father’s mother died when I was 12. She lived 500 miles away in Virginia, and we saw her a couple of times a year. She would visit at Christmas dressed in lovely church clothes as she emerged from the Piedmont Airlines flight at the Columbia airport. Both of my grandmothers were in professions traditional for women who worked in the mid 1900s. My dad’s mom, Granny, was a teacher of gifted and special ed children. My mother’s mom, Butter, was a much-beloved church secretary. Recently Granny sat on my shoulder for a few minutes. My husband and I had met u...

With so much attention focused on all things local these days, we need to start a campaign for a locally-owned bookstore in downtown Columbia. While Columbia has a good variety of specialty, used, religious and chain bookstores, I’m hankering for a place to find best sellers alongside home-grown poetry collections, quirky humor shelved with local history. This bookstore would be locally-owned with a “Cheers factor” where everybody knows your name, your reading preferences and your coffee choice. It would cater to local people who love books of all types regardless of whether it’s writing them, reading them or talking about them. Authors could give informal talks about their work. Book clubs could meet. Aspiring writers could gather. Musicians could have jam sessions. Readers could sit and read while sipping tea and nibbling on a cookie. Kids could enjoy story time. I think back to the days of the Happy Bookseller and realize its owners were probably just ahead of their time wit...

There's nothing better than walking on the beach at the end of the day. In the summer, the end of the day could mean as late as 8:00. In the winter, it's more like 5:15.  Heading to the beach late in the summer means I can usually nab a prime parking spot from one of the vacationing families loaded down with buggies that overflow like grocery carts on BOGO days at the Kroger. By this time of day, the college kids have exhausted the supply of beer in the cooler, had their fill of corn hole, and set off for a nap and change of clothes for the evening bar hopping. There are just a few straggler rental chairs and umbrellas that the lifeguards are patiently waiting to stow for the night. The winter brings a different feel to late afternoon at the beach. There are no frenzied vacationers struggling under the weight of a day's worth of food, toys and wiped out kids. The coolers give way to dainty picnic baskets the snow bird couple totes down every evening with a bottle of...

I flew out for a long-anticipated trip Italy with three friends the first week of October. We took off on a Wednesday thankful to leave behind the impending hurricane warnings and paid little attention to the flash flood alerts for Columbia. Little did we know we would spend the better part of our trip watching international news reports showing deadly floods sweeping away friends' homes and devastating our hometown. We stayed glued to international news feeds. We watched our friends' usual social media posts about kids' activities become hourly missives of who needed help where. One friend showed up in a yellow raincoat on international CNN. Yet another was interviewed on the Weather Channel. National news correspondents broadcast from neighborhoods where just days earlier I'd been riding my bike. For several days, I struggled with finding right word to describe what I kept seeing and hearing from the people back home affected by the flooding. A recollection o...

This is a throwback Thursday post - it ran last October in a couple of publications but I never posted it here.... The word “home” can have so many different meanings at various times in your life. A childhood home evokes different feelings than your first young-married home. A retirement home is different from a vacation home. All bring about a variety of emotions, memories and feelings.   But one thing is for sure. A house isn't necessarily a home. A real estate agent says he’s showing a “house” to a potential buyer, but that person will probably say he’s buying a “home.” The saying goes “home is where the heart is” not “house is where the heart is.”   A house becomes a home when its walls get covered with photos, its closets bulge with familiar items and stuff you can’t bear to part with, there are stacks of magazines around your favorite chair, and fuzz bunnies from the much loved dog thrive under the furniture. Relative to most people my age, I lived...

This appeared in Midlands Life on September 26, 2015 My job involves working with SC cities and towns as part of an organization sharing information to help their leaders make their hometowns the best they can be. I really love what I do and particularly love the fact that I can often overlay my daily work with my personal interests. Because of several articles I've written for work publications about the growth in and around Travelers Rest , I was recently drawn to try biking the Swamp Rabbit Trail . This nine-mile bike trail was built on an old rail bed that runs between Travelers Rest and Greenville. It has helped transform this small Upstate town into a biking mecca with great restaurants and retail shops. Earlier in the year, I'd written about a local entrepreneur recounting his positive interactions with the city's mayor during a scouting visit that convinced him to locate his business in Travelers Rest . Both he and the mayor spoke with such passion about...

One of the best parts of my job is getting to really experience the cities I visit for meetings and conferences. Working for an organization that helps build strong cities, I love the chance to explore a city's story beyond the everyday tourist sites. A conference I attend every summer typically takes us to locations that aren’t at the usual conference sites like New Orleans, Seattle or Orlando. In recent years, we've met in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a state park in South Dakota and downtown Minneapolis   - places that never would have hit my radar for travel otherwise. Original interior of the Guardian Building in downtown This year, the meeting was in Detroit. I’ve never been to Michigan and, other than checking my bucket list item of visiting every state, I probably would have had no real reason to visit the state. I will admit my perception of Detroit was that it was unsafe, dirty and with no real attractions to make it an interesting destination. Part of the deca...