Globe Corner Blogs

THE hat--photo by Llalan

Smooth mint julep in one hand, heady cigar in the other, giant red hat on my head – there’s really only one place I could be: The Kentucky Derby. Let’s be honest, this get-up anywhere else would only earn me looks of derision, confusion, and perhaps outright outrage. But at the Derby the only looks were those that said, “My, she’s wearing a conservative outfit.” Perhaps more than the races themselves, my attention was drawn to the people around me. People-watching was as much a sport at Churchill Downs as horse racing.

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McLeod Farms McBee, SC -- photo by Nicole

Fall is my hands-down favorite time of year, especially here in New England where the trees spontaneously combust with fiery reds and oranges and homemade pumpkin pie is readily available.  The August air goes from wet blanket ( with that unmistakable garbagey odor — one of the many pleasure of big city living) to September cool and crisp.  And though I’m a Low Country girl, born ‘n bred, the humidity does not agree with either my temperament or my hair.  Like the boiled peanuts my dad loves so much, I will never get used to it.  So I am always happy to say good-bye to the season of unflattering tank-tops and awkward tan lines and welcome with open, sun burnt arms the season of bookish cardigans and stylish scarves.

Summertime, though, is also the time of the peach, the most delicious fruit known in this world or the next, capable of producing truly magical culinary feats.  And it is always a minor tragedy, at the end of August, to buy what you know will be your last basket of peaches of the season.  The subject of peaches is one my fellow South Carolinians and I have been raised to take very seriously.  Every good South Carolina native will have her favorite place to buy peaches, whether it is the small-town farmer’s market or the even smaller bed of a pick-up truck on the side of the road.  There are festivals devoted to the peach all over the state and even a gigantic water tower shaped like a peach in upstate Gaffney known as the Peachoid.  I suspect Roald Dahl may have found inspiration for his children’s classic James and the Giant Peach here, although his official biography makes no mention of this. Continue Reading »

The Oasis at Lake Travis--photo by Llalan

The verdict on Texas: HOT. With lots of nice folks, though! You can’t let that whole “Don’t Mess With Texas” bit fool you. I happened to meet several born ‘n’ bred Texans who not only procured veggie burgers AND sausage for me (reportedly after several confusing trips to the grocery), but even tried it with me!

More importantly they made sure the air conditioning was on extra-high at all times and didn’t roll their eyes when I yelled, “Oh, hothothot!” each and every time we walked outside.

If I have my stereotypes right, though, big trucks and oil derricks in the backyard belong to Houston; Austin is a whole other matter. As the capital of Texas and the home of the US’s largest university, Austin is therefore also the hipster capital of the state.

Even that lone blue spot in the sea of red can’t help but be Texas, though. And by that, I mean big: one-way streets with four lanes (unheard of in New England!), a school with its own zip code…even the statue of Cesar Chavez is twice life size. And now, I’m not a very big person myself — and I never did get myself a good pair of cowboy boots — but I squinted my eyes to the sun, spat in the dust, and tackled Austin and the Hill Country like a drunk guy on a mechanical bull.

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Moon Handbook to Austin, San Antonio, and The Hill Country

In a few days I will be headed down to America’s favorite neighbor to the south: Texas. (Houston and Austin, to be specific.) Ah, Texas; home of cowboys, cowboy boots, cowboy hats, Cowboy Cheerleaders…Shiner Bock…and most importantly, my boyfriend’s family. This will be my first trip to the state and I’m quite excited. And by excited, I mean terrified. I feel like Gulliver about to stumble into Brobdingnag, land of giants: enormous spans of land, monstrous oil thingies, belt buckles the size of my head. I am not sure exactly where this anxiety is stemming from; after all, my boyfriend is Texan and I like him all right… There are just so many stereotypically Texan traditions that are so atypically me — guns and steak being the first to come to mind. Now, I know that no one in his family was going to hold a gun to my head and force me to eat a flank of cow, but my boyfriend’s next revelation shocked me: they were scared of little ol’ meat-free me!

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Myrtle Beach, SC--photo by Nicole Jones

Most people who grow up in tourist hot spots will tell you that along with insider tips on the best seafood buffet (the Calabash joint on Kings Highway South), comes a general sense of superiority over the outsiders who flock to vacation in your hometown. You roll your eyes at all their pale, northern skin; you laugh at the Canadians from places with strange sounding names like Ontario and Quebec, who come down to sunbathe in February; you immediately look at a car’s license plate if it commits a traffic offense, knowing-even before you visually confirm- that the driver is one of them. A tourist. A rubbernecker. Often a Yankee.

So it is a little strange when I return to Myrtle Beach every year to visit my family. I have been away for about ten years, and I am no longer a local. The license tag on my car is not from South Carolina. I have lost my perennial tan. I own snow boots…

Myrtle Beach is a much bigger place now than when I grew up there, not the sleepy small town I remember. The New York Times recently named it one of their “31 Places to Go This Summer.” The city has torn down the oceanfront Pavillion where my grandparents would go on dates and have replaced it with Hard Rock Park, a rock ‘n roll theme park complete with a Led Zeppelin rollercoaster. Admission is fifty dollars, and it overlooks a strip mall and the highway. “How in the world (pronounced “whirled”) are families goan afford that?” asks my grandmother, a lifelong resident.

A lot has changed, but the actual beach, the original tourist attraction, has not. It is still just as beautiful- the sand still as soft and the ocean still as gray and vast. And that still feels like home.

My friend Katia and I were assigned to transport a robot, built by her son’s school team for the FIRST Robotics Competition, to Atlanta, Georgia. The poor thing had to travel in our packed car all the way from Richmond, Virginia to the Georgia World Congress Center, covering four states and enduring numerous bumpy highway stretches.   Continue Reading »