history

This week, drought and high August temperatures pushed my chance to paddle to the sea from the upcountry back into the planning stages. I’d planned to leave this week my borrowed boat from a put-in at Cliffside, N.C., and arrive 14 days later in the Santee delta.

The last few weeks I've been reading way too much Southern history. No, I'm not talking about Stonewall Jackson, Rhett Butler, Miss Pittypat, or the moon on the magnolias. My interest has been in what the historians can tell me about this South, our present day South, and what they can teach about where we've been, where we are, and where we might be going in the future.

Earlier this month I was asked to be on a panel in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with poet and novelist James Dickey's oldest son, Christopher, and Payson Kennedy, the founder of the Nantahala Outdoor Center and one of the stunt doubles for the filming of "Deliverance." Next year "Deliverance" will be 35 years old, and it continues to resonate with those who remember seeing it the first time or have come to view it since its release. Over a hundred people came out, and when the moderator asked for a show of hands everyone present had seen the film.

After two weeks of intense summer heat the morning air has a little chill in it today. It's finally possible to imagine those cool autumn dawns again. There are even a few yellow mulberry leaves on the edge of the woods. I'm not saying the heat is over, but if you look and listen, it's obvious the planet's tilting toward fall.