kudzu telegraph
It's Back
Submitted by John Lane on Sat, 06/26/2010 - 3:27pm. environment | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | rivers | Union CountyThe Union County lake that all reasonable people thought had been put to rest in 2008 is somehow, like Dracula, back from the dead.
Let me refresh your memory if you've somehow forgotten this important environmental issue: In 2004 Union County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers entered into an agreement through the Planning Assistance to States program to create a feasibility study for the potential creation of "Patriots Lake," a 5,000 acre reservoir on private and public land along the Tyger River.
Seeing AVATAR
Submitted by John Lane on Fri, 02/26/2010 - 1:05pm. environment | film | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph"Did you like AVATAR?" my friends ask when I tell them I finally saw it, the blockbuster James Cameron 3-D film. How could I not? I'm "green" to the core, an environmentalist, and my favorite Bible story as a child was always Eden.
Rates of Change on a World Stage
Submitted by John Lane on Sun, 02/14/2010 - 9:46pm. china | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | Wofford CollegeI'll have to admit that my ideas about change have been moved around a great deal, prompted by flying half-way around the world. What I saw in China created a dramatic contrast to my own backyard.
Burning the Christmas Greens
Submitted by John Lane on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 1:40pm. christmas | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraphMost years on Dec. 21, on winter solstice, we've burned the previous year's Christmas greens.
Some years we get our act together and have a solstice party where I read William Carlos Williams' poem "Burning the Christmas Greens." We drink hot cider and mulled wine. We watch the first sun of the new season go down with our friends, and note the descent into the early winter woods like good neo-druids.
Big Ideas
Submitted by John Lane on Thu, 01/29/2009 - 11:35am. kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | year-end ideasAbout this time every year THE NEW YORK TIMES comes out with its "Year in Ideas" issue of the Sunday magazine. The newspaper has put it together for eight years, and I don't think I've missed one.
The Mythology of Childhood Weather
Submitted by John Lane on Fri, 02/26/2010 - 1:10pm. kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | spartanburg | weatherLast Friday evening it began snowing about 5 p.m. It fell at a rate of an inch an hour. By nine, four inches of powder covered the yards and roads as the fast-moving storm softened every angle with a shadow of unexpected white. There wasn't even a mention this time of a "wintery mix." We were getting pure snow.
Murphy the Short-Legged Beagle
Submitted by John Lane on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 2:46pm. dogs | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | murphyI've had a dozen dogs in my life, many of them memorable for one reason or another.
One of my early traumas concerns our family dog. When I was little more than an infant we had a daschund named Paula who was "in heat" and we had her in the house. A pack of male dogs had gathered around the back door, and I leaned against it and fell out among them. One bit me on the upper lip, so I had to get rabies shots around my navel for a month.
By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea
Submitted by John Lane on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 2:43pm. journeys | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | Paddle to the SeaSince I returned from my epic 11-day "paddle to the sea" last week the question most friends have asked is, "Did you make it all the way?"
Yes, I did make it, but after I'd finished we loaded the canoe and it only took five hours to get back home. Though I was very happy to see my wife, my dry house, my dog, there was something sad about reentering the current of the modern world, and that little bit of sadness is one of the emotions I have not been able to shake.
The Wal-Mart Without Us
Submitted by John Lane on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 2:39pm. big box stores | development | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | planningLately I've been driving around looking at the Wal-Marts and Home Depots of the outer fringes of Spartanburg suburbia as crumbling empty vestiges of bloated corporate egos and outmoded ideas about living.
Spring Fever
Submitted by John Lane on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 2:36pm. cottonwood trail | kudzu telegraph | kudzu telegraph | seasonsYesterday it was 78 degrees with powdery blue skies. We walked on the Cottonwood Trail and saw the bloodroot's first bloom on our favorite March hillside. As an ephemeral early season wildflower, the bloodroot isn't really flashy. It's low to the ground. One white flower with a little yellow center accompanies the single, odd-shaped green leaf. They live in colonies but you can almost lose their shy display among the leaf litter.
