Wofford College

Rates of Change on a World Stage

John Lane — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:46:43 -0500

I'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.

Graffiti at the River

John Lane — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:01:42 -0400

My first assignment for this semester's environmental humanities class at Wofford College may seem a little odd to the non-academic: inventory graffiti on the Glendale bridge and shoals.

Why graffiti? First, there's plenty of it at Glendale Shoals, and I'd once heard writer Alex Haley of ROOTS fame tell about how he moved his family around the South in the 1960s and always inventoried the graffiti in bathrooms. If the graffiti was overtly racist, he'd move his family on. He knew that town was rotten at the core.

Notes From the Magic Kingdom

John Lane — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:52:32 -0500

We're exploring the South this week and even Disney World was on our agenda. On Friday after almost a week of visits in small towns with Southern writers Wofford College's Cornbread & Sushi interim sampled Walt Disney's version of reality.

A Town Called Commerce

John Lane — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:48:19 -0500

It's Cornbread & Sushi time, my biennial Wofford College interim excursion with Deno Trakas and a group of students to take the culinary and literary temperature of our region. We left Spartanburg on Saturday for eleven days, our rented vehicles of choice a Ford Expedition and a Dodge Caravan. Being literary types, the metaphoric weight of the two vehicles' names isn't lost on any of us.

Kudzu Kollege

John Lane — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:20:07 -0500

Last week I attended the Spartanburg Kudzu Coalition's "Kudzu Kollege."

Newt Hardy, the coalition's founder and one of the organization's directors, has been after me for years to "get my degree" in advanced kudzu removal, and it finally worked out.

The Kudzu Coalition is a nonprofit organization founded in 2001. It's run exclusively by volunteers. You can see their white "kudzu control site" signs all over town.

They're dedicated to the removal of kudzu, and what makes them unique is that they invent and modify methods that do not involve chemical applications. They also have a passion for getting local students involved.

They've even explored ways of using heavy machinery and farm equipment for reining in imposing tracts of kudzu, including the modification of a small tractor, renamed "Kudzilla," complete with red reptilian comb. You might call the brainstorming breakfasts the group has every Monday morning, "the Center for Advanced Kudzu Studies."