pacolet river

(This story is from The Point Guard, a novel-in-progress about the fictional town of Morgan, South Carolina.)

In the old days, the weekend before Christmas, we always rose early on Saturday and headed up to Aunt Nina and Uncle Tip's to get the tree. The year I was fifteen Connie's boyfriend Randy went with us. He drove Mama's car, the old Desoto, up Highway 176 past Landrum. The mountains off in North Carolina were ice blue, and the sky was almost white, with approaching clouds behind Hogback Mountain.

Last week I drove along the Pacolet River at Clifton and noticed that the big, swinging flood gates were open at what is known locally as the dam at Clifton Number One, or Hurricane Shoals, as I prefer to call it.