10.24.2026 – I think of words like

I think of words like
justice, freedom, liberty …
teachings of Jesus

If life finds you living in or just visiting the low country of South Carolina or Beaufort County to be more specific, you will become aware of the author, Pat Conroy, who grew up and made his home here.

Famous for his books and movies of his books like The Great Santini and Prince of Tides, he wrote about life in this odd county that is 10 miles wide, 40 miles long and 50% under water at high tide.

The wife and I visited the Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort and met Mr. Conroy’s sister and as souvieners of our visit, bought a couple of books.

I must say, that I book I picked out, in my humble opinion, might be the best book I have read by Mr. Conroy.

What I brought home was The Pat Conroy cookbook: Recipes and stories of my life.

The recipes are interesting.

I can’t say it’s a good cookbook as I have to yet to try any of the recipes and readers of this blog will remember that with my long association with cookbooks with working in bookstores, libraries and publishing, that to be a good cookbook, a cookbook must have at least ONE good recipe.

AND there are a lot of BAD cookbooks out there.

Again, not saying the The Pat Conroy Cookbook is a bad cookbook, it’s that the jury is still out but I am seriously looking at the recipe for Dunbar Macaroni, but I digress.

It is the … stories of my life … that make The Pat Conroy cookbook: Recipes and stories of my life such a great read.

I have been reading cookbooks since I first came across a reprint of “French Cooking in 10 Minutes”, which is subtitled “Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life (1930).”

Not sure when I picked my now beaten up, water stained copy, but it is one of the books that has stayed with me through all my travels.

But back to The Pat Conroy cookbook: Recipes and stories of my life.

In the cookbook, along with recipes and talking about the dish in particular and incidents that occured serving that dish, Mr. Conroy also discusses how he kept his eye open for moments in his life that he could develop into scenes in some future book.

He might not have a book in mind at the time, but he knew the scene, the moment was special and he would make a mental file of the story to be called later when he found the right place for the story.

One of the stories he tells in the cookbook, was about his relationship with his principal, Mr. Bill Dufford, at Beaufort High School in 1962, and the concept of segregation.

I am of the north.

For me segregation is just another way to say racism.

I have lived in the south now since 2009 and not really the south as Metro Atlanta is not the south and neither is the resort community in South Carolina where I now live, but once we got outside those areas we are in the ‘solid south’ and a somewhat still segregated world.

And I struggle with but it isn’t 1962.

Mr. Conroy writes:

Because their impact cannot be measured, the teachers of the world drift through their praiseless days unaware of the impact and the majesty of their influence. I want to fall on my knees in gratitude whenever I conjure up the faces of those nameless men and women who spent their finest days coaxing and urging me to discover the best part of myself in the pure sunshine of learning.

Because this country dishonors its teachers and humiliates them with lousy pay and a mortifying deficiency of prestige among other professions, they do not receive the gifts of gratitude that brim over in men and women like me when we remember and honor their patient, generous shaping of us into citizens of the brighter world. Bill Dufford occupies a place of highest honor among the teachers who found me directionless and yearning to become a person of consequence as I stumbled through my childhood.

That summer, I took the time to study Bill as he made his way among his fellow townspeople. He attracted people with his authentic approachability, the full attention of his gaze, and the passionate authority he brought to bear on any subject that arose in Harry’s. I wanted people to look at me with the admiration that those Beaufortonians showed to my high school principal.

From watching Mr. Dufford, I learned that the principal of a high school is one of the central players and politicians in the life of a town. I discovered that Dufford was principal in parlous, aggravated times. The subject of integration was on everybody’s minds and lips that summer of 1962.

I got to watch Bill Dufford going through the painful switch from his upbringing as a Southern racist to his transformation into a Southern liberal who would play a courageous part in the integration of South Carolina schools.

“Have you ever gone to school with black kids, Pat?” he asked me at lunch one day.

“Yes sir, I have.”

“What did you think about it?” he asked.

“I never thought anything about it, Mr. Dufford,” I said. “I’m Catholic. It’s a sin if I believe in segregation.”

“That’s what they teach you? I’ll be damned,” he said, amazed. “What kind of sin?”

“The mortal kind. The kind where you burn in hell,” I said.

“What a hell of a way to handle it,” Dufford said. “Why didn’t the Protestant church think of that? …”

“It’s coming,” Dufford said. “It’s coming, and it’s coming soon and I don’t think anyone in this whole damn state is ready for it.”

“Are you ready for it, Mr. Dufford?” I said, the first time I remember teasing Bill Dufford.

He looked at me oddly, then said, “You sorry damn little pissant, you’re damn right I’m ready for it.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, Pat.

I’m Southern to the bone and was raised to defend the Southern way and I’ve done it my whole life. I’ve defended segregation my entire life, until lately.

I think of segregation and then I think of words like ‘justice’ and ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty.’

I think of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

I think of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

See where I’m going with this, Pat?”

Segregation.

Was and is a big topic of discussion from the point of view of what is right and what is wrong and at some point, some folks have and others, still have yet, to admit they were wrong.

Think of words like ‘justice’ and ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty.’

Think of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Think of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

See where I’m going with this?

Now let’s take the discussion to the current state of affairs in the leadership of this country.

It is a big topic of discussion from the point of view of what is right and what is wrong and at some point, some folks will have to admit they were wrong.

I will go so far as to put forward that maybe its me that has to admit I am wrong.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

And I ask you to think about it as well and what side of the question of the current state of affairs in the leadership of this country you come down on.

Think of words like ‘justice’ and ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty.’

Think of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Think of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

See where I’m going with this?

Also thinking of those lines:

“That’s what they teach you? I’ll be damned,” he said, amazed. “What kind of sin?”

“The mortal kind. The kind where you burn in hell,” I said.

“What a hell of a way to handle it,” Dufford said. “Why didn’t the Protestant church think of that? …”

I think it’s telling to see what sin’s the Evangelical Church today does focus on as the mortal kind, the kind where you burn in hell … and what they do not.

Somehow all those admonitons about caring for the poor, the widow, the foreigner and handing out a cup of cold water to some one in need have gone by the wayside.

What a hell of a way to handle it.

Me sitting in Pat Conroy’s chair at his desk in the Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, SC

10.23.2026 – transformation that

transformation that
amazes who witness it for
first time — countless times

Salt marsh along Broad Creek looking south on Hilton Head Island.

Above all else, salt marshes are ruled by the tides.

Coastal marshes are among only a handful of Earth’s natural ecosystems—the others being mangrove forests, beaches, and rocky seashores—subjected to these predictable daily inundations.

Animals that live in the marsh or regularly come to it for food and shelter must move to the tidal beat.

Here in South Carolina, the tides twice daily sweep into the rivers and sounds and then into smaller and smaller creeks—and then cover the entire marsh with a mixture of salt water from the sea and fresh water off the land. It’s a remarkable transformation that amazes those who witness it for the first time — and even those who have seen it countless times.

A professor once explained the process to me: “Tidal creeks and rivers,” she said, “assume dendritic patterns of smaller and smaller channels, which act both as tributaries during ebb tides and distributaries during flood tides.”

The world of the salt marsh : appreciating and protecting the tidal marshes
of the southeastern Atlantic coast by Charles Seabrook (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012).

I grew up on the east coast.

The east coast of Lake Michigan that is.

It could also be identified as the West Coast of Lower Michigan.

The Big Lake, as we called it, to let folks know we weren’t talking about any of the uncountable number of small lakes in Western Lower Michigan.

There were no tides on the Big Lake and few lake side marshes as the Western side of Lower Michigan was made up of sand dunes over clay banks.

I thought I knew all you could know about big bodies of water.

Then I moved to the Low Country of South Carolina and learned about the Salt Marsh.

I learned about the salt marsh and the tides.

I learned about the “bite” of the East Coast, geographically known as the Georgia Bight (or South Atlantic Bight)—is a massive, inward-curving bend in the coastline that stretches roughly from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, down to West Palm Beach, Florida, centering deeply along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina.

This distinct indentation has a profound, amplifier effect on the region’s high tides.

While most of the East Coast experiences a modest tidal range of 1 to 3 feet, the center of the Georgia Bight (including places like Savannah, Georgia, and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina) experiences normal daily tidal shifts of 6 to 8 feet, occasionally spiking to 8 to 10 feet during seasonal extremes.

Those daily tidal shifts of 6 to 8 feet, occasionally spiking to 8 to 10 feet during seasonal extremes are an amazing thing.

Always the same.

Always different.

With the tides on a 10 hour cycle, the times of high and low tide are different every day.

A beautiful huge stretch of beach at noon on one day will be a high tide at noon a few days later.

As Mr. Seabrook writes, “It’s a remarkable transformation that amazes those who witness it for the first time — and even those who have seen it countless times.“

10.22.2026 – want America to

want America to
really be for everybody
let us make it so

Can we not put our heads together and think and plan — not merely dream — the future America?

We do not want any secondary Americans.

We do not want a weak and imperfect democracy.

We do not want poverty and hunger and prejudice and fear on the part of any portion of our population.

We want America to really be America for everybody.

Let us make it so!

Langston Hughes, Speech at the Public Session of the Third American Writers’ Congress, Carnegie Hall, New York City, June 2, 1939. (Langston Hughes Papers. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.)

Something about Mr. Hughes’ words remind of the words used in what some call The Birth Cerificate of the United States of America, otherwise known as the Declaration of Indepedence.

The words where Mr. Jefferson, with contributions from the rest of the Continental Congress, wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

They were saying …

We do not want any secondary Americans.

We do not want a weak and imperfect democracy.

We do not want poverty and hunger and prejudice and fear on the part of any portion of our population.

We want America to really be America for everybody.

Let us make it so!

And they put their heads together to think and to plan to make it more than a dream.

The future they saw would require … That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

… Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

… deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

… from the consent of the governed.

It is time for us, the governed, to show up and spell out what we consent to.

For myself:

I do not want any secondary Americans.

I do not want a weak and imperfect democracy.

I do not want poverty and hunger and prejudice and fear on the part of any portion of our population.

I want America to really be America for everybody.

Let us make it so!

See you on November 3rd.

10.21.2026 – the sea answers all

the sea answers all
questions and always same way
and saying: so soon?

The sound of the sea is the most time-effacing sound there is.

The centuries reroll in a cloud and the earth becomes green again when you listen, with eyes shut, to the sea —a young green time when the water and the land were just getting acquainted and had known each other for only a few billion years and the mollusks were just beginning to dip and creep in the shallows; and now man the invertebrate, under his ribbed umbrella, anoints himself with oil and pulls on his Polaroid glasses to stop the glare and stretches out his long brown body at ease upon a towel on the warm sand and listens.

The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way;

for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions

and the bickering

and the prognostications

and the turmoil,

the disagreements

and the fateful decisions

and agreements

and the plans

and the programs

and the threats

and the counter threats,

then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: “So soon?”

From the essay, On a Florida Key by EB White as published in The Essays of E.B. White by E.B. White ( Harper Colophon Book: New York, 1979).

10.20.2026 – your generation’s

your generation’s
present is now another
generation’s past

Adapted from the passage in Baseball in ’41 by Robert W. Creamer (New York: Viking, 1991) where Mr. Creamer writes:

Middle age begins, I think, when you first recognize that events in your generation’s present are now in another generation’s past.

I became aware that I was edging into middle age when I was thirty-two, in 1954, the year I began working for Sports Illustrated.

I had seen my first major league game in 1931, and the baseball of the thirties and forties had always been part of my present.

But in 1954 the thirties were suddenly a long time ago.

I met people on the staff — my contemporaries, I considered them, although they were ten years younger than I — who had few, if any, memories of the years before World War II.

I had become part of an older generation, unable to share personal memories of twenty years before.

Now I am pushing seventy, and the 1954 contemporaries are pushing sixty, and I still can’t share my prewar memories with them.

What did a kid of eight know about the world an eighteen year-old lived in during 1941?

There are relatively few people out there with whom I can share memories of that vivid year.

What gets under my skin right now is the thought that trying to explain to anyone pretty born this century is that … it didn’t use to be this way.

There were rules to how the Government worked.

Yes there were times when folks played fast and lose with those BUT for the most part, both sides played by the rules.

The rule book was laid out in the Constituion and both sides had a level of respect for the playing by the rules.

Along came this feller who depised rules.

Who broke the rules.

Who spit on the rules.

Who spit on those who expected others to play by the rules.

It didn’t use to be like this.

I have become part of an older generation, unable to share personal memories of twenty years before.

There are relatively few people out there with whom I can share memories of the way it used to be.

That may be the biggest tragedy of all.