Monthly Archives: August 2019
Azalea Festival hosting movie
PICKENS — The Pickens Azalea Festival Committee will host a free family movie on Friday night at the downtown amphitheater.
Set to begin at dusk, the movie will be the Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”
The festival committee will have a table set up selling popcorn, candy, water and sodas, and hot dogs, cotton candy and possibly doughnuts will also be available.
Honeybee Day Festival Saturday
PICKENS — The Bee Well Honey Farm in Pickens will host the World Honeybee Day Festival this Saturday, Aug. 17.
The even will offer live music provided by local bands playing bluegrass and folk. There will also be local food trucks and micro brewers.
For bee enthusiasts, Michael Bush, a leading proponent of treatment-free beekeeping, will be the events keynote speaker. There are two free sessions to sign up for. To sign up, visit https://beewellhoneyfarm.com/festival/.
Bee Well Honey Bee Supply is located at 815 W. Main St. in Pickens, and special parking will be provided by Blue Ridge Electric Co-op.
The festival will also offer candle making, soap making, mead making, honey extracting, beekeeping supply vendors, arts and crafts vendors, organic local farmers, music by The Stove Bolts, healthy treats from the Bee Well Honey Natural Market and Coffee Shop, a beekeeping equipment yard sale and lots of door prizes.
Anyone interested in being a vendor is asked to email beewellhoney@bellsouth.net.
One of our country’s grate men
There are many great people living in Washington, D.C., although we can’t seem to agree on who they are. There are also quite a few “grate” people living there, and it is obvious who they are.
This observation was made by my dad, Bobby D. Barnett, during his time
working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the nation’s capital in the early days of the Reagan administration.
The grate people, Dad says, are “the scruffy men who spend the winter on the grates that cover the ventilation shafts leading from the subterranean portions of the city.”
Few places, I suppose, have such an excess supply of hot air as to be able to vent it in such a seemingly wasteful
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Now open in Pickens
The AT&T Store located at 2710 Gentry Memorial Highway Suite K in Pickens recently held a formal grand opening. Pictured are Steve Schmidt, Tiffany McCall, Nick Bolding and Brandan Vanduesen of AT&T. From the Greater Pickens Chamber of Commerce board are Liza Holder, Jacquelyn Gamble and Lisa Turnic. From the city of Pickens, David Poulson and a representive from the Pickens Fire and the Pickens Police departments. For more information about the new store, visit liveatt.com or call (864) 898-9440.
Outhouse blues
Being familiar with that little square wooden building at the edge of the yard makes me appreciate modern plumbing, but it does bring back memories of my youth. Having been raised, or reared as some folks call it, in the country gives 
one a different perspective on the morning constitutional.
I vividly recall our outhouse — or privy, if it needed a more dignified name. However, looking back, I don’t recall it looking too dignified. It was a wooden structure made from unusually wide oak boards and measured perhaps five feet by five feet with a narrow, hinged door. It had a concrete floor and a slanted tin roof.
If my memory serves me correct, it was a two-seater — or a two-holer, as they are commonly called. I never could understand the need for more than one hole.
In any event, I found that most privies were situated under some sort of shade tree, for obvious reasons. Did you ever go into a privy in midday in
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Where were you when the lights went out?
Once, some years ago, we had neighbors who had moved into the country for the good life, away from the hectic town life they had lived all their lives.
We could have told them the truth about the simple carefree life they thought we were living, but frankly I didn’t have 
the heart. After all, they’d sold their house in town and moved into their country home. Let the good times roll.
They wanted to grow things, they said. All you have to do is stick plants in the ground and sit back to reap the bounty.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have given them the magic wand we used on Fowler Farm to get all the work done? If, of course, we ever got all the work done.
We didn’t have flocks of sheep, herds of cattle or thousands of chickens.
But at that time, we did have three black angus, a mule, two horses, 25 chickens, one calf, four dogs, numerous cats and a hog. We had given up
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Letters to the Editor 8-14-19
A new and unpleasant experience
Dear Editor,
Having the Pickens Doodle Trail in my backyard was a new experience. Now I am having to get used to eating lunch and watching people’s kids use the bathroom on a tree on the edge of my yard.
Do people not know that people live close to the trail? We do have back windows. Would they like to see people use the bathroom while they eat? Can people respect others?
P.S. Go Blue Flame.
Lynn Whitlock
Pickens
What is it good for?
Dear Editor,
I believe most of the human race wants the same thing. To work and come home to their families. Enjoy life. Live and
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AARP offers scam alert map
The scammers sure have been busy. Is there no end to their creativity?
The AARP is helping us to fight back, however, with its Fraud Watch Network’s free Scam Tracking Map. You’ll find 
the map on the AARP website (aarp.org) when you put “scam tracking map” in the search box.
Be sure to click on the widest possible search area, 200 miles, after you enter your ZIP code. Click first on AARP user-submitted reports. You’ll see colored dots where scams have occurred. Click on one and scroll down to see the details. After you view those reports, go back and click on Law Enforcement Alerts, with authorities warning about scams near you.
The wide variety of scams is surprising. One involved an alleged refund where the thieves wanted to deposit the
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Courier Obituaries 8-14-19
MARTHA ROMAINE BARRETT JOHNSON
SUNSET — Martha Romaine Barrett Johnson, 96, wife of the late Bob “Scatter” Johnson, passed away on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019, at her home.
Born on Sept. 22, 1922, in Pickens County, she was the daughter of the late Aaron and Tiny Galloway Barrett. She was the business owner of Bob’s Place in Sunset. Romaine loved music, flowers, her friends and bikers. She was a great storyteller and never met a stranger.
Surviving are her daughter, Mona Lisa Johnson; eight grandchildren, Chad, Owen, Weston, Chyenne, Tyler, Shane
‘We are one human family’
Hagood family slave descendants reunite at mill
PICKENS — The Hagood Mill was the site of a family reunion Saturday, welcoming descendants of the enslaved people of the Twelve Mile plantation.
The group included descendants of Berry and Caroline McKenzie, slaves once owned by Col. Benjamin Hagood, as well as descendants of Hagood himself.
McKenzie family descendant Aaron Mair organized the event with the assistance of the Pickens County Historical Society and the Hagood Mill Foundation.
“This is one of those special opportunities and occasions,” Mair said. “Today is a solemn day of memory, but it’s also a day of joy and hope and community.”
Very few African-Americans descended from transatlantic slavery are able to find the plantational spaces their
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