Category Archives: Lifestyles
From slavery to the White House
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
Elizabeth Keckley was a talented and intelligent slave who became a successful dressmaker and managed to buy her freedom. Because of her adroit skills in clothing design, she amazingly became a close friend of the families of Jefferson Davis and Abraham in Washington, D.C. President Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, became a very close 
friend and confidant of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth lived longer as a slave than as a free dressmaker for Mrs. Lincoln. She later wrote a tell-all book about her unusual life. The book included private details about the Lincoln family and provoked great controversy and broke several traditional boundaries. Individuals felt deeply offended when a black former slave felt free to publish intimate, personal details concerning the lives of upper-class white people. The Civil War was about freeing people like Elizabeth Keckley, and involved, in the most critical way, both Jefferson Davis’ and Abraham
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
Love Potions from Around the World
When mixed with herbs, the eggs of Uganda’s gray 
crowned crane — a bird that mates for life — are said to increase affection and monogamy.
In Africa, the bark of the yohimbe tree is said to have certain aphrodisiac qualities when steeped in hot water and consumed as tea.
The people of Madura Island in East Java are known for their jamu ramuan, a concoction of herbs that, when ingested, restores youth to women and makes them more desirable to their husbands.
On Dragobete day, the Romanian day of love, frozen snow is collected and its water used as
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
The science of love
In the last several years, researchers in the scientific community have studied the brain to gain a better 
understanding of what happens, psychologically and physiologically, when two people fall in love.
Major television networks like ABC and newsmagazines like Time have presented special segments and articles detailing what researchers discovered in their quest to understand love — scientifically speaking.
Most people generally don’t think about love or romance in
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
Valentine’s customs then and now
Valentine’s Day is a holiday during February that commemorates love and romance and also the patron Saint Valentine. The history of St. Valentine is shrouded somewhat in 
mystery, and there are beliefs that many different people went by the name St. Valentine. One such individual was a holy priest who served in Rome, Italy. Some historians surmise that he was jailed for defiance during the reign of Claudius II,
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
Springing to new life
After closing, Holly Springs school reborn as valuable community center
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
March 14, 2016, was another “date which will live in infamy” for many in our Holly Springs community. It was also sad for families connected to Albert R. Lewis Elementary School. That was the date the Pickens County School Board voted 4-to-2 to close the two schools.
I was four days old when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. My oldest brother, Nat, was a month old when FDR spoke those words on Dec. 7, 1941, after the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor. The word “infamy” means a disgrace or the very opposite of fame. My late uncle, Fred Moody, my late mother’s brother, was there serving in the army at Pearl Harbor, and survived the attack.
I have a little propensity to “protest too much” as Queen Gertrude said in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” While that may be true, let me quickly say that I spent years at both of those closed schools, and therefore should at least have my say. Without overdoing
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
Big Flavors for the Big Game
Make mouths water at
your Super Bowl party
When hosting a Super Bowl party, it’s easy to assume the focus would be 
on the score or the award-winning commercials, but it’s actually a great reason to indulge in flavor-filled bites. When the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles face off this Sunday with the Lombardi Trophy on the line, let your guests obsess over the game while you serve up ooey-gooey dips, saucy wings and football-themed
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
Dare to Dream
The man behind the dream
Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta in 1929 to teacher Alberta King and Baptist Minister Michael Luther King. He graduated high 
school in 1944 at age 15 and enrolled at Morehouse College, where he earned a B.A. in Sociology in 1948. Following this, King went on to earn a B.D. from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951, and a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1955.
In 1953, King married Coretta Scott, a New England Conservatory music student, and they eventually had four
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
Why we celebrate the King Holiday
The Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. We commemorate as 
well the timeless values he taught us through his example — the values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that so radiantly defined Dr. King’s character and empowered his leadership. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit.
We commemorate Dr. King’s inspiring words, because his voice and his vision filled a great void in our nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that truly lived by its noblest
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
‘Everything is Sacred’
Musician uses flute to teach about Native American cultures
Redheart speaks to local students
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
PICKENS —
Peter Feather Redheart gave up a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to reconnect with music that speaks to his heritage and the wider world around us.
A Native American flute player, Redheart visited the area recently and spoke to local elementary school students.
Hailing from Crow Creek, S.D., Redheart now lives in New Mexico. His mother is from the Crazy Horse Clan and his father from the Black Hills Clan.
He’s been a musician since he was young, but the Native American flute was not his first choice of instrument.
“I’ve been a drummer since I was 5,” Redheart said.
He would play the drum at powwows. In middle school in the mid-1980s, he picked up another instrument — the accordion.
“They didn’t have native flutes at school at that time,” Redheart said,
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
new year’s tidings
Creative ways to ring in the new year
Counting down the hours until the new year can be exciting, as 
the world anxiously anticipates the adventures in store for the months ahead.
Celebrating the new year dates back thousands of years to the ancient Babylonians, who celebrated a new year come the first
You must be logged in to view this content.
Subscribe Today or Login
