HOLLY HERRICK, author of “THE CHARLESTON CHEF’S TABLE: EXTRAORDINARY RECIPES FROM THE HEART OF THE OLD SOUTH” will be the Third Thursday Speaker at White Gables next week.

The Cordon Bleu-trained chef, former Post and Courier staff writer and restaurant critic who also wrote “Southern Farmers Market Cookbook” (Gibbs Smith, 2009) will sign books and discuss her work at the January installment of the open-to-the-public Lowcountry history and culture themed presentations that Summerville Realtor Jerry Crotty hosts each month at the clubhouse in the Summerville neighborhood. 

“This month’s presentation topic may strike some as a stretch from the typical history and culture theme that characterizes the series,” Crotty noted.  ”But Lowcountry cooking and foodways are both distinct and important links to learning how to enjoy life here.”

The “Southern Farmers Market Cookbook” guides readers to farmers’ markets throughout the South and includes recipes for local produce and the “Charleston Chef’s Table” profiles top Charleston restaurants and recipes and includes details from the city’s 300-year history to create an authoritative tour of the city and its culinary heritage.  

Herrick explains, “Since I’ve lived in and love Charleston and its unique history—particularly its culinary history, I wanted to showcase the city and show others what’s so special about the food here.”           

For directions and details about the 6:30 PM presentation, contact Jerry Crotty at 843-343-7213, or jcrotty@carolinaone.com, www.jerrycrotty.com.

Columnist and editorial page editor of the Arkansas Gazette, Paul Greenberg offered some interesting thoughts to ponder in his Hanukkah message Friday.  

Beginning with the question, “Just what does Hanukah celebrate?”  he traced the historic origins of the holiday to a military victory in a civil war and described how the emphasis of the festival of lights has changed over the years.

“In the glow of the candles, the heroic feats of the Macabees have become transmuted into acts of Divine intervention. The blessing over the candles recited each night of the holiday goes: ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who wrought miracles for our fathers in days of old.’

Like in the Passover story of Exodus, “Miracles, not victories,” are emphasized. The moral is that God’s people were saved not by superior military skill or power, but by God’s intervention.  “It is He who delivered us, not we who freed ourselves,” Greenberg adds.

With the celebration focused on the miracle of the lights in the temple, talk of tactics and strategy become background to a theme that inspires humility and kindles hope—According to the Arkansas writer, “If there is one unchanging message associated with this minor holiday magnified by changing times,” it can be found in the portion of the Prophets designated to be read for the sabbath of Hanukkah: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.”

When we slow down this season and reflect on our blessings, we’d be wise to remember this. Sure, we should be thankful for what’s come our way as the result of work and sacrifice, dedication and effort, but we ought to also recall that what really made the difference was not what we did or didn’t do, but what God allowed. It reminds me, whether or not it’s clear to us, God has a plan for us and He’s using us, and He’s in charge, and that is as it should be.

(I’ll be thinking of this lesson and remembering the miracle of the lights this weekend when White Gables celebrates the season with a traditional Luminaria Sunday night December 20… The thousand and some lanterns placed in front of homes and around common areas will show the spirit and solidarity in the community and the donations collected will demonstrate the good we can do when we come together in faith and demonstrate hope and charity. If you’d like to donate to the cause with the purchase of lanterns, contact Jan Lewis at jlewis003@sc.rr.com.)

Tom Horton, the Moultrie News columnist and author of History’s Lost Moments, shared one of the book’s 100 “Stories your Teacher Never Told You” in Summerville last night as part of the Third Thursday Speaker Series at White Gables. 

Calling Summerville and the surrounding area one of the most historic areas in the country, Horton recalled his drive down Ashley River Road to Bacon’s Bridge and Dorchester Roads that afternoon and invited the crowd to consider how many people traveled those roads before him over the last 200 years.  

Suggesting that around 1818, one of them may have been Peter Stuart, a tall redheaded French teacher who lived in the area known as Brownsville, near where Richardson Avenue and US 78 merge, Horton continued, recounting the many rumors and records that corroborate the belief the immigrant was actually the famous French military man Field Marshall Michel Ney who Napoleon called “the bravest of the brave.”  

A White Gables resident who has regularly participated since the series began three years ago called this month’s edition “One of the best yet,” and complimented the Porter Gaud history teacher’s enthusiasm and story telling ability.   

Series founder and coordinator Jerry Crotty, did not disagree, pointing out more than half the people there bought an autographed copy of the book. 

The next installment of the informal free and open to the public presentations about Lowcounty history and culture is scheduled for January 21 at 6:30 PM in the White Gables Clubhouse in Summerville. Contact Jerry Crotty, 343-7213, jcrotty@carolinaone.com for more information or directions.

SUMMERVILLE, SC           

Speaker in Summerville to offer a “Peek Behind Parlor Doors” 

Margaret Middleton Rivers Eastman, author of Remembering Old Charleston, A Peek Behind Parlor Doors is the featured speaker for the first installment of the 2009 Third Thursday Speaker Series at White Gables this Thursday October 15 at 6:30 PM in the White Gables Clubhouse.

Eastman’s presentation, which is free and open to the public, will draw on stories and anecdotes that date from colonial days to the mid-twentieth century and offer a glimpse into the lives of legendary Charleston families who lived in the landmark homes located Lowcountry Plantations and “South of Broad Street” in Charleston.

Eastman’s insight and access to the homes and families in her stories are linked to her status as the eldest daughter of long serving area congressman Mendel Rivers, who was the subject of her second book, Mendel and Me, published by the History Press in 2007.

The Third Thursday series was founded in 2006 and is coordinated by Jerry Crotty a Summerville area residential realtor who was then serving as the community affairs director in White Gables, a traditional neighborhood development off Central Avenue, near Knightsville. The aim of the informal series is to inform, entertain and educate area residents about the unique history and culture of the area.

For directions, more information about the series, contact Jerry Crotty, 843-343-7213, jcrotty@carolinaone.com or www.jerrycrotty.com.  

Equipment sales executive Randy Burbage brought the story of the H. L. Hunley to Summerville’s White Gables Clubhouse last week.

Using slides, first hand observations and personal stories he collected as a member of the state commission appointed to supervise the preservation and display of the Civil War submarine, he detailed how the 40-foot handcranked submarine sank a Union ship in the Charleston harbor during the Civil War, disappeared off the coast and was lost there until rediscovered in 1995 and raised in July 2000 by a crew supervised by the commission.

Burbage coordinated the funeral and burial of the recovered sailors and remains involved in the ongoing effort to preserve and display and interpret the vessel and its associated artifacts to the public.

His visit to Summerville was part of the Third Thursday Speaker Series, a collection of free and open to the public history themed lectures coordinated by Summerville Realtor Jerry Crotty.

April’s edition of the series (April 16, 7PM) will feature Fielding Freed of the Historic Charleston Foundation.  For more information about the series, contact Crotty at jcrotty@arolinaone.com, (843) 343-7213 or http://www.jerrycrotty.com/. 
 

adapted from  Barn-raisers or Bootstrappers: Does Crisis Strengthen Community?  by Rush Kidder at the Institute for Global Ethics

A friend of mine published an interesting column last week beginning with the question: In hard economic times, do Americans tend to become (a) selfish, competitive, and fragmented, or (b) caring, cooperative, and unified?  

Acknowledging the case can be made either way, my friend, Rushworth Kidder, notes that ”higher unemployment could lead to desperation, family tensions, fraud, and street crime” and general “Economic pressures could promote a bootstrap individualism, bent on surviving through hyper-competitiveness even at the cost of others’ failure. ”On the other hand, a tough economy could (foster) compassion, solidarity, and a new appreciation for nonmaterial pleasures.  A barn-raising frontier spirit could emerge,” he suggests. “Where progress depends on helping each other and where sharing becomes the means to survival. 

I have to agree with his ultimate guess that the answer will be situational or fall somewhere in the middle, but like him, I take hope from the folks at the Washington-based Campaign for Community Values, who are encouraged by their reading of trends: “Rather than wedging people apart, says Seth Borgos, director for Research & Programs for the Campaign’s parent organization, and who works mostly in the most poverty stricken sectors of society, ”the economic crisis has brought people together,”  

Over two years the group has been charting “A change in the way that Americans are thinking about the relations between the individual and the community.” They admit they are faint signs, but Borgos is hopeful. In prior years, he says, the “dominant theme” within his conversations about values tended to reflect a “go-it-alone, extreme individualism” that “crowded out interdependence and shared values.”

Recently, he’s finding a greater interest in the values that lean toward the community - not so much in spite of the financial crisis as because of it. “For us,” he says, “the financial crisis is a metaphor about interdependence.” As the financial crisis spread outwards from a low-income lending debacle that had roots in these very neighborhoods, he explains, it became increasingly clear that “the story of the crisis is that we’re all connected - our fates are shared.” . . .  

He feels, the current crisis has caused communities to coalesce in new ways, returning to “a core-values base” that fosters unity and combats political polarization. Assuming at least for the sake of discussion, that Borgos and his group’s findings are valid, my columnist friend poses a second question: “Could this change be a bellwether for broader change? And on he goes to the next question, asking in effect, if the trend can survive “America’s long love affair with individualism?”  

Citing examples of the love affair with individualism, my friend points to the 1977 best-seller, Looking Out For Number One, and Robert Putnam’s 2000 study, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community that documents a trend toward isolation and individualism.  Whether you accept the findings of the Washington group, or the examples of the columnist, one point he makes that’s hard to argue is how our views of the American Cowboy have changed… Pointing out that not so long ago, the craggy handsome Marlboro man was an admired and attractive symbol of the American can do spirit, today images of a cowboy are “less often used to praise a rugged individualist than (they are) to denigrate a renegade executive riding roughshod over employees, shareholders, and communities.” 

“If the shift Borgos sees toward community values is as real and significant (as the change in our view of cowboys) we may be at one of the nation’s key turning points. And the turn could come suddenly. It was not so many years ago, after all, that anyone expressing a communitarian impulse risked being branded as a Communist. Now, with two decades separating us from the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and with Communism posing a lesser existential threat to individualism, the bias against community may fade . . . or at least recede.

At some level, there will always be a tension between the individual and the community, the columnist concedes.  “Policy choices . . . will always straddle the divide between the needs of the group and the needs of the self. That’s as it should be - (even if the problem solving process) too often pits personalities against one another in ways that damage rather than sustain the community. 

The columnist who made his mark in the academic world teaching poetry concludes musing about how fitting it would be “If a financial crisis brought on by the moral failures of the richest of the rich - were to find its solutions in some of the nation’s poorest communities?  ”How satisfying to think that, when barn-raisers finally begin overtaking bootstrappers, they will do so in some of the very neighborhoods where subprime lending first began. How comforting that, in the hardest of economic times, what emerges is the soft power of ethics. So the point for our consideration is to recognize that things are changing dramatically all around us, and it’s important to recognize how those changes are affecting us and how we think, but most importantly, how we think of others.  

SUMMERVILLE—- This week, as in past months for three years, residents of Summerville’s White Gables and their guests will gather in the neighborhood clubhouse to visit and explore a topic related to Lowcountry history and culture.March’s presentation will focus on the H. L. Hunley, the 40-foot, hand-cranked submarine that sank a Union ship in the Charleston harbor during the Civil War, disappeared off the coast and was lost there until recovered in 1995.

Randy Burbage, a member of the state commission appointed to oversee the recovery, restoration and exhibition of the craft will use a slide show titled “The Hunley: History, Recovery and Restoration” to tell the story of the submarine’s and its significance to the fields of engineering, naval military strategy and underwater archeology.

The creator and coordinator of the series, Summerville Realtor Jerry Crotty said he’s looking forward to the event, explaining that “The Hunley’s a great story.”

“We’re lucky to hear it from one of the key figures involved,” he went on, referring to Burbage’s role in directing the public funeral and reburial of the remains of the confederate sailors who manned the sub.

“It’s a story about invention, a dangerous military mission, a treasure hunt and engineering and science problems to be solved. . .  It’s part history, adventure, mystery, forensic science. There’s even a little romance involved.” he added.

Crotty organized the series and began inviting authors, journalists, storytellers and experts on variety of history related topics to the in the traditional neighborhood development in the Knightsville area of Summerville in 2006 while he was employed as the community affairs director there. He continues to host the lectures as a volunteer because he believes, “The more people learn about a place and what makes it special, the more likely they are to appreciate and preserve it.”

No admission will be charged and no reservations are necessary. White Gables is located in Summerville at the off Central Avenue, near the intersection of Orangeburg Road at Knightsville Crossing. Contact Crotty at jcrotty@carolinaone.com, 843-343-7213 with questions or for directions.

Everywhere I’ve been socially in recent weeks people have asked, “How’s business?” and “How’s the market?”  

My truthful and most common answer is that “It’s keeping me busy.” I often add that I’ve been encouraged by recent signs.  

One of those signs is the uptick in showings evident in a report just compiled by a Carolina One Real Estate colleague.

The graph shows the weekly total of showings in the Summerville area is trending up. The end of the first week of February, according to Centralized Showing Service figures for the area that includes White Gables, 342 showings were recorded.  At the end of last week, area realtors showed 440 properties near here to potential buyers.  

This may show there are more buyers out there shopping and it could show that buyers are looking at more properties. Whatever is actually the case, there should be more shoppers, and those shopping ought to look at a lot of properties because there are plenty on the market.  The number on the market, the lower mortgage interest rates and the tax credit available to “first time” and other eligible buyers, combine to indicate “It’s a great time to buy!”  

If you’re interested in taking a look at the inventory, I’d be happy to show you around Summerville and some of the homes for sale in the Charleston, SC area. Be in touch.

It’s no secret that uncertainty about the economy is holding some people back when it comes to making major purchases. 

Few of us are immune from the risk of a sudden layoffs and it’s believed that risk is causing some people to put off purchases they may deserve or genuinely need.

The market place has responded to this fear with some interesting innovations—among them are the Hyundai plan that provides car buyers with the option of returning their new car if or when they lose their jobs and a similar program from Ryland homes that is aimed at the potential homebuyers who’re reluctant to take on a mortgage until the economy bounces back . . .

According to the homebuilder’s website and related emails, the Ryland Homes Reassurance program is a two-year mortgage payment protection program for eligible homebuyers “who want to buy a new Ryland home at today’s lower prices and low interest rates, but may be holding back because of a perceived risk of employment loss.”

The program is essentially an insurance policy–as explained on line, it is a two-year policy against unanticipated and involuntary job loss, that when activated, will make up to six months of payments in amounts of up to $1,500, $2,000 or $2,500 per month depending on the community–at what they say is “no cost” to the homebuyers.

Like any financial solution, it’s not for everybody. To qualify for the policy and possible payments, the homebuyer-borrower must have a full time job at the time of closing and be eligible for unemployment benefits (meaning self-employed borrowers, military, seasonal, temporary or voluntary workers are not eligible). Payments made under this policy are made directly to the lender and the coverage ends 24 months after the closing date and cannot be extended by the buyer or Ryland Homes. With this post, I’m not endorsing Ryland Homes or Mortgage Guardian–the insurance company that administers the program. 

Instead, I want to draw attention to an example of innovation that appears to address the often expressed fear of taking on new obligations in these uncertain times. I’d be interested in hearing the thoughts of anyone who’s had experience with this program or similar measures. In the Summerville area, Ryland Homes have built Arbor Walk, Myers Mill and the Sandpines at Westcott.

The February edition of the THIRD THURSDAY Speaker Series at White Gables in Summerville will feature the manager of Magnolia Plantation’s slave cabin restoration project, professional historian and archeologist, Craig Hadley.   

Hadley is owner and director of The Living History Group consultants to television’s The History Channel and an educational materials developer and presenter for South Carolina and Georgia schools and teachers.

His presentation will preview the February 28^th’s grand opening of Magnolia Plantation’s  “From Slavery to Freedom” exhibit at the tourist attraction that includes several authentically furnished and restored 1850 era cabins that were almost continuously occupied from before the Civil War through the late 20th century.

Hadley will describe the excavation, research and rebuilding involved in the project, what was learned about construction methods, materials used over the years and what can be learned about the lives of the inhabitants.

The project which began in 2007 with excavation and research, and as manager Hadley coordinated work on the furnishings, landscape, interpretation plan, educational programs and staff training manuals.  The Third Thursday series is hosted by Summerville realtor Jerry Crotty, on the third Thursday of selected months and is open to Summerville residents and guests of all ages. The event begins at 6PM and is held in the clubhouse of the traditional neighborhood development off Central Avenue near Knightsville. No admission charge or advance reservation is required.

For more information or directions, contact Summerville realtor Jerry Crotty at (843) 343-7213, jcrotty@carolinaone.com or http://www.jerrycrotty.com