15 days in Oconee County

J and I just returned from a nice 15 day visit to our birthplaces in Oconee county, South Carolina. The weather was superb for January: some days were warm enough to get by with just a long sleeve shirt, no jacket. There were some really cold days sprinkled in too.

On the visit we went to J's annual family reunion. There were about 35 there and we had an amazing selection of good food. One of the enduring traditions at the reunion is fresh coconut cake, a specialty of our beloved and deceased Ruby. We visited a new museum in Walhalla. It's free and I recommend all residents of Oconee to go there to see some of Oconee's past, including some Cherokee and Catawba Indian history.

All the brother's and sisters living in Oconee had us over to their homes for a nice time. Having a large home with acreage is a far cry from the fourth floor 800 square foot apartment in an 95 year old building we live in Stockholm - totally different lifestyles.

We also did some hiking. This is where you can experience the natural beauty of Oconee. It is unfortunate that many residents don't appreciate the natural beauty and tolerate some awfully ugly buildings and general junk. One of the most valued principles in Oconee is the notion of property rights (and it's a good principle). A person can do just about anything on their property as long as nobody gets hurt. Government taxation, regulation and interference is despised, probably because it smacks of "occupation" which the original Irish and Scottish settlers viewed as very "British," who occupied Scotland and Ireland for the better part of 800 brutal years. However, I wish there was a better balance with the principle of preserving nature and natural beauty (which would increase property values!)



One thing we now observe about Oconee that wasn't there in the past is the broad range of homes from run down mobile home parks surrounded by junk cars to well kept but modest farm homes to disgustingly opulent beautiful multi-million dollar lake front properties with a dock jutting out and cluttering the lake shore. This is because Upstate SC is a popular state for retirement and summer homes for wealthy people.



Bernard-Henri Levy (in American Vertigo) says that Americans, unlike Europeans, don't mind letting cities die. The old parts of both Walhalla and Seneca seem to be dying. It's shame. The unregulated sprawl is moving out to the 123 by-pass and other areas. Some places are a hodge-podge of signs and cheap store fronts. It is criminal to blight such a pretty area this way.

Oconee's "exports" are wood (mostly pulp wood), electricity from Oconee Nuclear station, and lake front property. There is also some industry but much of it is moving to China.

My two son's and daughter-in-law also met us there (unfortunately our daughter couldn't make it). Out out-of-town brothers and sisters and their spouses also drove in. It was so nice to reunite with them and the extended family.

I have posted numerous pictures from the trip here.