Trips

  This entry doesn't have anything to do with some illegal substances I might have taken, when I was much younger.  I plead the 5th on that.  This is about some places I went while in Greenville.  The great thing about that area is that one can go to a variety of places within one to two hours.

 I love the mountains.  They are very calming for me.  I love the fact that it is not too terribly hot in the summer, and the winter has snow sometimes.  Of course, the fall leaves are amazing.  And, the spring flowers are breathtaking.  One of the places I went to was Hendersonville and Flat Rock in NC.  Downtown Hendersonville was having this Art Fair.  I went up there for that, and also found a cool record store there.  I was just passing through Flat Rock, where there is a world-class theatre.  I went there once, when I was little, because my cousin was working there.  Flat Rock was very congested, because it is only a two-lane road through there.  Also, there is the Robert Frost home.  I wanted to tour it, but I didn't have the time.  Back at Macy's, I worked with a woman named Peggy.  When she was younger, she was at a youth camp near Flat Rock.  One day, she and a friend went to Frost's home and knocked on the door.  He came to the door, and they chatted for a few minutes.  Pretty cool.

 Another place in the mountains is Pretty Place at Camp Greenville near Caesar's Head.  It is an outdoor chapel.  You can refer back to the story early on, where I had a vision of Heaven there as an attendee of the camp.  On this day, I arrived when a couple was getting married.  My two most beautiful places I have visited is Rheinfall in Switzerland and Pretty Place.  The latter doesn't cost as much to visit.

 One day, I wanted to find Mr. Vivian's gravesite.  He was my Speech and Drama teacher at Anderson College, and he believed that I had some acting and public speaking talents.  He was also the tour leader for our trip to Europe and Israel in 1973.  I set out to drive down to Anderson and found his grave next to his wife in a cemetery there.  I spent some time with him and thanking him for all he did for me.  I think it is important to thank those who have gone before you.  There was also a neat antique store I found coming back from Anderson.

 I had a friend who worked in Augusta, so I set out to go there.  I had a map of how to get there from Greenville.  It had me go through a lot of tiny towns.  When I got to Edgefield, the map had me go down a road and turn to the left.  When I did, I found myself on a dead end road with a lot of Confederate flags in the yards.  I had to turn around quickly.  Some of those places don't take kindly to strangers.  I found that out that night at White Oak, when we were on "Sherman's Road".  You can refer back to that story, too.  I found the road to take me to Augusta.  After visiting with my friend and going to another neat antique store, I headed back to Greenville.  I made that trip a few times.

 In between Greenville and Augusta is Greenwood.  The town where my father was born, and where my parents are buried.  I would stop at the small Magnolia Cemetery in downtown Greenwood to spend time with my parents.  I would clean the weeds from the stones surrounding the Durst family plot.  There is one spot left for me next to my Mother.  Please make sure they put me there one day.

 

Simpsonville

  I have a friend named Mary, and we have been friends since our days at Anderson College.  In 2008, she lived in Simpsonville, which is a town outside Greenville.  The city of Greenville would say it was a suburb, but the town would take exception to that.

 Mary lived in a gated community.  I would go over there to watch football on her cable TV or just to hang out.  She had a cat named Kit who I adored.  Mary would say that Kit would go hide when strangers came over, but she would just hop up on the couch and watch TV with me.  I guess I had a calming effect on her.  Mary was a teacher.  When she would leave for the day, she would put Animal Planet on the TV for Kit to watch and not be lonely.  She may even play classical music for her.  She seemed to like that.

 Mary also introduced me to shopping on a budget, including at Big Lots.  She was pretty frugal, and I became that way too.  It was all about what was on sale, generic items, and bargains.  She also knew that I was a big-time collector of pop culture.  A friend of hers was going to open up a craft and handmade jewelry store in downtown Simpsonville.  The downtown consisted of about three blocks with a railroad track running through the middle.  She needed a partner, so Mary went in with her.  I suggested that I could put in some of my autographed pictures of celebrities to bring in people.  They both agreed.

 The store had two rooms.  The main room had the crafts and jewelry.  The other room had my autographs.  It couldn't be seen easily from the main room, so I would have to show the customers where it was.  They were impressed with the selection from Dennis Hopper to Burt Lancaster to Gary Oldman and more.  I also had a section of college football coaches.  One was Mark Richt of Georgia.  A lady bought that.  The picture was inscribed to me.  After she left, she came back later and asked if I had an autographed picture without "To Walter".  I said no, and all sales were final.  She took it back.  Maybe she tried to erase the sharpie.  Another picture I had was Rep. Joe Wilson from the House of Representatives.  The mayor of Simpsonville came by and told me that he didn't know I was in Congress.  I had to tell him that the picture was of Joe Wilson.  He corrected his mistake.  Joe Wilson doesn't look a thing like me.

 The store was struggling, so we brought in artwork from a local painter.  The location of the store was great.  The people didn't come in.  I tried to tell them that they needed to run a sale to get people in the door, but the other owner (not Mary) was reluctant to do that.  The store eventually closed.  I had pulled my autographs out, and they used the space for other things.  I liked Simpsonville.  I like small towns like that, even though everybody knows about you, and there are no secrets.  I learned that, when I worked at White Oak.  "Did you hear about..."?

W.

  President George W. Bush was coming to Greenville in 2008 to speak at the Furman graduation.  There was a lot of hype over his visit, as well as protests.  Many students and faculty didn't want him to come.  Furman was a rather liberal school.  Since I had seen every President in my lifetime, except for JFK, I thought it would be perfect opportunity to continue my streak.

 The route was supposed to be secret.  He was either going to go by helicopter from the airport to Furman, or he was going to go by motorcade through downtown.  At the last minute, it was announced that it was going to be the motorcade.  I drove down to a corner near Furman to get my best look.  I found a group of spectators there with signs welcoming the President to Greenville.  I had heard that there would be a lot of protestors along the route, but this group was the only one with positive signs towards the President. They had been interviewed on TV as the only pro-Bush folks on the route.  I decided to hang out with them.

 There was a woman in the group whose husband was a police officer.  She was getting calls from him as to where the motorcade was.  There was also an officer with our group, and we could hear calls on his radio.  It was the group's goal to have him wave at us. We had heard that they were going 70mph through town.  The car would have to slow down at the intersection, because there was a dip in the road.

 We heard the sirens off in the distance.  Everyone got ready with their signs that greeted President Bush.  The motorcycles approached.  Then, the police cars came by.  Then, the two limos came toward the intersection.  The President would be in the second one.  They weren't slowing down.  We were waving.  We were waving our signs.  They weren't slowing down.  They took the dip in the road at 70mph.  Like a flash, they were gone.  I did get to see the President in his car for a split second.  He didn't wave at us. The group was disappointed.  If you blinked, you would have missed seeing him.

 They arrived at Furman.  Many of the students and faculty stood with their backs turned away from the President, as he was speaking.  I thought that was rude.  So did many others in town.  But, I did get to see Bush for a split second.  I can count that.

Grace

  My Aunt Grace died in 2008 in Atlanta.  It had been her home for many years.  Her husband was one of my father's brothers.  Aunt Grace lived in the social circles of Atlanta.  They lived in a nice part of town and had a log cabin in the backyard that they fixed up for guests.  She had shoulder length white hair, and I always thought she looked like George Washington, but I would never tell that to her face.  When she came to my father's funeral in Greenwood, she sat on the end of the front row.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw her and thought why is George Washington here.  Then, I saw it was Aunt Grace.

 She and Uncle Bill wanted to move out of Atlanta after he retired.  They found an old antebellum house that they said looked like "Gone With the Wind".  They were to sign the papers on a Monday.  The day before, it got hit by lightning and burned to the ground.  They saw that as a sign that they were meant to stay in Atlanta.

 After Uncle Bill died, she moved to Greenwood, SC.  We didn't know why, because she was kind of uppity, and Greenwood wasn't.  My grandmother had died, and there was no one from our direct family that still lived in Greenwood, so Aunt Grace wanted to make a statement that the Dursts were still in town.  We had been one of the founders of Greenwood.  The Durst name was to live on in Greenwood through Aunt Grace.  It was also strange, because she never really liked Greenwood.  She stayed there a while, but she missed Atlanta.  She moved back for good, and into an apartment building near downtown.

 When she was 94, she needed to renew her driver's license.  She drove a long Cadillac car.  She drove to the DMV in Atlanta traffic only to be told that she needed to get her glasses to pass the vision  test.  She drove back home and got her glasses.  This was who my Aunt Grace was.  Very feisty and self-reliant.  She was dying, and she told her pastor that only young people would come to her funeral, because she had outlived all of her friends.

 I got the news that she had died and planned to attend.  I rented a Kia to drive down from Greenville to Atlanta.  It was a good car.  She was being buried in an old and historic cemetery next to Uncle Bill.  The cemetery had been a Civil War battlefield.  Many of the elite were buried there including Uncle Remus.  Aunt Grace was right.  The ones that came were her relatives from south Georgia; some of her young neighbors from her apartment building; and me.  I represented the Durst side of the family.  

 Aunt Grace was one of a kind.  Every time that I see a picture of George Washington, I think of her.