Be Strong
“All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you’re not good enough or strong enough or talented enough. They will say you’re the wrong height or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO. A thousand times no. Until all the no’s become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES.” — Nike I grew up playing every sport imaginable. My father was in the hospitality industry. We had the privilege of living in a golf community with […]
Beyond the Barricade | SRS ties that shaped our community
When you ask Barbara Morgan, former South Carolina 2nd Circuit Solicitor, about her father, she smiles and says, “He was the ‘real deal’ — a soldier, a public servant, a man committed to family, country, and community.” Robert L. “Bob” Morgan grew up in northern California and received an appointment to West Point. After his graduation from the USMA he served in the Korean conflict and was then stationed in Japan, assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers to help rebuild that country’s infrastructure. Later, with his wife and 3 young children in tow, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received advanced civil and nuclear engineering degrees. […]
What Theater Taught Me
A Love Letter to the Aiken Community Theatre Your community theater is doing a lot more than just putting on productions. As this month’s character trait is enthusiasm, I started thinking about the things in life that I’m enthusiastic about, and it wasn’t difficult to realize that theater undoubtedly tops my list. I love watching theater and ogling over the sets, the costumes, the actors — it’s one of my favorite things to do. This love and passion is largely because until I left for college, theater was at the absolute center of my life for seven years. While I was ready to move on to bigger and better things, […]
April Cabinet of Curiosities | If you think playing golf is hard today…
If you think playing golf today is difficult, let’s take a trip to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Several golf courses existed in the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) at the turn of the century. The first golf course in our county was the Palmetto Golf Club of Aiken, which was founded in 1892 by Thomas Hitchcock. Next up was the Hampton Terrace Hotel’s golf club in North Augusta, laid out in 1903 for guests of the North Augusta hotel. This article will focus on those two golf courses. Not for the faint of heart. A quote from an 1899 article about the upcoming match between Augusta’s Bon Air […]
The Humility Diet
As I prepared for this month’s Confetti for Your Brain column on humility, I came across a quote from Mahatma Ghandi that read, “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom.” As I read his words, I quickly realized my own thoughts concerning humility paled in comparison to what has already been said so eloquently by others. For example, Margot Benary-Isbert gave excellent examples of how to live a humble life in her Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess. She wrote, in part, “Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every […]
Is Your Immune System Ready for the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)?
A Focus on Oxidative Stress The world is going nuts over the spread of a strain of coronavirus known as SARS-COV-2 that causes a disease called COVID-19. The rapidly spreading virus, which is thought to have originated in a food market in Wuhan China in late December, can be fatal to a small percentage of the people it affects. It is thought to be airborne, meaning it spreads from person to person through respiratory droplets produced when someone coughs or sneezes. These droplets can remain on surfaces like countertops, your hands, or a doorknob, and can be spread if you come in contact with a contaminated surface. Most of the […]
Serious Money Matters and Brain Food
In nearly thirty years of working as a financial advisor, I have never witnessed more uncertainty in so many areas that impact investments. The financial crisis in 2008 was serious and we saw tremendous volatility, but it was more concentrated directly with mortgage and banking related concerns. The objective of having some assets in a position that are unaffected by market volatility is a discussion that I always have. I can also state that most people do not give this suggestion much concern because we focus on recent events. We are very aware that market returns in general were outstanding for 2019. We are emotional beings and our brains are […]
Palmetto Golf Club – Great Golf and Great Tradition
Originally written by Stephen Delaney Hale for the December, 2017 Issue of Bella Magazine Photos by Stephen Hale, post cards courtesy of Aiken County Historical Museum. The course at Palmetto Golf Club is an almost secret gem among the experiences of American golf. Former head professional Tom Moore explained that knowledgeable golfers around the world were aware of the British-like course in the South Carolina sandhills, but, “if you don’t have a member for a friend, reading about Palmetto may be the closest you get.” The Winter Colony Sportsmen Arrive in Aiken Palmetto Golf Club was founded in 1892 by Thomas Hitchcock, a prominent gentleman sportsman from New York, and […]
