Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

In happier news, the 2018 Pawleys Island calendars are ready!

Isn't your wall lonely?

Well, I just had a long and expensive conversation with my hosting company, the theme of which was basically, Well, by 'unlimited', we meant, you know, *limited*.

So.. This site will be moving to a dedicated server. It's supposed to go smoothly, but somehow these things never do. Hopefully we will be up on Anniversary Day, but if that door won't open for some period between now and then, that's what's going on.

May all the plans of you & yours work out better!

Then here is where your money is going:

A pair of old sewer lines are being replaced by a single, larger sewer line. It will run between Forest Drive and the Quail Lane sewage pump station, near Little Lake Katherine.

Not a closing, and not a complaint, I just wondered what was going on behind Trenholm Plaza, and that's the answer. I had thought perhaps it was the start of a greenway or something.

Read the rest of this entry »

So here's the Latest Good Idea From the Folks Who Brought You Stadium Lighting:

A major facelift is being planned for Columbia’s South Main Street that would narrow it from four to two lanes and eliminate all on-street parking.

Some time late in 1965, or early in 1966 I was watching daytime TV. I never went to kindergarten, and hadn't started first grade yet, so at the time I was home all day with my mother. In general, she liked for me to be doing something, prefably outside, rather than watching TV, but it would have been cold out so I was watching game shows. Let's Make a Deal was always my favorite because of all the doors and the booby prizes, but I think this one was The Match Game. At any rate, it had a semi-celebrity panel playing the game, not that I knew who any of them were, and during the course of the game each of them got to casually drop a little promo for whatever their latest project was.

There was one guy who said he was going to star in a show called Batman which was premiering soon. There was some back and forth joking with the other panelists to the effect "Oh, so, you can turn into a bat, or what?", and that really stuck with me. I really wanted to see a show about a guy who could turn into a bat!

That little PR squib was, to the best of my memory, all I knew about "Batman". I knew who "Superman" was, of course, but "Batman" was a complete unknown quantity. I couldn't read at the time, so I didn't know comic books, and while I knew comic strips in the paper, "Batman" was not one of them. But I made sure my parents knew I wanted to see this new show when it came on, and was fully prepared for a show about a man who could turn into a bat. (I didn't realize how far beyond what a 1960s TV show could do an effect like that would be..). What I got, of course, was something completely different -- and thrilling: The Neil Hefti theme song, the animated opening sequence and the most noble and steely-eyed hero on televison. I was hooked from minute one, and I had *no* idea I was watching a comedy. I hung on Batman's noble words, thrilled at his (and Robin's) daring escapes and chilled at the colorful cast of scenery chewing villans...

The man on that game show, and behind the mask was, of course Adam West. An up and coming journeyman actor before the show, forever typecast after the show. In time he learned to get beyond the fact that the big roles never came again, and to embrace being "Adam West: Batman". He played the Gray Ghost on the classic animated Batman series, and recently returned for one more outing behind the (animated) mask last year in Return of the Caped Crusaders.

Away from the spotlights, he apparently lived a full and happy life. With that, and making the world a bit more four-colored and brighter, who can quarrel?