Tag Archive for: lowcountry

A Ghostly Encounter

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I am a certified city of Charleston tour guide. Sometimes I give ghost tours. Once one of the tourists told me that what was scary about my ghost stories was that I told them as a matter of fact, not fantasy.

 

Well, it’s because I’ve had a few ghostly encounters. I thought you might like to read about one of them.

 

My best friend and I babysat at a house in Pinopolis, SC, where we lived. (Side note: it was a fantastic place to grow up!) We had never been told specifics about the ghost in the house, but I had lived at the house next door for a few years and had heard there was a ghost at this house, as there was one in the house I lived in as well, but that’s another story.


Pinopolis is a peninsula on Lake Moultrie outside of Moncks Corner, SC.

 

We put the children to bed. We locked the front door with the skeleton key and placed the key on the credenza all the way across from the front door. We checked the side door (near the dining room) and the back door in the kitchen. 


Once we put the children to bed, we did not check on them again as the room on the right at the top of the stairs gave off weird vibes. When I had to walk past it, and you didn’t have a choice as it was on the way to the rest of the upstairs, I would close my eyes and dash across the doorway, whether the door was open or closed, it did not matter.

 

In the past I had heard someone going up and down the stairs while I bathed the children in the tub between the den and the study. I never saw anyone, even though I would take the kids out of the tub and go investigate. 


A view of Lake Moultrie from a home in Pinopolis.

 

Anyway, back to that night … We had popcorn and a soft drink, probably Mountain Dew as we were big fans of Mountain Dew. We had just finished watching the Love Boat and Fantasy Island’s starting credits had begun. I was on the couch that was parallel to the wall at the bathroom. My friend was sitting in the lounge chair that was to my left and at an angle facing the television. We were both facing the opening to the hall and the television.

 

I got that eerie feeling that someone watched me. I glanced up at the door between the hall and the den. A little old lady peered at me around the door frame. Her hair was in a bun. She was short. She had on a dress. Her gnarled, arthritic-looking, fingers were gently placed on the door frame. She stared at me until I broke contact to look at my friend. She was staring at the same spot in the doorway. She practically levitated to the spot next to me on the couch after she said, “did you see that little old lady looking at you?”

 

We sat with our hands entwined until the parents arrived. They said the front door was wide open and they fussed at us. We asked them if there was a ghost in the house and gave the description. They were in disbelief, not because they didn’t believe us but because they said she never showed herself to anyone but family. (My friend is related to them, but she was staring at me, maybe trying to figure out who I was and why I was there so much?) The parents said it was the man’s relative who had been bedridden in later life and the room at the top of the stairs had been her room.

 

After that, whenever I babysat for the children I’d talk to the ghost and tell her what I was doing so she’d be aware, and maybe, hopefully, not appear to me again!


—-



Robin Hillyer-Miles lives happily in the Lowcountry of South Carolina with her husband, teenaged son, and three dogs. She’s supposed to be editing her latest novel to be self-published but she has been lazy. This new novel is based in a fictional town called Marion’s Corner, also located in the Lowcountry. It has a witch, many ghosts, and quite a few people of all ages looking for love. She’s published in short-story format and is the president of the Lowcountry Romance Writers of America.


follow her on FB: 

https://www.facebook.com/RobinHillyerMilesAuthorTourGuideYoga

 

Cathy’s Corner

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Y’all!

I’m putting this out here so y’all can call me out in case I don’t follow through. Ha. How’s that for being an obliger? Yes, that’s me.

Here’s the opening of my “will be published by January 2021” novel. I’m hoping I beat this deadline but it is 2020.

The title is Cathy’s Corner. The hero has moved to this small southern town to open a restaurant named after his recently deceased wife. The heroine thinks this is a really awful idea, the name, not the restaurant, … actually, she has issues with the menu too.

And, here’s a cover that I created for fun. Not the final. Bear with me. I’ve hired an editor and cover designer.

Cathy’s Corner, chapter one 

Monday, March 18, 2013

Sue Fisk stretched her fingers to reach the remote without disturbing Charley, her terrier-mix rescue, who stretched boneless and warm across her unclad feet. She flipped her television to the proper channel and snuggled down into her thrifted blue velvet sofa, a nod to her late parents’ love of all things Elvis. 

She’d accepted the charity of a hand-me-down Blackberry™ phone from her uncle/boss when she’d dropped her flip phone in Lake Moultrie the other week. The Blackberry which now vibrated sharply, startling Charley who looked behind her like she’d farted and wanted to blame someone else. Sue laughed, squinted at the text, and muttered, “I make it pretty clear not to disturb me on Monday nights when I’m watching my show.”

Hey. What channel is Longmire on?

She stared at the screen trying to figure out the sender.

It’s time 4 Longmire, yes?

A&E

Thx

Her phone buzzed again seconds after the final scene. The number from earlier appeared on the screen. It didn’t look familiar, but since the lake incident, she’d been piecemealing her contact list back together. She’d learned her lesson about backing up her phone, maybe. And while her meticulous mother’s address book would have come in handy, she’d tossed every cigarette smoke-infused item in the house into the garbage the day after her parents died of lung and throat cancers within hours of each other. She bent her head to read the recent text.

I loved the familiar faces in this show. This is the pilot, right?

Yes. The new season begins at the end of May. They’re re-showing last season.

The answering text dinged almost immediately.

Thanks for the tip. Sleep tight. Don’t dream about murder and mayhem …

😛

What’s :P?

Furrowing her brow, she studied her phone. Her small circle of friends teased her about her favorite emoticon, who was this?

I’m sticking my tongue out at you.

I’m going 2 need to learn more about texting 2 keep up. Enjoyed the show. 

The next morning, Fisk Design & Print Shop’s squat square cement-block building glimmered in the morning light as she pulled into the rear parking lot. Joyce, the co-graphic designer, sat in her car and gestured toward her radio when Sue tapped on her window. Sue opened the passenger door and joined her for the last few minutes of the reading of the Tuesday morning Piggly Wiggly weekly specials on the local radio station. Curtrice Collins, Sue’s best friend, and next-door neighbor read the items with enthusiastic glee. At promptly 7:58 a.m., Joyce’s phone alarm beeped alerting them to get to the office door. 

—

Robin Hillyer Miles is published in an anthology. Look for her short story, West End Club, in Love in the Lowcountry, by Lowcountry Romance Writers of America, on Amazon.

You can find her author page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobinHillyerMilesAuthorTourGuideYoga

Fashion Makes Sense but I’m Wearing Shorts and a T-Shirt

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It’s hot and sticky in the South Carolina Lowcountry. 

I don’t water my plants in the morning because the forecast calls for rain. I end up watering my plants that afternoon because the rain passed us by. Or it rains when I’m inside working, and the humidity leaches up all the moisture into the air. 

I’m obsessed with fashion. I put on QVC every morning and play it in the background while I’m working. The mindless chatter of the host and the brand representative filter out all the other noises in my head. 

Susan Graver, a designer, talks over the host most of the time. She’s a true chatterbox. I feel her. I’d do the same, plus her clothing line has some nice items.

Carolyn Gracie, a QVC host, and Gary Goben, the senior apparel designer for Denim & Company, have stuffed squirrels that talk with one another. I find it strangely comforting that a grown woman and man play with stuffed toys on a national television show. 

On QVC Martha Stewart shows up from her house and talks about her rather matronly line. Joan Rivers accouterments still look like they’re from her time period, but I’m oddly drawn to them. 

I’ve purchased metal slinky water hoses (see the need for one above). A pair of cute Earth shoes that remind me of a pair of wooden slides I owned for years that one of my dogs chewed a bit of one heel and I still wore everywhere. I can’t find them now. I’m glad I found a similar pair. 

Since I’m working from home, I’ve purchases skorts, T-shirts, and Cuddle Duds attire. 

I have quite a collection of fashion catalogs. North Style, Serengeti, Coldwater Creek, Soft Surroundings, Lands’ End, and Talbots. I’ve been trying to find outfits to take on our twelve-day cruise to the British Isles that will most likely NOT depart from London in late August. I have not purchased a darn thing but have dog-eared the pages of fifteen catalogs.

A dear friend of mine has a lovely fashion sense and her own Instagram account and a blog about fashion. She looks put together at all times. She never looks dowdy as I often feel. 

At eleven in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Style Finder Boutique, a shop in Raleigh, NC, hosts fashion shows, tips, and sales via Facebook live. Michele and Michelle (or double L as they call her) seem to be around my age. Sometimes they aren’t that streamlined in their live show, but they handle mishaps with style. 

They explain fashion terms, color schemes, core closet, and what looks good on different bodies with different face shapes. I had no idea the shape of your face has anything to do with what clothing to wear. I have a symmetrical oval face according to the online eyeglass site I recently visited. When I had my “colors done” with a Color Me Beautiful stylist back in the day, I was told I am a summer. 

I’m wearing pull-on exercise shorts and a T-shirt I got for participating in the Charleston Yoga Fest two years ago. I am learning, just not putting into practice, obviously.

Do y’all like to watch fashion shows, flip through catalogs, and follow fashion pages and shops on social media? Tell me I am not alone. 

I’m going on a “dues cruise” with the Charleston Tour Association next Monday. We board a tour boat at 5:45 p.m., have cocktails and hors d’oeuvres whilst wearing face masks, and enjoy a cruise in the Charleston harbor. I’m a tour guide and the treasurer for this group. We’re allowing half the attendees we normally do for one of our most popular meetings. I have to wear a coordinating outfit for this event. I have not a clue what that outfit will entail. O.o

Robin

Charleston Tour Association: www.tourcharleston.org



This post, while silly and all about fashion, isn’t meant to be an escape from what’s happening around us, but perhaps a bit of a respite for the few minutes you’re reading. 
White privilege doesn’t mean your life has been hard. It just means the color of your skin isn’t one of the things that makes it harder. Please take the time to learn about more than what’s in our little bubbles. 

—-

Robin Hillyer-Miles writes romance of the contemporary, magic-realism, and cozy mystery varieties. “West End Club” appears in the anthology “Love in the Lowcountry: A Winter Holiday Edition.” She’s writing “Cathy’s Corner” a 45,000-word contemporary romance set in the fictional town of Marion’s Corner, SC.
You can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobinHillyerMilesAuthorTourGuideYoga
The anthology is offered on Amazon in paperback or e-book here:

Everything Old is New Again

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This is my first blog post as part of the Stiletto Gang. I’m excited, thrilled, and honored to be asked to be part of this wonderful group of awesome writers.
I lived in Memphis, Tenn. (Home of the Blues/Birthplace of Rock and Roll) for about 18 years before returning home to Charleston, South Carolina in 2016. When I moved to Memphis, I did group sales at a family entertainment center. We were members of a local association called Metro Memphis Attractions Association. Being a part of Double M Double A helped me acclimate quickly to the area and visit all of the historic, entertainment, and educational attractions. I’d been a tour guide in Charleston, so this was right up my alley.
In Charleston we pride ourselves on being the first to do and have most everything, you know like the first female newspaper publisher, first golf course, first municipal college, first museum, the list goes on and on. For my entire life I thought we invented the Piggly Wiggly grocery store chain. Imagine my surprise upon visiting the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis and discovering that the former owner of the mansion started The Pig.

My favorite Pig cup.
Clarence Saunders opened his first Piggly Wiggly grocery store in 1916. Before then, shoppers would hand clerks a list and the clerks did the shopping, while the client waited for their order to be filled. When Saunders opened his store in Memphis, Tenn., it was the first true self-service grocery store. He laid out his store in a sort of loop that allowed for a greater variety of items to be visible and bought. Saunders received his patent for the self-service shopping in early 1917. 
Saunders may or may not be surprised to see his concepts still in use since he was a forward thinker. However, here we are in 2020 back to shoppers sending in their lists to clerks who do the shopping for them and bag up the items, leaving the customers to only ensure they have proper payment when picking up their groceries and or having the groceries delivered directly to their door. 
Saunders only had a couple of years of formal schooling and he became self-educated via reading. Which segues into the correlation of grocery shopping and bookstore evolution similarities, somehow, for me at least. 
Amazon has only been around since 1994 but is the giant of the bookselling (and everything else) industry. Jeff Bezos has put many an independent, and quite a few big-box brick-and-mortar stores out of business. And yet, in the Charleston area we have five independent bookstores: Blue Bicycle (downtown Charleston), Buxton Books (downtown Charleston), Main Street Reads (Summerville), Itinerate Literate (North Charleston – it used to be a bookmoblie store, hence the name), and The Turning Page (Goose Creek). Plus, I recently had someone tell me that an independent bookstore will open just over the Cooper River bridge in Mt. Pleasant in the near future. Take that Amazon! (just kidding)
I enjoy visiting and purchasing from independent bookstores. I dig their energy, their book signings, coffee talks, helpful staff, and book clubs. 

Itinerant Literate hosts “Get Lit Bookclub” where you dine at a local restaurant and the small plates of food incorporate the meals present in the book, plus you get a serving of wine with each course. They sell out monthly. 

Buxton holds book talks in their store and in conjunction with the Charleston Library Society next door to them. Buxton is home to Tour Charleston where all the tours are book-based. (Full disclosure: I occasionally give their ghost tours.)

I’m excited to write books and have signings in these local stores. I’m truly hopeful they all succeed. 
And when I plan ahead, a rarity indeed, I love ordering my groceries online. 

Have you noticed this trend of returning to the way we were? In what other ways are we going back to the way things were done once upon a time? 

—
You can find out more about Clarence Saunders and the museum collection at www.memphismuseum.org, and the Charleston Library Society at https://charlestonlibrarysociety.org. 

To learn more about Charleston, SC independent bookstores visit https://bluebicyclebooks.com, https://www.buxtonbooks.com, https://www.itinerantliteratebooks.com, https://mainstreetreads.com, and https://turningpagebookshop.com. You can find a book-based tour at www.tourcharleston.com. 

Cramming a Ton into One Weekend

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What a whirlwind weekend. First, I have to say, I LOVE CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA!!! There’s something about that city that speaks to me. I have city lust, big time. Don’t know if I’ll ever live there, though one of my dreams is to own a pretty house near the water.


Tonya Kappes, fellow Goddess at The Naked Hero, and I were invited to give a workshop at the Lowcountry RWA chapter meeting. Any excuse to visit Charleston! We flew in Friday, did our workshop Saturday–followed by a book signing set up by the fantabulous Amy Fagley of the Lowcountry chapter. Shout out to Amy, Sharon, Sharon Marie, Tina–who’s not actually a Lowcountry member, but who is awesome!!–Florina, Nina, Dorothy, and the rest of you fun gals!




Tonya did a running blog about our adventure (which you can see here and here). Our workshop was on Stripping Down the Hero Archetypes. A totally interactive, mutli-learning modality experience which everyone LOVED (you can see snippets of the workshop videos here).


I wrote so much on the plane ride there and back that I want to take a plane trip every week just to up my word count.


Then, icing on the cake, Tonya, who used to own a bead company (sold it for beaucoup $$$$ so she could write… OMG!) taught me how to bead! Got home, took my daughter to the bead shop in a nearby city which was closed, headed to Hobby Lobby, which was also closed (they don’t care to do business on Sundays apparently), and ended up at Michael’s spending WAY TOO MUCH $$$ on beads.

BUT we each made our first bracelets yesterday and we’re hooked on beading. Or should I say toggled on beading? Strung on beading? Whatever. WE LOVE IT!



To top off the weekend, I finished the chapters of my cozy proposal! That is to say, I finished the first draft of said chapters. Still have to revise, but that’s okay. I love revisions. I can dig into revisions. The meat is there, and it’s all gravy now.


Icing on the cake was record numbers of people visiting and entering to win FREE BOOKS over at Books on the House (and the kids/teen site). This week, Brenda Novak, gearing up for her online auction which begins MAY 1st (to benefit diabetes research) is giving away totes of books and gift certificates for the auction. My son has the disease and I’m thrilled to help Brenda however I can. The Stiletto Gang has donated signed books, too!


All in all, it was a great weekend (minus the hour+ I spend unsubscribing from all these email lists I somehow managed to get on…no, for the last time, I DO NOT NEED VIAGRA, and I’m a writer and DO NOT WANT A CAREER CHANGE TO MEDICAL TRANSCRIBING!!!


Food for thought: How do we get ON these email lists in the first place? Are you a beader? Been to and love Charleston? Have great productivity on an airplane? Enjoy interactive workshops?


Let’s hear it!


~Misa