Around ChApin & irmo

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, so they say, but I say it’s the busiest time of the year!  

The rush is on to shop, get presents, prepare for parties, family gatherings, and the hardest task, finding a strand of Christmas lights that still work.

This is also the memory making time of year. One year in the 1950s, there was a quite memorable family Christmas dinner for my great-grandparents and their siblings. The table was set and it looked and smelled good. Along with beef, chicken, and turkey, great Aunt Lottie brought her cooked possum to add to the meat selections. Lottie and her brother Charlie were the only ones to eat the possum. Fun times!  I was not born yet, but the family story still makes me laugh!    

Sparkly holiday lights and sleigh bells are included at Saluda Shoals on November 19 from 6:30- to 8:30 pm. The fee is $5 per person. You can enjoy the Holiday Lights on the River from November 21 until December 31, along with other activities such as the park train, a hayride, tube slide, and a laser light show. For information, visit www.icrc.net .  

I love the piano.  I would love to be able to play it, but my 2 years of lessons that ended in 5th grade only left me the ability to plunk out simple songs. On December 2 at Chapin Town Hall, Brittany Maier, the blind and autistic piano prodigy, will perform.  She began playing Ave Maria on the toy piano when she was 6.  She took formal lessons at USC and then moved to New York. There is a suggested donation of $5 at the door. Visit www.brittanymaiermusic.com for more information on this incredible piano player and her life.  

Government scandals are not new news items.  In 1831, Andrew Jackson’s “Petticoat Affair” was full of drama over Mrs. Peggy Eaton, who married President Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of War. President Jackson dissolved his entire cabinet because of this one woman. USC Professor Emeritas Pat McNeely will discuss her new book about the Petticoat Affair at the Dutch Fork Historical Society’s program on November 26 at 6 pm at the Chapin Library.