Conway, South Carolina, my Mom's hometown

Every year, until I was in high school, my family  traveled the road from Louisville, KY to Conway, SC to visit my grandmother. 

 Now that South Carolina is my new home,  it is fitting that my first exploration finds me on Hwy. 501, driving  into my past. 
Headed into town, the road is still shouldered on both sides by those well remembered swampy lagoons all soggy with black water. As a child I was afraid of that black water and its hidden mysteries. Looking into that swamp now   I can almost feel the ghost of Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox) peering from behind the trees. The swamp providing unlimited hiding places to wage his monumental campaign to help us win our War for Independence.
Conway, originally named Kingston in honor of King George I, is the last town on the road to Myrtle Beach. It's a river town, filled with pine trees, sandy soil and those oh so familiar black water swamps that border rivers in coastal South Carolina Even today the scent of damp pine needles and sandy soil conjures up memories of sitting on my grandmothers's screened porch, shelling butter beans as fast as I could, so we could beat a path to nearby Myrtle Beach.

Conway (est. 1734)  is one of South Carolina's oldest towns sporting streets peppered with one of my favorite trees, the live oak.  Bordering the road, they spread their arms wide to welcome my return.

Delicate strands of Spanish moss trail gracefully from their outstretched fingers.  They have a quiet dignity.  The breeze is warm.  The air is humid.  It is the Deep South.  It is home. 
A stop at the visitor's center and I'm loaded down with information about the Conway I remember and the Conway I have yet to meet.
But for today it is enough to enjoy the beauty of the oaks. 

The live oak.  It symbolizes all that is southern.  The oaks are Conway's oldest citizens thus are held in high esteem. It is the South's "postcard tree".  Antebellum plantation owners, well aware of their stateliness, planted avenues of them.  Leaves are leathery, shiny, evergreen.  Branches spread much wider than the tree's height giving them the look of an open hug. 

In shipbuilding days,  the  "knees" where the limbs join the trunk were prized for their strength and used to brace the sides of ships.
Conway has protected these "citizens" since the 1880's and continues to enforce a tree ordinance to ensure our enjoyment of these beauties for years to come.

Spanish moss is partial to the rough surface of live oak bark.  The sight of live oaks and Spanish moss existing hand in hand is so classic that a tree without its moss seems almost naked when not adorned by those tendrils.  It's interesting to note that Spanish moss is neither Spanish or moss.  It is an air plant (epiphyte) surviving on dust and water.  The  solid oak is there for support and is not hurt by its abiding presence. 

 I walk the streets my Mom walked as she grew. The same streets she stood to watch the circus parade as it marched through town.  The branches of the oaks  form an umbrella over my head just as they did my Mom as she walked home for lunch and a break from her vacation job "downtown". The Post Office is now a museum, the department store where she worked  no longer sells trendy dresses..  The Presbyterian church is still shouldered by the graves of founders of this town and those who fought for its freedom and to preserve its way of life.   Civil war veteran tombs are dressed with replicas of the "Stars and Bars".

 

It is an odd sensation to revisit places from your past.  You look at things through eyes of the heart, seeing not just what is there but what used to be.  Walking down the Main Street of Conway I am thrilled that this  Southern town has worked to keep the area vibrant and central to the heartbeat of Conway life.  Buildings wear new names but are still clothed in character and style luring shoppers  and diners to frequent visits.

  

 The black water Wacamaw river running through town is now framed with a river boardwalk.  People are everywhere, the town is alive, vibrant, keeping pace with the times yet walking hand in hand with its past.