the first baptist church welcomes you to denmark, sc:

from what my father says, the sign used to read, "welcome to denmark, sc. impeach earl warren." chief justice. integration. you get it. anyway, on sunday i followed carlyle to denmark to meet his family. i'd met roughly a third already but none of the biggies: mom, dad, grandmother, various neighbors.

after turning off of I-26 onto 321, the highway speed limit dropped to 35. train tracks ran through the center of most towns, churches (some pentecostal, some presbyterian) lined the road. at one point, an unattended piglet lingered on the side of the road.

hannah yelled, "DELIVERANCE! turn back!!!" into the phone.

call waiting beeped. carlyle.

he said, "i've got a story about that piggly wiggly grocery we passed back there."

we pulled onto a dirt road. he parked, motioned for me to park and get into his truck.

hannah yelled "do not get out of the car!" into the phone.

in the truck, carlyle said, "you're going to blog about this."

"absolutely not," i said.

later, hannah yelled into the phone, "what? you've got to!!! stop putting him before your art!!!" she was kidding. of course she was kidding...

anyway, his family was lovely. we ate dinner in courses on fine china. each of us had our own salt and pepper dish. they asked if carlyle had met my family. i remembered, faintly, our defrosting the gumbo for his visit.

okay, so then a sort of pub crawl...only with people. families came over to deliver presents. we went to their houses (where it took all i had not to blurt out, "is that a bayonet on the wall?"), drank german beers by the indoor pool.

anyway, it was awesome.