For the last several years my writing has taken a back seat to life—the Pandemic and other life or death matters—I intend to change that moving forward.

Writing is an act of self-absorption and mine is no exception. My stories are usually about Earth, Community, Family, and Food - and Memory, and flaws of Memory. I hold reverence for the art of memory, and write about the fallacies of memory. Sometimes I am moved to expand into History and Political Philosophy.

My "memoir of a place," and of five generations of my people and how they cared for each other in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, “Magnolia Elegy: Place In the Edisto Fork” was published April 14, 2022 and is available wherever books are sold.

A lifelong reader and writer, my favorite writers are Lawrence Durrell, Wendell Berry, William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez—or Ian Frazier and William Least Heat-Moon. I can be reached at tom@oldonesdream.com.

The most frequently viewed post for the life of these writings, has been German Prisoners of War in South Carolina . The most frequently viewed post leading up to winter holidays is in the Food category, The Best I Ever Had: Scalloped Oysters.

The rest of the top most viewed pages according to Google Analytics, are as follows:

The Near Extinction of the American Bison: Do the Math

Small Grain Harvest in the 1940s

Why 34 Foot Tall Climbing Walls and Jump Towers

Most all of my favorite stories are in the Category "Rural Roots".

I was born in the rural South in the Spring of the year of Pearl Harbor; and educated in a small rural public school system, a small liberal arts men’s college, and at the graduate school of a large state university. I have been a farmer-cowboy, a breeder of pigs, and a brewer of beer – a business analyst and an introvert.

I helped to pioneer computer networks in K-12 public school districts in the 1980 – 1990s, and after 2000 worked to win funding for telecommunications and data network connections in rural public school districts.

I hope that you enjoy my work.

* Revised January 23, 2025

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