Good Morning Lowcountry

The fall exhale

Hear that heavy sigh? That's thousands of pluffmudders heaving relief at waking up to temperatures in the 70s and a nice breeze.

Our long summer nightmare is almost over.

Not that it won't get hot again. Cooler weather comes in fits and starts. The first sign is an ability to breathe again. The second is an odd desire to wear closed-toe shoes. We have waning interest in the hurricane season, even though it won't be officially over until Nov. 30.

We're getting spammed by messages like "Fall in love with butternut squash." We want to go to the beach and get in water that is not quite the bath-water temperature it was in August. We want to drive to the mountains. Fall saves the Lowcountry, much as spring saves the snowbound Up North.

Speaking of the mountains, an Asheville, N.C., Web site (exploreasheville.com) advises that fall color is appearing at 4,000 feet and above and could peak this weekend. Best spots to see early fall leaves are Grandfather Mountain, Mount Mitchell (the highest peak east of the Mississippi), Craggy Gardens, Linville and Orchard at Altapass.

In mid- to late-October, leaves in elevations between 2,000 and 4,000 feet will turn. Spots to visit include Asheville, Hot Springs, Weaverville, Black Mountain, Maggie Valley and Waynesville. Late fall yellows, oranges and reds can be found at Chimney Rock Park, Cherokee and Lake Lure.

Literacy

Charleston is one of six cities that have been praised for early literacy education and parent support by the National League of Cities' Institute for Youth, Education and Families. The others are Bryan, Texas; Enfield, Conn.; Fort Worth, Texas; Lakewood, Ohio; and Longmont, Colo.

The praise comes in a new report by NLC called "Supporting Parents: Promising City Efforts to Help Young Children Succeed," which cites Charleston's Born to Read "welcome baby" book kits, Countdown to Kindergarten program, family Book Club and "Born Learning" education and media campaign. Read the report at tinyurl.com/2m9dwj.

Tracing the enslaved

University of Pittsburgh professor Marcus Rediker put 30 years of research on maritime archives into the newly published book, "The Slave Ship: A Human History," to be released Thursday. Rediker is also author of "Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age"; "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750"; and other history books.

"Rediker is remarkably attentive to the experiences of the enslaved women, from whom we have no written accounts, and of the common seaman, who he says was a victim of the slave trade and a victimizer," Publishers Weekly wrote. "Regarding these vessels as a strange and potent combination of war machine, mobile prison, and factory, Rediker expands the scholarship on how the ships not only delivered millions of people to slavery, but prepared them for it."

The Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World program at the College of Charleston and other organizations in the Lowcountry, including the historic plantations, are marking this bicentennial of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade with a number of events and programs on slavery, resistance and abolition.

Remarkable among them is Roots and Branches: An African American Genealogy Conference coming up at the end of this month at C of C's Physicians Auditorium.

The conference, 8:15 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Oct. 27, is free. Keynote speakers will be noted genealogy scholars Tony Burroughs and Dorothy Spruill Redford.

Workshops will cover researching the genealogies of free and enslaved blacks and the records that exist for black genealogies.

For more information, see gullahroots.com and cofc.edu/atlanticworld; e-mail info@gullahroots.com or call 843-670-6115.

GMLc
Call 937-5564; e-mail gmlc@postandcourier.com; find the blog at gmlc.typepad.com.