Choose Charleston

Charleston prides itself on pedigree.

One of my favorite authors is Carolyn G. Hart, who writes wonderful mysteries based in a fictional Lowcountry town. I was fortunate enough to meet her several times a few years ago when I was running an online forum for mystery lovers. She said to me that in many places people would ask who your parents were, but in Charleston, they asked who your grandparents were. That is so true.

I have been places, especially in the mountain communities of the Carolinas and Georgia where the third cousin twice removed of old Ned two peaks away would beconsidered almost kin. If you can’t trace your lineage in Charleston back more than one generation, you are still a newcomer.

My wife likes to remind me that I’m a transplant. Of course, the same could be said for her. Despite coming from an old Charleston family, with ties to the Carolina Yacht Club, she was born in Columbia, so the clock starts over for our daughter. Still, when people ask me where I’m from, I tell them with pride that Charleston is my hometown.