This will be a blog about where I live: Beaufort, SC. In the eight years I have lived here, I have tried to re-acquaint myself with the customs and the morality of living in the South and living with Southern U.S. history. This is a very old port town, first settled by Europeans in the sixteenth century; thus we have sections of the town known as "Spanish Point" or "Frenchtown." Because the old sections of town have evolved more than they have been treated as a concept, the town is beautiful on a human scale, and it is famous for its live oak vistas, framed by Spanish moss, looking out on the water.

I have thought quite a bit about the remnants and the present existence of segregation and racism; about the kind of sexism that treats women as ornamental; about homophobia that damages the potential conversation between gay and straight. But I am also interested in the polite society of educated and gracious people on the one hand, and the dispossessed and alienated underprivileged society on the other. In fact, I am interested in everything about this little town, including its changing demographics as it absorbed more and wealthier people in from Ohio, Wisconsin, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Washington State, or Arizonia.