Lazy Sunday XXXII: Festivals

This fall, I’ve been hitting up a number of small-town festivals in an attempt to get out more to see the forgotten by-ways of rural South Carolina.  I work pretty hard during the week (indeed, most of today will dedicated to finalizing first quarter report grades), so I’m making a point of enjoying my weekends more.

To that end, this week’s Lazy Sunday will look back at some recent festival-going.  I should note that the full versions of these pieces are Subscribe Star exclusives; to read them in full requires a subscription of $1 a month or more to my Subscribe Star page.

  • Aiken Amblings” – This piece detailed my trip to my hometown for Aiken’s Makin’, a sprawling, two-day crafts festival that brings vendors from all over the Southeast to ply their wares.  I have fond memories of this festival from my childhood, and it’s still a major fall event.
  • Yemassee Shrimp Festival 2019” – This post is all about a long day trip to tiny Yemassee, South Carolina, for the Yemassee Shrimp Festival.  The trip also included stops at the historic Old Sheldon Church ruins and St. James the Greater Catholic Church in Ritter, South Carolina.
  • Candy Apples” – My paean to a typically autumnal fair food, the sticky, tart candy apple.  We had some good ones last weekend.
  • Festival Circuit: Ridge Spring Harvest Festival and Clinton Scots & Brats” – Yesterday’s post detailed a two-for-one festival day—my trip to the Ridge Spring Harvest Festival and Clinton, South Carolina’s Scots & Brats celebration, the latter of which was the source of the candy apples that inspired the previous Saturday’s post.

Hopefully there will be more festivals to come.  For now, I’ve got to get back to grading.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday XVII: #MAGAWeek2019

This past week was #MAGAWeek2019 here at The Portly Politico.  Each day’s post was a SubscribeStar exclusive.  For a subscription of $1/month, you gain exclusive to each day’s posts, as well as exclusive content every Saturday throughout the rest of the year.  Visit my SubscribeStar page for more details.

In case you missed anything from #MAGAWeek2019, this week’s edition of Lazy Sunday is dedicated to catching you up on what you missed.  But remember, you only get a teaser of each post; to read the full posts, you have to subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1/month or more.  That includes exclusive content every Saturday, too, like yesterday’s review of my trip to New Jersey and Coney Island, NYC, “Mid-Atlantic Musings.”

But enough sales pitches.  Here were the highlights from #MAGAWeek2019:

  • Fast Food” – After a long day on the road last Sunday, I decided to do something fun and lighthearted to kick off #MAGAWeek2019.  President Trump famously loves fast food, even feeding it to the Clemsux National Championship football team in vast quantities.  I, too, appreciate good fast food, and marvel at its ability to provide a filling, calorie-rich meal at an affordable price.  You can read more of my high cholesterol musings on the topic at my SubscribeStar page.
  • Alexander Hamilton” – Hamilton engenders a great deal of debate between decentralist Jeffersonians (such as myself) and centralists, but his influence on and importance to America’s early political and financial formation cannot be denied—indeed, it should be celebrated.  Jefferson and Madison were probably correct, constitutionally, on the issue of the national bank—Congress had no explicit constitutional authority to create such an institution—but Hamilton’s financial reforms placed the nation on solid financial footing, ensuring the United States had the financial infrastructure in place for explosive growth and expansion.
  • John Adams” – John Adams is an unappreciated Founder and Framer, though David McCullough’s magisterial biography of the second President of the United States has done much to lift Adams’s profile.  Adams served the United States ably as our Commander in Chief during his single term, staving off a full-blown war with France while protecting American mercantile shipping on the high seas.
  • President Trump’s Independence Day Speech” – On a particularly star-spangled Fourth of July, President Trump delivered a powerhouse of an Independence Day speech.  Not only were the multiple flyovers of military aircraft impressive (ending, of course, with the Blue Angels soaring majestically over the National Mall), the speech itself was a masterclass in what I dub “old, patriotic American history.”  It’s well worth watching—and reading my full analysis on my SubscribeStar page.

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Mid-Atlantic Musings

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Thanks to everyone who supported #MAGAWeek2019.  Those posts—on Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, President Trump’s Independence Day Speech, and fast food—will always be available in full on my SubscribeStar page with your subscription of just $1 a month or more.

I’ve been writing all this week from central New Jersey.  Other than a brief stay in Jersey City on a school trip to New York City in 2014, I’ve never really been to New Jersey.  Contrary to my assumptions, New Jersey is not a dystopian nightmare covered in asphalt and broken dreams (although I’m told Newark is).

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

TBT^2: Happy Birthday, America!

It’s Independence Day in the United States!  God Bless America!

I hope everyone has been enjoying #MAGAWeek2019.  Remember, you can read those full entries only on SubscribeStar with a $1/mo. or higher subscription.  Your subscription also includes exclusive access to new content every Saturday, as well as other goodies from time to time.

I’m happy to announce, too, that I have my first subscriber.  You, too, can support my work for just $1 a month (or more).  That’s the price of a large pizza if you paid for it over the course of an entire year—you can’t beat that!

In case you’ve missed them, so far has commemorated our second President, John Adams; our first Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton; and our national cuisine, fast food.  You can also check out all of #MAGAWeek2018’s entries.

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#MAGAWeek2019: Fast Food

It’s here at The Portly Politico.  Each day’s post will be a SubscribeStar exclusive.  For a subscription of $1/month, you gain exclusive to each day’s posts, as well as exclusive content every Saturday throughout the rest of the year.  Visit my SubscribeStar page for more details.

It’s finally here—#MAGAWeek2019!  It’s the week of the year that we celebrate our great country’s birth, and I honor it with a daily post about a person, place, or idea that has, in its own way, made America great.

I’m writing this week’s posts from New Jersey, where I’m spending a week with my girlfriend’s family.  Contrary to my expectations, the entire State is not a dystopian, concrete-encrusted urban hellscape.  Its nickname, the “Garden State,” is apt:  it’s quite lush, and there are horses—horses!  It feels like South Carolina with less humidity and more crime and corruption.

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Championship Beef

One of my favorite writers, Roger Kimball, offers up a beefy analysis of President Trump’s fast food feast for the National Championship Clemson Tigers (the hardest words I’ve ever had to write); you can read it here:  https://spectator.us/trump-burger-masterpiece/

Naturally, the Left is up in arms because, well, it’s Trump.  If President Barack Obama had served fast food burgers, we’d be reading think-pieces on The Root about the historical significance of fast food in the African-American community, and how the meal demonstrates Obama’s “cool, hip” side and authentic blackness.  Of course, because Trump does it, it’s probably racist.

I’ve seen all kinds of criticisms of this fun feast from Leftists.  One of the shots of the spread showed food in plastic containers, and—I kid you not—a Facebook Lefty with whom I’m acquainted complained about all the plastic, presumably because it’s bad for the environment (classist subtext:  food in plastic containers is for backwards rubes).

The president is also catching flak because he joked that if the First Lady had been in charge, the players would be eating salad.  Apparently, that’s a sexist remark.  Gimme a break.

You know these players loved eating Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers, Whoppers, and Big Macs in the White House.

I sure would.  There are few things I enjoy more than a classic cheeseburger from McDonald’s.  It’s got everything you need (those onions are perfect), and it’s a no-fuss, quick, cost-effective meal.  Indeed, the McDonald’s McDouble cheeseburger is probably the most calories-per-dollar meal in human history.

Of course, progressives not-so-secretly find poverty distasteful—thus the abundance of the soy latte set among limousine liberals—and shudder at the food of us common folks.

Kudos to the president for this clever, whimsical gesture.