"Charmingly Southern" describes Elloree on one side of a white promotional coffee mug. My mother, Brenda, and her husband, Michael, had moved from their early retirement home in Florida to the outskirts of this well-preserved town in rural South Carolina in the southeast of the United States.Cotton is everywhere in the south. The plant is a waist-high shrub with white plumes of lint at the tips of its branches. Dark seeds remain trapped in the fibres and need to be separated out after harvest. White fluff from excess tufts of cotton clogs the gutters by the side of the road.
For a darker, David Lynch-esque exploration of South Carolina, see my photo essay, Bone Collector. The next issue of my newsletter will publish on 14 February, so subscribe now.