JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME

In a collection of columns from The Easley Progress, McCollum (Nalley, A Southern Family Story, 2002) offers mostly heartwarming tales of her family and the hamlet in which she grew up.

McCollum spent all but three years of her life in the same Southern town where she was born. Growing up in the years before World War II, McCollum became familiar with nearly every inch of the town, and her love for her birthplace is evident in her columns. As an adult, she was a features writer and columnist for the local paper, and this book is compilation of her 2001 and 2003 pieces, which combine folksy recipes and tips with sweet reminiscences of Easley’s distant and not-so-distant past. McCollum is an Everywoman most will recognize–readers will easily liken her to their mother, sister, grandmother or wife. The author enjoys yard work, going to her grandson’s basketball games and cooking, though, as her family jokingly reminds her, she’ll never win a prize for her fried chicken. Some of the columns are a bit too inside, as they dwell on individuals only familiar to Easley residents–they’ll prove less meaningful for the average reader. McCollum recounts quaint tales of getting lost on the way from Easley to neighboring Greenwood and expresses her appreciation for Strom Thurmond, former governor of South Carolina and Dixiecrat presidential candidate. It’s a jarring sentiment, as readers might be reminded that, for many, life in the South in the mid-20th century wasn’t all roses and daffodils. As with many collections of newspaper columns, the book suffers from repetition. However, that does not detract from the winsome folksiness of the anecdotes.

A slice-of-life from a small-town existence.