Standing before an attentive audience at the Village Library in Pickens the evening of Friday, September 19, 2025, author Charles Hood spoke about, and read selections from, Looking for Space: My Pickens Journey, his new book about growing up in Pickens in the mid to late 1970’s.

“It’s really gratifying to see so many people here,” he said to the packed room, which was filled with citizens who love their hometown of Pickens and cherish the memories he brought back to them through his book. Most of the crowd had already purchased his book on Amazon and had read it and brought their copy for him to sign. Some purchased the book that evening, and he signed it for them.

Hood noted that several members of the audience were characters in his book. “I’m seeing kind of like a whole cross-section of my entire life, a lot of people that are very important to me,” he said. “And I’m so happy. I can’t even put into words how gratifying it is to know that the book that I wrote has clicked with so many people here and people who couldn’t make it.”

He offered a summary of his book. “It’s about my journey from Indiana (where I was born and lived my first 10 years until my father passed away from cancer) to coming to South Carolina. And the way we came to South Carolina was, my Mom wanted to get out of Indiana. She didn’t want to live in that house anymore. I was 10. One of my brothers had just gotten out of the Navy after completing his tour as a submarine nuclear engineer in Charleston. He was based out of Charleston and didn’t have a job. This was 1972. And, as you know, the Oconee Nuclear Station was being built, and Duke Power was hiring nuclear engineers. So, he came up to Pickens for an interview. They gave him a job.

“Meanwhile, we were in Indiana, and we went to California for a year. We were all homesick for the East. And my Mom grew up in West Virginia, and she wanted to be near the mountains. She was always a small town kind of person. My brother Frank and his wife said, ‘Come to Pickens.’ So, she moved us here. I was lucky, because I started in seventh grade, which means everybody from all these different schools came in, and everybody was new. So, I kind of blended in.

“The story is one of going from tragedy to joy, the joy that I found culminating with my graduation from high school, from Pickens High School.

“Why did I write this book? I wrote this book for several reasons. First, I was kind of a natural packrat for memorabilia. Even as a kid, I had scrapbooks. I would keep tickets. I would keep receipts. I would keep pamphlets. I would keep you name it. And I also kept a journal, and I would write stories. And the reason there are so many detailed stories in my book is because I had the raw materials. They set kind of dormant for years. Back when the internet kind of came of age, and Word came out, I started to type it up. This was about 30 years ago. Then, I just kind of left it. Whenever we would have a class reunion, or I would get with old friends, and they would bring up some story that I hadn’t written down, I would go back and add it. And, so, I had this huge archive of memories.

“To fast forward a little bit, 2017 is when my younger son, Ryan, passed away suddenly. I was dealing with a lot of grief, understandably. And my brother Frank said, ‘You need something to occupy your mind. Why don’t you write, because you’re a good writer.’ And, so, I said, ‘What am I going to write about?’ He said, ‘Let’s write a story about my journey through the submarine service. It would be my story, and we could talk about submarines and explain how submarines work.’ So, we wrote this book together in about eight months, and we called it Poopie Suits and Cowboy Boots. We thought, ‘Well, we’ll sell 100 copies, mainly to friends and family.’ We sold 100 copies, and then we sold 500 copies, and then we sold 1,000 copies. It caught on with the submarine veteran community. That first book led to eight other books. I’ve written nine submarine books over the last eight years. And they’re all true story collections of exploits of the U.S. Submarine Force. We decided at the outset that we were going to donate every penny to submarine charities. And, so, we donated $65,000 to the USSVI (United States Submarine Veterans, Inc.). It goes toward scholarships for children and grandchildren of submarine veterans.

“So, that kind of gave me the wherewithal, the experience of doing that. I joined the board of Young Appalachian Musicians earlier this year. My wife and I, with Perry Gravely’s help, and Betty McDaniel’s help, set up a scholarship in my late son’s name at Young Appalachian Musicians. And this scholarship pays for the tuition for kids who can’t afford to come to the summer camp that costs $100 per week. We fund a number of those kids. And we also award two $100 scholarships every year to outgoing YAM graduates so that they can buy an instrument.

“I thought, ‘Well, I’m kind of tired of writing about submarines, especially since I never rode on one. I’m just going to write this book, and we’re going to turn all the proceeds over to my son’s scholarship. It sounds like a win-win. I didn’t know the book would turn out the way it did. I didn’t know how it would be perceived. But I decided to write it as honestly as I could, based on all of the recollections that I had. So, I didn’t really have to do a whole lot of thinking, except I had to go through all of my material, which is about double the size of this book, and pick out what I thought was interesting and then create a story.

“And what I decided to do was to make Pickens the main character of the story. I hope I accomplished that. My journey was just the scaffolding or the vehicle to tell the story of Pickens. When people ask me where I’m from, I tell them I’m from Pickens, and I’m always proud to say that, and I wanted a book that reflected that pride. I felt there was a shortage of books that covered the era that I grew up in, that we grew up in, the mid to late 1970’s. So, what I decided to do was to tell my story chronologically but to mix in a bunch of chapters unrelated to me, entirely, like about the Medal of Honor winners in our county. Or the modernization of Pickens. Or the road system and how it developed. How did Pickens develop as a town? Who was Andrew Pickens? So, that’s kind of how it turned out.

“I think, in the end, my story is kind of a tale of redemption. When I read, I can identify with tales where there is a struggle, and someone has to overcome challenges to succeed. This is, hopefully, a feel good story that touches upon what I consider the hallmarks of growing up in Pickens, which is, we were able to grow up in town where the kids could roam during the day. Our parents didn’t know where we were. You went out. You did your chores. You got back by dinnertime. And, while you were gone, you were under the surrogate care and supervision of other adults that created this big umbrella of love and care and protection. Sad to say, that doesn’t exist anymore. And I wanted to capture that, because I think that’s what we all want for our own kids, and, in today’s world, it’s pretty much impossible. So, I’m just super gratified with the response, and that’s a little bit about why I wrote it.”

Then, he read several excerpts from his book and took questions from the audience.

“I’m happy to report that the book has been out for almost six weeks, and I’ve already sold about 400 copies, not including tonight,” he concluded. “And we’ve already raised $2,000 for the camp. So, thank you all.”

He noted that an audio version of Looking for Space: My Pickens Journey will soon be available. “I have a professional narrator, who is a Navy veteran, we got to know writing our submarine books. He does a great job. He’s working on the audio version. There will be an audio version of this available on Audible or Amazon before Thanksgiving.”

Following the Author Talk, he then signed copies of his book for the enthusiastic crowd.