Savannah, Day .5

That's right: Day .5. You see, the workshop didn't start until Monday morning, if you don't count the reception on Sunday evening. I arrived later in the day on Saturday. So, everything in between I'm calling Day .5, which was my buffer day to avoid the usual eff-ups at the airport.

Incidentally, on my flight back, no one asked me to take my liquids out of my suitcase, and no one gave me shit for using a larger bag. Only in my departure airport has this happened.

But, I digress. Back to Day .5 in which I wandered around an remembered just how hot the coastal south can get. Rather, I remembered just how humid the coastal south can get. By the end of the week, I was sort of liking it, mostly because I didn't have to look pretty for any reason and because everyone else with me looked just as melted as I and because I knew there was a nice hot shower in a nice cold hotel room at the end of the day. Also, between the steam and the water to keep from dehydrating, my skin looked amazing, so healthy and pink and clean.

Again, I digress.

I wandered around and around, just taking a look at everything and being reminded of that particular moldy Gothic atmosphere of cities in swamps. Savannah lacks the bright polish of Charleston, which feels more like a city connected with the ocean and has the bright colors that you see further down in Florida. Savannah, instead, resembles the genteel decay of New Orleans or perhaps Baton Rouge, particularly their Garden Districts, with moss dripping from cathedral arches of live oak and every shaded surface covered in a black and green patina of mold. Shade almost works, and every now and then a breeze does. This all speaks to something primeval in the recesses of my memory. This I know. This, bad and good, calls out my accent.


I was about to go off on something more philosophical, but I want to save that, to mush it together with some other thoughts that I spoke on our last day, when we discussed the impact of this workshop. I want to polish that because this place, this experience, helped me begin to articulate something that --- well, I'll go there later

Meanwhile, back in the mossy swamp city. Most people know Savannah for the book and movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In fact, in Savannah, many local people whom I encountered simply refer to it as "The Book." There is actually a gift shop of "The Book." Sadly, it did not have any really good kitsch items to share with you. I will tell you, every gift shop that catered to tourists had this in it:

That's a replica of the statue from the cover of the book. You can get her in two sizes: enormous and pin. Or you can get a post card, a framed photo, an etching, or whatever medium you damn well please. You just can't go out to the cemetery to find her because too many people trampled the ground and she had to be moved. I read the book when it first came out, so it's been years, but if memory serves, this statue had no role whatsoever in the story.

If you want, you can also tour the Mercer House:

I didn't, but Elmo and Molly, two of my cohort did.* See the left side window on the second floor? Elmo's tour guide said, "that's where the unfortunate incident occurred. Please step across the hall." Molly's tour guide said, "that's where Mr. John Williams defended his life by allegedly shooting Danny Hansford. Now will ya'll please step across the hall." Elmo described it this way, "that's where that rich bitch shot his little boy toy, ya'll."

I didn't tour the Mercer House because it really didn't interest me. I'm finding that house museums are starting to bore the hell out of me. I can only get into the china and the wallpaper for so long after my first yawn, even when I find the place lovely. Nonetheless, I did tour one.

If you were a Girl Scout, you know that the founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low, was born and raised in Savannah. The last time that I was in Savannah, which was for just a couple of hours on a weekend during a research trip in Charleston, I couldn't do a damn thing because there was some big Girl Scout event that weekend and the place was crawling with 10 year olds in green sashes who had booked every tour bus and carriage in the city.


I had not planned to visit this house museum, but I must confess that I was a Girl Scout. In fact, when I was a 10 year old in a green sash myself, I wrote a little one act play, starring my friends Laurie and Holly, that was about the founding of the Girl Scouts. This was the play's synopsis: Juliette Gordon Low wakes up one morning to find that the Boy Scouts have been formed. She becomes furious that girls have been excluded, so she says, "well I'm going to form the Girls Scouts." Then, everyone danced to the BeeGees. (Hush! It was 1977.)

I wasn't a good Girl Scout. Or a good playwright.

Anyway, I felt that I should visit her house in homage to my 10 year old in a green sash self. Also, the museum had air conditioning:

Her story is a little more interesting than just that. Turns out that she was a skilled artist in about any medium that took her fancy, including blacksmithing:


She was also nearly deaf, with only 30% of her hearing. There's a story there to be told -- one that doesn't involve the BeeGees, but does involve girl culture in the 20th century. Sadly, the only biography of her in the gift shop was one written by her niece sometime before I was born.

The bookstore in the gift shop, however, did have this little tidbit. Notice the top shelf there. Notice the Lincoln biographies. Notice that the other titles on that shelf. Now, notice the children's book on the bottom shelf:

Curse of the Campfire Weenie. It's a sausage party on the bookshelf!

The number of Lincoln books featured with face out, especially the one on Lincoln and Douglass (making that now three books pairing the two), surprised me a little in a southern city, although Savannah's relationship to Civil War and memory is not quite so in-your-face as in Charleston.

This also surprised me:


That's a tavern on Lincoln street. "How'd that happen?" I wondered. Then I saw what was next door:

That's the F.B.I. It all makes sense now.

Continuing on my path, I came across this wedding chapel:


Notice that paper taped in the window there. This is what it says:


"Anytime. Can be here within one hour." I'm going to guess that they don't offer sobriety tests nor object to shotguns on the premises.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, I'm sure you know what my first love is:


Yes, CANDY! Two rooms and a manufacturing station:


The guy with his back to us gave out samples.

"It's pecans, butter, sugar, and cream," he told me.

"Darlin'," I said (blame Elmo), "I KNOW what a praline is!" Hell, I can MAKE pralines, and anyone who knows me knows that I'm an incompetent in the kitchen, at best. That is, unless sugar is involved.

Would you believe that next door they had a shop dedicated to my second love? Yes, the fermented grape! In fact, I will confess that I sort of abandoned my first love on this trip and spent quite a bit of time with my second love. Fortunately, the three of us are in a polyamorous triad and no one gets the least bit jealous.

*Not their real names, of course, but let me assure you that Elmo's real name is in the same vein and it kills me not to use it here. Elmo is singularly responsible for re-introducing into my vocabulary the various shades of meaning to the adjective "special" and the term "fell out." If you have met me and meet me again and notice I sound distinctly more southern, that's Elmo's influence.