Recently Friend A and I talked about whether or not we have bucket lists and I popped off with: "The only thing in mine is to see the Aurora Borealis." Now, my original thought for this blog entry was to say that until I went to Hogsmeade I had forgotten that that was certainly listed and bucketed... But, sitting here now, the proper addendum to make would be to say that I do have something in there -- to do something genuinely helpful. I think that we all want to find our passion and reach our potential and contribute, and then we have kids and that transfers to them. In essence, that was the spirit that was blown into and filled the shell of this scheme. We go on these trips and we go to homes of the likes of Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the girl scouts) or Ernest Hemingway and I keep thinking how desperately I want my kids to realize that it is possible to make a difference, possible to do something great. And then on occasion I think: did my folks think the same about me?
A friend commented on how important my grandparents must have been to me, since I reference them often, and the answer is yes, they were important. My grandmother never accepted anything cheap and my grandpa told me once that I would be a writer. It's believing in kids that makes them endeared to you. We are here now in Myrtle Beach and my children's grandparents are with us. The Dad will be flying away for this next week to do something lame (some people call it work) and he invited his parents to come here to be with the kids and me. It's easier to all spend time together at a Marriott Vacation Villa than our tiny and packed to the gills NYC apartment. And having extra time to spend with family was another purpose for the scheme.
But I've started this entry all backwards now. Last I reported we were winding up our time in Orlando. We woke up the next morning and after taking advantage of a brilliant pool with water slides we got ready to take our leave of Florida. On our way out of the sunshine state we stopped at the Morse Museum to look at the largest collection of Tiffany glass. It was impressive to learn a bit about the technique -- the science and art that goes into making both the color and the texture of glass. I'm not sure that the kids totally understood the process (I didn't), but there was a cool ah-ha moment when they realized that their aunt who showed them how to solder metal around colored glass one time was in essence doing the same thing, and using the same tools as the Tiffany workshop. They got to touch some Tiffany glass, and we saw what was salvaged from Laurelton Hall and the chapel that had been created for the 1893 World's Exposition (which was another link for them because they know that the Museum of Science and Industry was also created for the Exposition). There are such pieces of beauty there... The daffodils on the columns that held up the porch at Laurelton Hall represent the type of art that inspire people to try to do something.
The march towards Savannah. I didn't know before we set out from home that we were going to Savannah, or I would have checked out Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil from the library to reread. That book was hot when I was studying creative nonfiction, and so I actually used it in a class that I taught one time. Definitely worth the read -- though gritty at times. Speaking to a woman from Savannah at the time when the book was all the rage, I asked her what people from the town thought of it. She laughed and said that the town was split in two groups, those who were benefitting from the book/came off looking decent referred to it as the book, while those who came off looking like cads/disagreed with some of Berendt's observation referred to it as that book. Remembering that conversation, I tried to explain this nuance to the kids -- a lesson in semantics.
We rolled into Savannah in time to check into our hotel, grab a bite to eat and meet up with our horse carriage. We were going on the 7pm part history-part ghost tales tour.
Savannah is a town rich in history. And rich in beauty. With those 20-plus squares set out geometrically and the gorgeous homes with gardens, and townhouses with unique detailing, surrounding them. It was a gift to all people with eyes to see that some dedicated folks made the huge restoration efforts that they did half a century ago.
The ghost stories were all rather run of the mill -- children playing pranks, sad women weeping, men unable to let go of grudges. Our families favorite was about a horse named Socks. He was a white horse that the tours used and he loved to be scratched around the ears, and when he was scratched the right way he would go into a kind of trance of ecstasy and start leaning way over. One night in the middle of a tour he stopped for his water break that they have set up for the horses by one of the squares and when it was time to move on he wasn't interested. After a couple of minutes of the tour guide attempting to get him to get going he finally got out of the carriage to see if anything could be ascertained. What he saw was the horse leaning way over in a very content manner as though somebody was scratching his ears. As it turned out, it was the anniversary of one of the big battles that happened and people have surmised that the soldiers that had returned were scratching Socks's ears.
After our tour (and before I knocked back a plastic jigger of Benadryl to help me relieve the symptoms of my horse allergy) we stopped for ice cream at Leopold's. The ice cream was really as good as the hype, and there's a jukebox that plays three songs for a quarter. We picked "Moon River" (kind of have to in Savannah to honor Mercer), "The Stripper" (because I often have the sense of humor of a 7th-grader), and "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (Judd the Red Chicken's request). I had forgotten how starting up the jukebox kind of makes you feel conspicuous in a room full of people. I could see all of those art and design students looking me up and down and trying to determine if my selections would be tolerable.
On our way home we passed by the old Telfair Women's Hospital and I was like: "Did anybody else see that person standing in that middle window?" I made The Dad drive around the entire square again to see if anybody else saw what I did. On our way back around the personage was indeed still there... I made the mistake of having The Dad pull over so I could fumble around and get my phone out. As I did so, the personage backed away -- it was so chillingly exciting! -- and then returned with somebody else who looked not so ghost-like at all, and then it looked like they were trying to open the door to come out ... and then I couldn't look. It was one of those "drive on!" and don't look back moments. I'm sure they were coming out to yell at the tourists peeking in to their business.
The next morning we looked around Forsyth Park to get a sense of walking through a square.
We then headed to Bonaventure Cemetery. It is all that a southern gothic cemetery should be -- complete with that draping Spanish moss that is haunted by chiggers. Of course we stopped by Johnny Mercer's grave. We've been listening to his songs for the past couple of days. The soundtrack from the movie (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) is great -- it's a bunch of Mercer songs sung by various artists like k.d. lang, Diana Krall, and Tony Bennett.
After the cemetery we went on a tour of the Owens-Thomas House. The tour starts in the slave quarters -- some of the best preserved in the country. The beams on the ceiling are painted blue and it's the largest quantity of "haint paint" preserved. Haint paint is what the slaves that came from different countries did to prevent haints (haunts/ghosts) from being able to get to them. There was a belief that water kept them away, so they would paint their surroundings in blue whenever possible. The tour guide made the wry comment that the haint paint must be doing its job, as the Owens-Thomas house seems to be the only house in Savannah these days that isn't haunted.
The tour was fascinating because of the cistern that was put in the house, but I will say that we have worn thin our patience. The Boy's technique is to wiggle, The Girl's is to not be able to support her own body, and mine is feeling like I'm about to pop. In fairness, the tour really was interesting -- there were a lot of faux finishes and fake doors (to create symmetry), but we were spent.
We did make two more stops:
The Telfair Academy -- which is beautiful and surely has amazing art in it, but to be honest we just took a cursory look around, almost broke The Boy's nose (he ran into a glass door), used the restrooms and then succumbed to our touristy/voyeuristic baser selves and looked at the Bird Girl statue. In fairness, it's a multilayered reason why I like the Bird Girl statue so much... The first time that I went to Paris I went to a store that sold the enormous movie posters that they used to hang by the bus stops and in the metro stations. The movie poster, like the book cover, was beautiful -- it was of the statue and then had the title in french. For a nominal price I bought it and hung it on the stairway landing in the first home that The Dad and I owned. Eventually, when we moved, it was given away in a moment of zealous downsizing. I've always regretted that. So when I see that statue I think of me as a young grad student teaching the book, and I think of me as young home owner with a 4-foot by 6-foot poster in my house... Everybody has their stories and reasons and desire to connect to something poignant.
The statue is in the museum because too many people were visiting it at the cemetery and creating too much traffic. The family of the plot decided to relocate it to the museum. The Boy asked why they didn't just put a gate around her like some of the other too-visited monuments. Perhaps it didn't feel right to cage her. She really is beautiful. There was a copy of the book (or that book) at the museum and I had to buy it and reread it now that I had been to the squares and seen some of the houses. The woman at the register sighed when we put it on the counter.
We learned that the fish gutters on so many of the houses hearken back to a belief that ugly fish would keep ghosts away from your home.
We stopped at the bookstore at the Julette Gordon Low house. The Girl is not a girl scout, but I've always liked what it's all about. I bought a replica of the original handbook and on every page I'm impressed and shocked at the political incorrectness. I will record more from it as we read it -- it's good stuff.
We had one last Junior Ranger to knock out on this trip, and so we left Georgia and its ghosts behind us and eventually found ourselves in Congaree National Park. Aside from worksheets and picking up trash and learning about some things in the visitor's center we needed to take the boardwalk trail. It was beautiful, but it seemed long. The Boy did make it interesting by holding up his packet of papers to do a required tree rubbing and accidentally losing quite a few sheets. Fortunately, it was over a dryer part, so I was able to lower him over the edge and down below the boardwalk to retrieve them. I felt like a felon. I even got a bit hysterical on him when he hesitated because of a spiderweb. I growled at him to get the stinkin' papers and get back over to be hoisted up. He didn't encounter any snakes or electric fences... he lived to get another Junior Ranger patch.
That evening -- last evening -- we arrived for our week in Myrtle Beach. Up until now we have stayed in a different hotel every night. I've been asked about our lodging. Once upon a time The Dad had a job that required significant travel and he banked a zillion Marriott points. That is what enables us to travel. So my experience with lodging is always within the realm of Marriott. I can recommend the Marriott Villas in Orlando -- the pools are awesome and it's nice to be able to do laundry so that you don't have to pack quite so much. Here's what part of the property looked like:
Our favorite non-villa hotel was the one we stayed in in Savannah. It's a boutique hotel that Marriott recently acquired called The Mansion on Forsyth Park. It was very lovely with cool pictures of the Forsyth fountain on the ceiling of the elevators, and the location is excellent. The only complaint there was that the pool is very small and really more for adults.
And now we get to settle in for a week with the grandparents here:
Settled in, Downton Abby'ed (I can't even talk about how distraught I am about Lady Sibyl -- totally my favorite), caught up with our happenings, and still wondering how to articulate that thing for my bucket list. Do something that will be helpful -- that might just be having had my two kids, for I'm confident that they will contribute to the world. Perhaps, now that Hogsmeade has been visited the Aurora Borealis really is it... and even then, I have to admit that some of Tiffany's glass just about captures that same play of color and light...
There is a lot to see in this world, and we've seen a lot of it in one week. Hurray for the scheme.
