Savannah

My, it has been quite a while since I posted here.


A few weeks back I had surgery to blast the gravel pit of stones in my kidneys. No one seems to know why I am prone to them, but this has been my fifth go round with surgery. And once again the anesthesia confounded me. Martha complained that on the surgical waiting room board, everyone who finished surgery about the same time I did went home and I was still in the recovery room. But I did eventually wake up, drank, peed and went home with foggy anesthesia brain that seems to still be lingering. Later in the week the doctor very kindly came into his office on his day off to remove my stents before my vacation, and then the next two days I found myself writhing in excruciating pain as I apparently passed the remaining stone fragments.


But enough about that because then I got to pack my bags and go to Savannah.


The original plan was booked when Peachie was still living in Boston. “Come to my new house for Easter” she said. “I will take you to the Boston airport the next morning and pick you up when you come home Friday and you can visit for the weekend.”


Perfect. Until her fiance got a promotion and they moved to Florida.


So because we had an early Monday morning flight, Martha and I spent Easter driving to Boston to stay in a hotel. It is usually a 3 hour drive but because of traffic, it took us 5 hours. This is the lovely Easter dinner we shared at a Mass. Turnpike rest stop.

A brief and expensive night in a hotel and then an Uber to the airport in more heavy traffic. But at least our flight was on-time and uneventful.


We rented a car and drove to our Airbnb - an amazing restored warehouse right on the Savannah river.

Savannah has such an interesting history, both from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. I hadn’t known that General Sherman, while burning his way through the south, was so awestruck by the beauty of Savannah that he left it unscathed as a gift to Lincoln. And while I understand that the city had deteriorated considerably in the following century, the Savannah College of Art and Design began buying and restoring buildings and today the historic district is a model of antebellum beauty and preservation.

Still, it is the south. We toured a plantation owner’s house, and it’s slave quarters. And while the language has become more accurate (the enslaved rather than slaves) I still struggled with the untold history of these people. I could feel their pain and prayers soaked in the walls and I felt a deep inner trembling when walking through the square that had been the slave market.

Our first night we ate in one of the oldest inns, a place that had a secret tunnel out to the river. If a man got drunk, he might find himself being carried thru the tunnel and awaken as a deckhand on a ship.

I usually order seafood but my eye was drawn to “world famous pecan chicken” which turned out to be fried chicken swimming in a butter, brown sugar, bourbon, pecan sauce with a sweet potato casserole that was mostly butter and brown sugar.

The following day I ordered a salad to try to balance the richness of the night before. But my salad had perhaps three leaves of lettuce, two heavily coated fried green tomatoes, bacon and was drenched in a buttermilk dressing. Why haven’t all these people keeled over from heart attacks?

The next day we ate at a crab shack and my shrimp and crab were again floating in a butter sauce. I also wanted to try sweet tea and found that to be about 1 part tea and 5 parts sugar. Heart attacks and diabetes must be quite prevalent.

One day we drove to the original Georgia colony at Wormsloe where the driveway was lined by this stunning array of live oaks dripping with spanish moss.

I was advised not to touch the spanish moss as it it inhabited by spiders and chiggers. Yikes. You don’t have to tell me twice.

Interestingly the original rules of the Georgia colonies were no catholics, no alcohol, no lawyers and no slaves. But apparently since the colonies couldn’t compete with the enslaved free labor of the Carolinas, slaves were eventually allowed. Sadly, it always comes down to money and greed.

One other thing I found mesmerizing was spending time on our little balcony, watching paddle boats and container ships coming up the river.

It is hard to describe the enormity of these ships.

Martha, who is into history, spent most of her time reading plaques and learning about the monuments. But I was more fascinated by the grid layout of the city and the numerous squares and parks laid out as a fire barrier - lessons learned from the great London fire. I roamed up and down back streets and alleys, chatted with park buskers and artists, and generally found myself conflicted between the architectural beauty and the disturbing history of this city.

We had an early flight back which was of course delayed, so we wound up spending yet another night in a Boston hotel, but finally made it home, tired but safe and sound. 

And quite a few pounds heavier.