New doors and handles: Week Two

November 10, 2022 by
Well, it’s Week Two and I’m already down to the Michelin Guide 2-stars of Greater Charleston. Having trolled plantations, beaches, “duelling” alleys where the heat was blamed on making men say and do things thoughtlessly, dived into dank dungeons, and took selfies at all the “The Notebook” movie locations, I may soon have to seek higher ground, literally.

On my agenda may be a water tower sculpted and painted to look like a gigantic peach, a dental chair museum, probably the only kazoo factory in the world, and I can’t wait to see this – “The Button Museum”.The proud papa of this edifice is a man after my own heart – an insomniac. (Which is exactly when and why I write most of missives – like now.)Bored by not being able to sleep, he decided to find a hobby – sewing buttons to one of his suits. Before he could return to his senses, two years had passed and his suit was covered in 16,000 buttons. He has now buttoned up a few caskets, shoes, guitars, and the best – a hearse. Bet you wish you were coming with me.

As per Churchill’s paraprosdokian, where there’s a will, I want to be in it.Nevertheless, my morning ritual will continue. A different caffeine hit every day. Let’s just call it Coffee Curiosity, a sort of liquid exploration. Although if truth be told, I prefer to seek diaspora populations where I can stay in one place and consume. Like four cappuccinos. No one rushes me; I can be as pokey as walking with a turtle on a leash. Extra hot. Two sugars. (I have oft heard that caffeine will disabuse you of your ugliest mannerisms and turn you into a better person.)


One of the best parts about historic Charleston is that I can jump in “Rav” and drive in any direction south or east of the city and have my toes in the sand of some of the best Atlantic Coast beaches in the Southeast in less than an hour.


I have spent hours languishing on washboard sun-bleached piers watching white egrets wade in the saltwater marshes, armadas of brown pelicans flying low among the moored shrimp boats eagerly awaiting the cast off from the trawlers, and fishermen throw out their lures. And drinking sweet tea vodkas.


I have visited the magnificent Angel Oak on James Island that is unlike any other tree on the planet and walked the grounds of historic plantations that stop you in your tracks. It’s like opening a time capsule from the early to mid-nineteenth century; from the 200-year old live oak trees to its gardens to the rice “fields” to original slave cabins.


This is the picture of present and past life in a place so unlike my own.You know, when I’m walking on these paths, I think about what foot prints I’m walking on that have walked these paths before me. People that have never had the privileges and life I have now. Coming to these plantations, seeing the slave markets, knowing the tragic, inhumane history, I think the real test is not in the coming here, but what we do after we leave. It’s pointless if it is only another form of entertainment, of saying that we have been here, serving as a small blip in our lives.We can either change, stay the same, or something in between. 

As for me, I hope someday I’ll wake up to see that I live on a beach.
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