I have had the good fortune to have found unbelievably good friends over the years. Friends who've stuck by me my entire life. Friends who have loved me even when I have been at my most unlovable.
Friends like Andy Froh whom I've known since grade school.
Jay Cordes, my friend for over 40 years, (Dude! Forty years!), who is not only very smart, but has the wisdom to understand and appreciate that no matter how much money you make, it means very little if you don't have someone you can lend it to.
(That's generally where I come in. Just trying to keep up my end of the relationship...).
There's guys like Skeeter and Kav and Madge and Ponytail Pete. Fellow surivors of Catholic High School...
Cainer and Goose and Super Bill Nico (who taught me everything I know about food and cooking. Things like, "The secret to good cooking is to add more garlic" and "If it doesn't taste right, add more garlic" and "Are you sure you've added enough garlic to that?")
Jenny Generous, (no, that's not her dancer name, it's her name. How cool is that?)
Mary Ann Perone who sent me birthday cards when my own parents didn't send me birthday cards.
There's Dacron and Toulon, Goog and Gump, Ron Wey and Clint and Wyatt and Sivak Center, (the nicest man in America).
There's Frankly Speaking (I can Bares-ly Stand It) and Timmy Toes, too.
Supporters all in word and in deed...
There was Bobby G (who left too soon).
And that's a small sample...
And then there's my friend from below the Mason-Dixon line.
Robert Kahle.
RK.
Senior Private.
Dark Meat. (Don't ask).
The Man who Wears The Ring.
The arbitor of music that's Worth It.
The Virtuoso of Vinyl.
The Keeper of the Lists.
A proud South Carolinian.
(After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.
Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers in the weeks that followed, an archaeologist in California dug to a depth of 20 feet and shortly afterwards, headlines in the LA Times newspaper read: 'California archaeologists have found traces of 200-year-old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.'
One week later, The Greenville News, a local newspaper in South Carolina, reported the following: 'After digging as deep as 30 feet in his pasture near Travelers Rest, Greenville County, South Carolina, Bubba Mitchell, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Bubba has, therefore, concluded that 300 years ago, South Carolina had already gone wireless.)
Who said South Carolinians were hicks?
Some years ago I had the good fortune to take a vacation in South Carolina.
I choked on fishbones and almost died at a fish-fry in Moose Kahle's back yard on the lake near Columbia. (Moose is Bobby's daddy. A Chicagoan transplanted to SC to play football for the Game Cocks). (Or is it Gamecocks? And why am I so uncomfortable with the difference, we're all adults here....)
As I slowly turned blue, my wife at the time, (the cute blond to whom Moose kept singing, "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?") was screaming, "He's choking! He's dying! Oh my god! Pat him on the back! Give him some bread!!" Eventually the bones were dislodged and here I am to tell the tale. (But for future reference and as Meat can now attest, hot buttered corn bread is not an effective choice for the dislodging of fishbones).
But I'm not bitter.
And that's not why I mention the vacation. It was a small bump on the road of an otherwise memorable trip.
We spent a few days in Charleston and the Isle of Palms at Patricia's (known in some circles as 'Kahula') grandmothers beach house. During that trip, we enjoyed dining el fresco at a place on Shem's Creek, and we did something very touristy that I enjoyed completely.
What we did was, we took a carriage tour.
An architectural / historical carriage tour.
I'm guessing that, like New Yorkers who never visit the Statue of Liberty, most South Carolinians have never taken one of these tours. It was unbelievable. (First shots of the Civil War delivered by Citadel cadets?! Rice as a major crop?)
I think even Bobby would reccomend it to you if you have a spare hour or so next time you're in the city.
Ever since then wherever I have traveled for business or pleasure I have looked for a similar experience and my life has been truely enriched as a result.
(There's an architectural boat tour on the Chicago River that will blow you away. If you get there give it a shot).
So, I'm a big fan.
And that's my vacation advice.
Read a book, unlax and chill.
Have a drink and eat something that you can't get at home.
Then take a tour. Find out something you didn't know before.
Get smarter as you get older...
By the way, the people in South Carolina were very cool.
There was just that one bumpersticker, "Beautify the South: Put a Yankee on a Bus".
I spoke with a more appropriate accent after seeing that.
Otherwise it was the very epitome of Southern Hospitality.
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"Adventures don't begin until you get into the forest. That first step is an act of faith." Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead drummer)
"Do not fear mistakes. There are none" Miles Davis
"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time" Andre Gide
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So you say you're a Carl Hiaasen fan, (and who isn't), and you're looking for something to read when you go to the beach next month?
Might I suggest Tim Dorsey?
Like Hiaasen, he began his writing career as a newspaperman in Florida and is the author of a series of books that take place in Florida and feature psycho-serial-killer / ecologist / state historian Serge Storm as his anti-hero. The action is fast and furious and the prose makes me laugh out-loud.
(Another good thing to do on vacation - laugh out loud).
Not only that, but if you're like me, once you've found an author you like you want to read all he's got. And the good news with Dorsey is he has a whole series of these books already in print. Want more good news? You can buy his books right here on this website by going to the bottom of this page and clicking on the slideshow of books you'll find there.
Start with "Florida Roadkill".
Can you dig it? I know that you can....dA
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2 comments:
Your blog inspired me to conjure up this mess of words...............perhaps it will ignite some controversy...recollections of a SC wanna-be. Keep in mind, my ancestors were from Pennsylvania and fought for the Union during the War Between the States. I was born in Kentucky, lived in Europe (Germany & France) for 12 years, spent four years in Monterey, California; three years in the high deserts of Arizona, and have currently resided smack dab in the middle of Georgia's Bible belt for 20 years. My Christian leanings are toward the Church of England, Anglicanism.
I'm glad your blog is recognizing how cool South Carolina is. Recall 1775. The colonies were entering into a revolutionary war with Great Britain. Sort of reminds me of the cartoon of the small mouse flipping the bird toward an attacking eagle. Most people recall such names as Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, all famous 1775 battles fought in Massachusetts. But why is it that most people forget or have never heard of the South Carolina battles fought in the same year: Ninety-Six, Great Canebrake or the Snow Campaign? On the other hand, I suspect most folks remember Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. Point is, SC played a large role in the American Revolution, most of it forgotten by all but the historians. The Thirteen Colony's Declaration of Independence provided, "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object e vinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." Jump ahead 100 years. The year is 1861. The people of South Carolina perceived a threat to their rights, the state legislature called a convention and the delegates voted to remove the state of South Carolina from the union known as the United States of America. That took some balls, or testicular virility, as I learned to say during my 22 year Army camping trip. WAY COOL! Citadel Cadets fired on the Union re-supply ship, the Star of the West. Yes, they fired the first shots of the Civil War. Every year at the Citadel, all freshman cadets compete for recognition as the best drilled cadet....left, right, left, right...right shoulder, Arms....present, Arms....order, Arms. Towards the end of the first year, one cadet is selected to receive this prestigious award. That cadet has his name etched in stone on the Star of the West monument. In the year of our Lord, 2008, I'd say that's quite Politically Incorrect. But it keeps a proud history alive. On top of that, SC is still conservative. Contrast that to Massachusetts, where the people are as liberal as liberals get, and prove to the entire world that Tories are still alive, and are still on the wrong side of life. I'm not a South Carolinian but I love and totally respect the state and it's history. If they decided to secede again, I'd move there tomorrow because I'd want to be part of it.
You really do have to be the coolest man on the planet! Why are all the good ones taken? =)
I loved your bit on SC - I lived in Pensacola for 4 years, but really didn't get to see a whole lot - one of those unfortunate things that happens when you actually LIVE in a cool place - you never get to see all of the cool things that there are to see.
I am very grateful to my Dad, who drug me to a different spanish mission every weekend when we lived in the San Fracisco area - took me Fisherman's Wharf, Monterey ( I totally reccommend Cannery Row - & the Robert Redford movie - as well as the Monterey Bay Aquarium).
I have lived in Michigan for almost 10 years and have yet to see even a fraction of the things that this state has to offer.
My vacation advice - take a vacation in your own community and be amazed at what facinating things there are to learn all around you!
love u
rora
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