That was in the afternoon, sitting in the backyard enjoying the shadows passing through the grass. That was after lunch and a very brief bike ride and some school work. It was before a trip to the big box store and the big warehouse store.
On the way home we saw this light:
It isn’t cold, it isn’t hot, it isn’t really anything at all, just bright and golden and perfect. What a lovely day.
Then the football game happened. In three BCS games the last four years Alabama has outgained their opponents 1,176 to 670 yards. The Tide have outscored Texas/LSU/Notre Dame a combined 100-35. Tonight was a demolition, an anti-climax. A coronation, really, after the SEC championship game.
At halftime Notre Dame’s coach said the best plan was for Alabama to not come back out in the second half. He might have been understating it.
After the game the sideline reporter Tom Rinaldi said to Nick Saban: “Enjoy it if you can.”
All of that said so much.
So my Notre Dame shirt that I got last year during our trip to South Bend was as helpful as I thought it would be. Death, taxes, Saban; Alabama is a dynastic juggernaut.
We custom-make a few of these every year on Cafepress. Good prices, they’ve always done fine work for me and have given us high quality customer service.
What are your favorite ornaments? Write about them in the comments.
On this day, four years ago, I put a ring on our tree in Savannah and asked The Yankee to have a lot more fun with me. She agreed that this could be a good idea.
Before I knew it a guy was offering to make us some of those bamboo floral things some of the street entrepreneurs sell to tourists. I didn’t even have the ring past her first knuckle and someone was already asking for money. Heh.
We sat in that same place yesterday, a beautiful day. They’ve all been pretty wonderful ever since then, though.
If you have never been to Savannah — or if you’re only now planning a trip because you’ve read about it in this space or if you’ve never been to this particular place — do yourself a favor and go to lunch at Mrs. Wilkes. Go early in your trip, because you will want to go back.
Don’t even worry about Paula Deen’s place. This is better and you’re welcome.
Under our tree, where we always spend our last afternoon before leaving town. We spent a day under this tree on our first trip here in 2005. We got engaged under this tree a few years later. This is the view I had while working up the nerve:
A guy walked by, one of the panhandling welcome committee members, and offered to take our picture:
The Yankee composes a terrific photograph similar to the view I shared above:
On River Street, where few tourists are to be found even on this beautiful Friday, there was a busker:
Who doesn’t love a good busker? This guy sang a capella all weekend. Just him, his hands, his money bucket and a bottle of water. You could hear him a block away. Sounded great, too.
And back home we drove. We’d been reading all day about all of the terrible senselessness that had taken place in Newtown, just 20 miles from where The Yankee grew up.
Meanwhile, police found the bodies of a woman and two kids in a small apartment just a few miles from my campus. So there I am, middle of the night, driving through the countryside and calling media relations people, editors, police departments and the campus safety office, trying to make sure that this had no Samford ties. Seems it did not.
Covering that during the semester break would be a challenge. I’m sure our students would have done a respectful job. Wish you saw more of that from Connecticut out of cable television today. There’s been far too much misinformation and misidentification (problems originating with overwhelmed law enforcement agencies) alongside conjecture and quacks that have been shuffled in front of the cameras (strictly the media’s fault). But all of that belongs in a different rant.
As of this writing they are up to 26 fatalities there. It is hard to all of this, so sweeping and terrible in its scope and consequence. There’s precious little peace and even less understanding, I’m sure.
I think of the voids, the big hole in the community that stands out for years in a wide tragedy. I think of all of the little empty places found in all of those families when someone is so unexpectedly pulled away. That lasts for generations.
Found this on one of our local merchant’s Facebook page:
If you would like to mail sympathy cards or letters of support to the school, the address is:
I think we’re going to make this our online Christmas card. If you receive this in your inbox just know we ran out of stamps.
That’s in Savannah’s City Market. I saw some pictures of this area in a museum earlier in the day. The modern place looks a bit different than the 19th and turn-of-the-20th century market. There is less cotton and other crops and far more tourists now.
Still have horses, though they now are part of the tourist trade, carrying around people in carriages. And also eating ducks. Who knew?
Savannah, it seems to us, feels less festively decorated this year. We’ve been walking through the historic districts under overcast skies and in several layers of clothing wondering where all of the extra lights and garland are. My guess is that they cut back on the manpower budget to hang it all.
Still a lovely city. Always is. At least in our experience. For a place that sells so much of itself on ghosts and deaths and the more sordid parts of its history you can’t find a much more charming place, even if the Christmas atmosphere is down.
There are less people here right now, too, it seems. We mind this less than most of the local merchants, I’m sure. We’ve walked in to every restaurant with no wait. We haven’t had to dodge people, even on the tourist trap River Street. Part of that is the weather, the mid-week visit and probably the economy. Maybe everyone has been here and is off exploring a new place.
Here is the monument to the Chasseurs Volontaires, the Haitians who fought in Savannah during the Revolutionary War:
It is apparently the first such monument in the U.S. It was installed in Franklin Square in 2009. And because this happened in the modern age, there was outrage and money and indignation:
Here’s the Mercer House. We’ve been in this square before. I don’t recall actually noticing the house, though:
The Mercer House was designed by New York architect John S. Norris for General Hugh W. Mercer, great grandfather of Johnny Mercer. Construction of the house began in 1860, was interrupted by the Civil War and was later completed, circa 1868, by the new owner, John Wilder.
In 1969, Jim Williams, one of Savannah’s earliest and most dedicated private restorationists, bought the then vacant house and began a two-year restoration.
You have your origin story and your Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil story. There is a 100-year blank space in between. Makes you wonder what you’re missing out on, doesn’t it?
So we wandered around. We took shots in Forsyth Park as the sun went down. Here’s the big fountain:
We had dinner at 700 Drayton, which was where we had our dinner reception the night we got married. Delicious.
On those rare occasions when we order a dessert we split one between us. Our waiter brought us a second dessert because, he said, in his estimation the chef took too long to prepare our cake.
We walked next door to the Mansion, where we got married.
As we noted it was much cooler today than it was on that steamy, sunny June day in 2009:
About 80 degrees cooler once you consider the heat index.
By the time we walked back to our hotel, though, I’d have taken anything in between.
