To Catch a Breeze

You don't expect to see a fire tower in the middle of downtown.

For that matter, you don't expect to wear out your tour guide and leave him huffing, puffing, red-faced and exhausted, either. Clearly the first day of February was not going to be a typical day.

Mac and I had signed up for a walking tour dubbed "Above Calhoun," a reference to the less chi-chi neighborhoods of Charleston. As it turned out, much of the tour centered around the neighborhood we'd already become acquainted with because it's where we were staying: Canonborough-Elliottborough.

Our guide Brian was new to the tour guide business - we were his 5th tour - but clearly had all the arcane knowledge Charleston requires of its guides. You know, who built the house and when, who bought it later and why.

As we walked from block to block (stopping at Sugar, a jewel box of a bakery, so Mac could score a tiny cupcake), it became obvious that Brian, unlike us, wasn't used to 5 mile walks. Oh, he'd made it clear that he'd be happy to do two hours with us instead of the usual hour and a half (it is off-season, after all) so we'd taken him up on that, but now he was realizing we meant walking the entire 2 hours.

Barley an hour in, he asked where we were headed for lunch and tried to lead us there, at least until we informed him we weren't ready for lunch at 10:53.

Curious about why all the side porches had doors on them, since you could easily talk to porch occupants or climb over the railing, I asked. Answer: the door insures that climbing over is considered breaking and entering. Only the South Carolinians.

Strolling down King Street, I spotted what looked like a fire tower and asked about that, too. Sure enough, it was one of two fire towers in downtown Charleston, odd because I thought those towers were rural things. Brian looped us around to the 1888 fire house to get a better look and the taller of the two firemen on duty regaled us with fun facts.

Back in the day, the tower was manned 24/7, with a bell at the top so the sentry could ring the bell and alert the squad. Right downtown. But of course, how else?

When we eventually released Brian to return to his tiny house via public transportation (and before you jump to any assumptions about Brian's hipster lifestyle, know that he's prime Baby Boomer material), it was my guess he was going home to nap. But we'll never know.

Our final meal in the Palmetto state was less than half a mile from our adopted hood, albeit across the Septima Clark Parkway that hovered above the dead end of our block, reminding me of how I-95 chops into Jackson Ward (and I'm sure for the same racist reasons).

Leon's Fine Poultry and Oysters was everything an eatery in a garage promises. Despite a lovely patio, sunglasses-less Mac passed on dining al fresco for the dining room. Fortunately, the inside dining room was wisely taking advantage of the sunny 69-degree day by having the single pane industry windows on two walls opened out, as well as front patio access and back door flung open.

We were there because Leon's is devoted to my three favorite food groups: bubbles, fried chicken and oysters. They have an entire menu devoted to grower champagne. It begins, "The combination of fried chicken and champagne is one of the finest in the world," and then goes on to explain why, in wine lover, not geek, terms.

I'd already been given that exact spiel years ago by an old boyfriend, tested it extensively and didn't need convincing.

As luck would have it, the oyster special was - wait for it - wild-caught Virginia oysters, which is not what we'd driven six plus hours to eat. No, for that we needed Bull's Bay oysters from 20 miles north, which had the brine we craved, although not as much as Virginia's Old Saltes. Go figure.

When we each ordered our chicken, our server felt obligated to warn us it had a bit of spice because of cayenne and Old Bay, but he could have them make it without. Please, we assured him, bring it on. Cava alternated with chicken skin that shattered with each bite and our fingers got stickier and more worth licking as we went. Meanwhile, the brussels sprouts got points for originality for the peppery and tomato-y piperade jazzing them up.

We could say we'd earned such a fabulous lunch after a 5-miler, but the truth is, it would've been every bit as satisfying and deserved if we'd just rolled out of bed an hour earlier.

Then, because nothing could be more wonderful after lunch at Leon's, we drove the 11 miles back to Folly Beach, this time to walk to see the lighthouse (unfortunately, the unclimb-able kind). Tuesday when we'd been there, it had been too chilly and windy to walk barefoot, but not today, though Mac had no interest in it.

When she'd bought a Leon's ball cap to shade her eyes at the beach, she'd complained that it was too stiff and I'd suggested a baptism in the Atlantic to break it in. She liked the idea but chose me to do the baptizing because she didn't want to get her shoes wet. I dunked it a few times and handed it back to her, but there was a dry spot, so she came to hand it to me, soaking her shoes in the process.

My point is, when a person goes to the ocean in January and February, a little saltwater's the least of her worries. As it was, she shook the droplets off the hat and put it on, tiny rivulets of ocean water running down her face and eventually dampening her hair.

Beach hair for life.

With less than an hour to sunset, we reluctantly hit the road, listening to local radio from town to town, scanning through clusters of jeezus radio, conservative crazies and 45-loving country pop in search of alternative, only to land mostly on dude rock: Bad Company, Rush, Thin Lizzy. You have no idea how grateful I was for small bones like Thompson Twins or Eurythymics.

The trade-off for cliched sounds was an astronomer's eye view of the enormous yellow rising blue super blood moon, which we watched burst forth from the horizon right up through lines of Carolina pines and eventually up into a Halloween-worthy assortment of drifty clouds.

It had been a clearer night last night when it was full, but we hadn't seen the whole of the moonrise, so that was tonight's cherry on top of the Charleston sundae.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Under the Blue Super Blood Moon

There are already daffodils blooming...and other tales from Charleston.

At the Old Slave Mart Museum, a passionate well-researched woman on the staff enriched our knowledge of slave life in the low country and questioned us about how Richmond is handling its slave history (answer: poorly) before we made our way through the museum itself.

Heavy on disturbing narrative and light on artifacts, it was just the kind of museum a history nerd can sink her teeth into. Hearing former slave memories as told to WPA oral historians was especially moving.

As has been the case on this trip, our next plans got derailed, so we punted and set off to see a grand city house nearby. 

Making our way through the historical Aiken-Rhett House allowed us to see how slaves on urban plantations (a term new to both of us) lived and worked. The enormous house, complete with outbuildings like brick privies, stables and a carriage house (reached via a backyard path between two rows of magnolia trees) were striking for the glimpses they afforded of the actual rooms where slaves lived.

House servants' rooms not only had fireplaces, but doors that locked from inside. That small dignity surprised both of us.

For me, the house's main attraction was a piazza that spanned on entire side, the mother of all balconies, wide and high as it was. It was gratifying to hear that at big parties at the house, people had moved room to room via the piazza.

Heck, I'd have slept out there on occasion, too.

For a black history tour of Charleston, we boarded a van with Franklin Delano Williams, a tour guide as opinionated as he was knowledgeable. He was especially impassioned about the word "Gullah," insisting that it was a reference to slaves being from Angola and thus, a derogatory term.

After listening to him pontificate for hours, I'll never use "Gullah" again.

Semantics aside, his tour was fascinating for all the unmarked black landmarks he showed us, from wooden frame Senegalese-style shotgun houses to the tarp-covered birthplace of civil rights activist Septima Clark, with stories of the days when Charleston was a walled city, complete with moat.

What had been billed as a 2-hour tour wound up being more like 2 3/4 because of FDW's verbose nature, drawling way of speaking and propensity to pull over to share his firmly-held opinions about the lack of signage giving black history its due.

In other words, as a tour guide, he was practically perfect and seeing the city through his eyes was like seeing Charleston for the first time. As we drove around former black neighborhoods, I saw Meat Share, where I'd eaten a few years back and Stella's, the Charleston outpost of the venerable Richmond Greek eatery.

Gentrification was everywhere around us, but Franklin made sure we knew what the 'hood had originally been like: full of slaves living off premises, former slaves and freemen, most of them skilled artisans.

But by the time we got back, we were past hungry and bordering on unpleasantly starving, having missed lunch for the sake of knowledge. As luck would have it, Sean Brock's Mexican restaurant Minero wasn't too far away, so we settled onto bar stools just as normal people were eyeing happy hour.

Short of mainlining it, we couldn't have inhaled the stellar guacamole (delivered with a paper bag of warm housemade chips) any faster than we did, which restored our blood sugar, tiding us over until lunch arrived. For me, that meant fried cauliflower tacos, shrimp tacos, buttery Carolina gold rice (our morning had taught us that rice was the #1 slave crop in South Carolina, followed by cotton and indigo), broccoli salad and refried beans that could give lessons to most Mexican joints about what refried beans should be.

Only once we'd Hoovered lunch did I have the wherewithall to dive into my Sangria - a far cry from typical, made as it was with Barbera d'Asti, Aperol and citrus - and allow the hustle and bustle of our non-stop day to ease on down the road to our final historical destination of the day.

Approaching the Nathaniel Russell House through the back garden revealed anemones and daffodils blooming, a wondrous site compared to what's happening in Richmond gardens at the moment. 

Inside the wealthy merchant's extravagant home, our guide explained that there was no such thing as privacy in 19th century life. Although the Russell family numbered only four, they owned 18 (gasp-worthy, right?) slaves who shared the house and its outbuildings with them.

The magnificent flying staircase with no supports (all cantilevered) was meant to be the piece de resistance of the house, but for Mac and I, it was the Mrs. who was most memorable. Everything about Sarah Russell was extraordinary: that she didn't get married until she was 36; that she was wealthier even than her husband; that she insisted on a pre-nup agreement and that she had her husband sign an agreement that if they ever split, she got the two kids, the latter remarkable because at the time, women had no parental rights if marriages ended. 

Helluva woman.

As the last tourists out, we closed down the Nathaniel Russell House, impressed with its meticulous Neo-classical restoration (wall paint made and applied in the 19th century way) but hardly wowed by its wealth for wealth's sake showiness.

But then, when we got up this morning, we hadn't known how Charleston's 19th century wealth

had eclipsed that of New York, Philly and Boston combined. This was one rich town if you were white.

Which Mac and I are decidedly not (rich, that is), so we headed back to our slowly gentrifying neighborhood, where our apartment - the Skipjack - is across the street from a former auto body shop called A Cut Above, although presently it's abandoned and overgrown.

Oh, to know what that location housed originally. Like Franklin said, if only there were a plaque, people could start learning the history they were never taught.

We're trying...when we're not eating. Both are a full-time occupation down here.

Folly Dollies

If I'm going to spend six hours in a car, I want a reward at the end.

Few rewards can match a walk on the beach after so much sitting. That it is January and only 52 degrees in no way detracts from my pleasure in getting to stretch my legs, inhale salty air and absorb the sounds of the surf.

Mac and I - ever the optimists - hit the road at 8 a.m., leaving 38-degree Richmond as a snow shower wound down and hoping for better at the other end of the road. By the time South Carolina's palm trees began showing up, we were cruising under brilliant blue skies and a new attitude.

Bypassing Charleston, our ultimate goal, we parked in Folly Beach to begin our getaway with sand under our feet. The ocean was a deep blue with the winter beach littered in seashells, mostly empty except for us and a few dog walkers, all of whom made a bee line for us (the dogs, not the walkers) as we made our way toward the pier a mile and a half away, past surfers willing to brave the winter waters.

By the time we finished un-kinking our legs, a big, fat moon was starting to rise in the sky and we felt like equilibrium had been restored. Such is the power of climbing over sea walls, and talking to a local (his hat read: Citadel Class of 1963) out collecting wood and shells and more than willing to chat with female visitors.

When we told him we were thinking of Bowen's Island for dinner, he rhapsodized about he and his college buddies getting drunk and eating oysters there until they were sick, but qualified that by saying he and the wife had gone back 6 or 7 years ago and been disappointed with the service. His suggestion was the Lost Dog Café and he used a board he'd found to draw a map in the sand of how to get there.

Best sand map ever.

Much as we both enjoyed our conversation with him, we thanked him for the tips, got in the car parked under a palm tree and drove directly to Bowen's Island, a sprawling wooden  building on the Folly River.

It was an old school seafood place where you order at the counter, find a table with a view and wait for your food to arrive. Unless, that is, you order a bucket of cluster oysters, in which case, you're given a bucket and sent downstairs where your oysters are steamed to order by a guy with a sense of humor and two wisecracking buddies keeping him company.

Curious about Bowen's Island, we ask and he tells us it was built in 1946, burned down back in 2006 or 2007 and then rebuilt, all except for the three stone walls nearby which survived the blaze. Even more interesting is that back in the day, the owner insisted that people eating oysters eat them down there while people eating off the rest of the menu - shrimp, crabcakes, frogmore stew, fish - eat upstairs, even if it meant parties being split up.

Asking him if we have to eat oysters downstairs, he says no. When did that change, I wonder. "When the owner died back in the '90s, I guess," he says with a chuckle. Still, a dozen or so tables sit at the ready, all of them with a hole in the center for tossing oyster shells.

Back upstairs, we use our oyster knives to open bivalves from the river we can see through the screened windows next to our table. They're brinier than we expect, but only because we hadn't bothered to consider how close to the ocean this river is. We follow them with everything else on the menu that comes from the sea. Plus hushpuppies.

Next to us, a couple who look to be in their '80s are eating and chatting non-stop in low voices. "I'll trade you an oyster for a shrimp," he offers and she's willing. I'm tempted to ask if they're regulars, how long they've been together, what their story is, but I refrain.

Maybe it's a date and I don't want to interfere.

Our beachcombing friend's opinion aside, Mac and I have landed at exactly the right place for a seafood feast and a sunset view over the river at the end of a long travel day that involved far too many Doobie Brothers' songs.

By the time we finish eating, an enormous moon is hanging over the ocean, accompanying us as we drive into Charleston for a few days of R & R. Expansive beach to quaintly urban, what a difference eleven miles makes.

Hello, Charleston, whatcha got good?