I'm on my way to Miami, well actually to Ft. Lauderdale. It should only take a couple of days but it is a delight to be just a little warmer for those couple of days... though I'm not complaining, the winter this year in eastern Tennessee has been very mild indeed. I have come to love the region they call The Low Country. About the time I get to Southern South Carolina, even the names excite me: the Coossawatchee River, Cat Head Creek. These are tidal creeks and rivers that are fringed with saw grass. They're beautiful to look at and have a calming effect on me. They also have an odor all their own. A mix of coastal and decaying matter. While some may find the smell offensive, I truly enjoy it. So that proves it, I'm green!
Along the way, I have often noticed signs for a little town by the name of Walterboro, South Carolina. They refer to themselves as: "The Front Porch of the Low Country". Along with that, there is a monument there that touts the Tuskegee Airmen. I have a friend back at Sacramento P.D., John Banks, whose father was a member of this Black combat flying group in World War II. In addition, I may have mentioned that I am an "Army Brat" and enjoy military history.
So with these two prompts, I decided to take a look at Walterboro. This little town has a rather nice airport facility and in due course you can figure out why. It was an Army Air Corps training base and also a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. Apparently not all the Tuskegee Airmen were trained at the same facility. This was news to me. I had always just assumed that they were a rather small group and were all trained at the same facility. An interesting fact, the monument honoring these airmen wasn't erected until 1997. Old habits die hard in the South.
So in driving and walking around in the old portion of downtown Walterboro, I found a number of nice shops. The downtown area is actually quite large taking in several square blocks which lend the visitor to realize that at one time this little town flourished with commerce and activity. Now they are full of things that tourists like... antiques and food emporiums.
One of the great things that this little town has done is expand on a wild life area that they call the Great Swamp Sanctuary. They have over 800 acres of swamp land that they have made accessible to the public. You sometimes walk on what seems like miles of wooden walks and sometimes on trails to view the animal and water born life styles of the different creatures. And if you like to watch birds, then this has to be a stop for you.
They also have a museum that is dedicated to slave history. In fact, it is named The Slave Museum. The first time I had ever heard of this. They have crafts and furniture as well as maps and other things that were made and used by slaves in the Antebellum South.
So now the trip meter said I was a little over half way to my Ft. Lauderdale destination so I decided to pull off and call it a day. The off ramp I took was in Jacksonville, Florida, and it was the ramp that takes you to their airport. There are often an assortment of good hotels to choose from near airports. Often times I look for B&B's, however tonight I wasn't looking for local adventure but just a place to sleep and quick.
The hotel I picked looked quite nice from the outside, however once inside, I realized that it was the new mixed with the old. They had built two very nice towers and connected them with a giant atrium . They had also remodeled the old motor inn rooms (you guessed it, they put me in the old section), however they did a nice job and the room was fine. After checking in, I made my way to the bar where I visited and had a couple glasses of wine and dinner while watching a football game. As I made my way to the bar in the middle of the atrium, I made note to myself that this place is hard to get to. There were steps and fenced walk ways that lead to private little sitting areas everywhere. They needed a little signs that read "escapee route" or "easy drunk access this way".
The Next Morning
As I was crossing the maze that makes up this hotel's lobby, in search of breakfast, I heard a very loud noise. I looked up and noticed the source of the noise was an elderly gentlemen. He was tapping a coin very hard on the surface of the bar which is located in the middle of this enormous atrium room. He was demanding, in a very loud voice, that some one should get up there and open this bar.
The physical layout of this atrium room reminds one of an experiment done with rats. It is, for lack of a better term, "a maze", complete with steps and twists and turns. It is in fact an old motor inn that has been purchased by a large hotel complex. As I mentioned before, they have erected two new towers, remodeled the old portion and tied the entire project together with this giant atrium type building. Then they put in a waterfall which has the pump from hell. You can hardly think over the noise of it let alone have a conversation. The bartender told me that it used to be a quiet little trickle, and then they fixed it.
At any rate, because no one of authority can seem to quiet this man, or get to him in a timely manner, the girl working at the reception desk, calls, no yells to him that the bar doesn't open this early. He responds that some people who are on vacation would like a drink in the morning. Further, there was some dialogue about having to travel with his family and it not being an easy task. He, apparently being the only one in the car not a Baptist. It was at this point that my heart swelled in my chest. I felt that if I could have gotten to him, I would have given him a big hug. However on further reflection, that might not have been a good idea because the rest of the mice left running in the maze looking for breakfast might have thought that the old man was gay as well as being a drunk.
And we all know how liberal Baptists are when it comes to homosexuality. I actually picked up a pamphlet in a doctors office awhile back that tried to convince the reader that this lifestyle is a chosen one and that there is a cure! Think about it, there are two possibilities going on here. One, the doctor doesn't know what is being laid down in his waiting room to be read by his patients. Or two, and probably more likely, you have a highly educated man who has seen just one too many Bibles being thumped in this life. You have to love the South. One of life's little reflections.
Here's another reflection. You know those new coffee makers that you put the little canister in and it makes an individual cup of coffee for you? Well, I don't really care for them that much and, because I haven't purchased one, I don't have to defend owning one. They might be fine for a single person who doesn't live in a houseful of coffee drinkers. But I always have the nagging thought in the back of my head: "Why didn't you just get up and make a pot of coffee? Well, this morning, before I went out and saw the old gentleman announcing that this would be a great place to open a bar, I noticed that I had one of those coffee makers in my newly remodeled room in the older part of the hotel. And I thought: Finally a good use for those individual coffee maker things. You can finally get a decent cup of coffee in a motel room. Maybe there is hope.
Well, I'm off to see if the bar is open yet. Not that I can drink, I'm working. But if that old fellow has got them to open it, then I just think he needs to meet me. I think we have things in common.
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