Adventures in Ye Olde South Land, Inc.
Last week, I went with my mom on a trip to our ancestral homeland. No, not Scotland or France or England. I'm talking about South Carolina. And Georgia.
First, we went to Savannah, which is probably the most beautiful small city (or is it a large town?) in America. Savannah was built around 27 small parks, after a trend in Paris in the early 19th Century. The parks and the trees and the flowers are effortlessly beautiful, dripping with Spanish moss and recalling a simpler time - that is, a time before all of the actual residents fled to the outskirts of town. Unlike the typical "urban flight" syndrome, they didn't leave because the neighborhood was getting bad. Most of them had to leave because the area was slowly being sucked into a Pottery Barn catalog, like in some twisted, Yuppie version of The Twilight Zone.
Savannah has changed a lot over the past 15 years, or however long it's been since "that Yankee wrote that book" (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) about the place. These days, visiting Savannah is a bit like going to "Ye Olde South Land" at Epcot center. It even seems as if strategically placed locals are on the payroll of some undercover theme park. You expect to see them wearing name tags, like: Crazy Civil War Reenactment Dude, or Toothless Old Man Selling Boiled Peanuts Out of an Unhygenic Truck.
These days, downtown Savannah, except for the area around Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), feels eerily empty, as if the ghosts they love to go on & on about had recently pulled up and moved to darker, less well-appointed haunts. Most of the people on the streets are tourists - mostly from Southern states, but with a generous sprinkling of Yankees and Asians and Australian backpackers (Australian packpackers are everywhere; if mankind ever manages to travel to other planets, I'm pretty sure we'll be greeted by Australian backpackers).
The streets around the park squares are fairly quiet, except for the fleet of trolly buses with the muffled voices of tour guides going on & on about what everything used to be. The big old houses in the historic district have been sold for a mint. A lot of these have been sold to foreigners (people from Japan, or, say, New York). On the whole, they seem to be uninhabited except by contractors involved in interminable plumbing and heating projects. Some are museums of one sort or another, or maybe the hobby- the life-size dollhouses - of people who live far away but who watched the Patrick Swayze mini-series "North and South" at a particularly vulnerable age.
Still, many parts of Savannah are so beautiful it hurts your eyes. Maybe it's just because it reminds me of driving through on car trips as a kid, or because 10 generations of my ancestors are buried up and down the banks of the Savannah river. Or maybe because it represents the good parts of the South with relatively few of the bad. For instance, when integration came in the '60s, Savannah was one of the few cities, including Northern cities, where there were no riots, no protests whatsoever. On the whole, people were glad. There were plenty of Southerners who were, but they don't get much press. Granted, they weren't the majority. But if we're to believe 99.9% of all media portrayals, virtually all white Southern people are:
a) profoundly stupid b) evil c) poor, and d) extremely fond of ironic t-shirts (e.g., the 450-pound dude at KFC with an ill-fitting t-shirt that reads, If you're rich, I'm single!).
When I was a little girl (specifically, about 20 years ago), I remember Savannah being a lot seedier. But then again, everywhere was. Sigh. I miss seediness. It's becoming illegal in the United States of America, Inc.
The problem with both Savannah and Charleston (the old parts, at least) is that these cities have become the victim of their own success. They've become reconstructed and refurbished and whitewashed to the point that they're just these rarified monuments, rather than just a place where people live. It becomes a more self-conscious Historical City -pretending to be something that was already a dream within a dream within a dream. Within a Patrick Swayze mini-series. Or something.
First, we went to Savannah, which is probably the most beautiful small city (or is it a large town?) in America. Savannah was built around 27 small parks, after a trend in Paris in the early 19th Century. The parks and the trees and the flowers are effortlessly beautiful, dripping with Spanish moss and recalling a simpler time - that is, a time before all of the actual residents fled to the outskirts of town. Unlike the typical "urban flight" syndrome, they didn't leave because the neighborhood was getting bad. Most of them had to leave because the area was slowly being sucked into a Pottery Barn catalog, like in some twisted, Yuppie version of The Twilight Zone.
Savannah has changed a lot over the past 15 years, or however long it's been since "that Yankee wrote that book" (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) about the place. These days, visiting Savannah is a bit like going to "Ye Olde South Land" at Epcot center. It even seems as if strategically placed locals are on the payroll of some undercover theme park. You expect to see them wearing name tags, like: Crazy Civil War Reenactment Dude, or Toothless Old Man Selling Boiled Peanuts Out of an Unhygenic Truck.
These days, downtown Savannah, except for the area around Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), feels eerily empty, as if the ghosts they love to go on & on about had recently pulled up and moved to darker, less well-appointed haunts. Most of the people on the streets are tourists - mostly from Southern states, but with a generous sprinkling of Yankees and Asians and Australian backpackers (Australian packpackers are everywhere; if mankind ever manages to travel to other planets, I'm pretty sure we'll be greeted by Australian backpackers).
The streets around the park squares are fairly quiet, except for the fleet of trolly buses with the muffled voices of tour guides going on & on about what everything used to be. The big old houses in the historic district have been sold for a mint. A lot of these have been sold to foreigners (people from Japan, or, say, New York). On the whole, they seem to be uninhabited except by contractors involved in interminable plumbing and heating projects. Some are museums of one sort or another, or maybe the hobby- the life-size dollhouses - of people who live far away but who watched the Patrick Swayze mini-series "North and South" at a particularly vulnerable age.
Still, many parts of Savannah are so beautiful it hurts your eyes. Maybe it's just because it reminds me of driving through on car trips as a kid, or because 10 generations of my ancestors are buried up and down the banks of the Savannah river. Or maybe because it represents the good parts of the South with relatively few of the bad. For instance, when integration came in the '60s, Savannah was one of the few cities, including Northern cities, where there were no riots, no protests whatsoever. On the whole, people were glad. There were plenty of Southerners who were, but they don't get much press. Granted, they weren't the majority. But if we're to believe 99.9% of all media portrayals, virtually all white Southern people are:
a) profoundly stupid b) evil c) poor, and d) extremely fond of ironic t-shirts (e.g., the 450-pound dude at KFC with an ill-fitting t-shirt that reads, If you're rich, I'm single!).
When I was a little girl (specifically, about 20 years ago), I remember Savannah being a lot seedier. But then again, everywhere was. Sigh. I miss seediness. It's becoming illegal in the United States of America, Inc.
The problem with both Savannah and Charleston (the old parts, at least) is that these cities have become the victim of their own success. They've become reconstructed and refurbished and whitewashed to the point that they're just these rarified monuments, rather than just a place where people live. It becomes a more self-conscious Historical City -pretending to be something that was already a dream within a dream within a dream. Within a Patrick Swayze mini-series. Or something.
posted by Marguerite at 10:22 AM
3 Comments:
This is the second post I've read today about the south. I need to take a vacation. I was thinking the Oregon coast, but now I'm thinking I need to get out of this sheltered life I live. That sounds so perfect. Jillian was going to be a Savannah, but noooo. "Someone" didn't like that name. Hmph!
Spanish moss (as gross as it truly is when you get it on your head or hands) just fills me with emotions that as a half-german midwestern rust belt inhabitant, I'm not supposed to ever have. I miss the haunting big trees and dusk down south as I missed the brutal civic efficiency, the amazing architectural craftsmanship and functioning socialism (and the crabby germans) up here. Great post.
Yeah, Chris, we in the South are definitely not burdened with civic efficency, as any trip to the Gainesville DMV will attest. Our license plates should read: "Our Politicians are Crooks and Our Local Government Officials are Usually Drunk, but we Crazy Sunsets and Southern-Gothic Weirdos Galore!" Instead they opted for the "Sunshine State," which is just lame.
About the name Savannah - one of my family friends was pregnant a few years ago with what would be the first girl grandbaby in a family with all boys. She joked and joked about the daughter would be called (affecting a strong North Florida acccent) "Miss Savannah Magnolia" and would be a total Southern American Princess. When the kid was born they named her Elizabeth Ann, or something suitably respectable, but they never called her anything but Savannah. They legally changed it to Savannah Magnolia a few months later.
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