Darlin', Honey, Sweetheart

We left vivacious NYC and landed via Jet Blue in the epicenter of southern graciousness. Before we even made it to our new home exchange destination, or downtown Charleston, we stopped at Trader Joe's for provisions and encountered our first charm offensive.  The clerks were just nice as pie.  We may come home sayin' "y'all" cause it just sounds so sweet (I was cured of this after moving from Oklahoma, but it's fun to slip back into it).  Our TJ's clerk told us he is moving to SLO soon, so we'll keep an eye out for him.

We spent our first evening enjoying our new home base.  Today, before our first venture into downtown Charleston, we headed to The Tomato Shed for lunch, based on a review.  The Tomato Shed grows organic produce and cooks with it, but by the time the food hits your plate it has been transformed into down-home cookin'.  Our waitress referred to me as Darlin', then Honey, but she reserved Sweetheart for Ben, as in, "Just pay that bill at the counter, Sweetheart."

My lunch of local shrimp (crunchy and fresh), came with tomato pie (tomatoes, mayo and cheese baked on a biscuit crust) and turnips and greens - you can see I couldn't wait to eat the biscuit!  Ben ordered crab cakes (which were pretty much just great crab).  The choice of sides was amazing -grits and you name it.  I consulted their cookbook and can assure you that even with organic vegetables, a regular diet of this food could kill you.

We spent several hours wandering around downtown Charleston and honestly, none of my pictures can do it justice.  Charleston bleeds charm!  The historic buildings, homes and gardens are just jaw-dropping.  Spanish moss drapes off the giant live oaks, and street paving changes from slate, to brick to cobblestone - you do have to really watch where you walk - those trees stretching across narrow streets to create a canopy also have roots that lift the sidewalks completely out of the ground.

Secret, small gardens are a wonderful discovery and most are enclosed by gates (Charleston is famous for ornate, hand-crated wrought iron).

Homes often sit side-ways on their lots in order to take advantage of cooling breezes that are so essential in steamy summers.

We enjoyed looking into old cemeteries that are often alongside churches established as early as the 1600's.  Two signers of the US Constitution plus two signers of the Declaration of Independence lived in and are buried in Charleston.

This marker for Anna Hayes Bennett caught my fancy as it seemed she was being posthumously damned with faint praise, "She hath done what she could."  Hoping that is not my final epitaph!

Real gas lamps on houses really caught our interest.  Just seeing flames made us think about Charleston's history of destruction by fire, flood and earthquake.  

In 1838 an enormous fire broke out in Charleston and in less than 18 hours destroyed over 1000 homes and buildings and took many lives.  Approximately 1/4 of all the businesses in wealthy Charleston were destroyed, rendering many people penniless.  Just like the 1925 earthquake that leveled Santa Barbara, the communities used the tragedy as an opportunity to rebuild their cities in a new style and with new safety precautions.  Wood roofs and most wood construction was banned.  New roofs were metal or slate and buildings were constructed of brick and stucco.   

One disaster follows another - in 1886 a giant earthquake severely damaged Charleston.

Fire history got Ben's attention.  We stopped in a working fire station to see the antique fire trucks housed in the back.  Charleston was so susceptible to fire - buildings close together and strong winds to blow embers - that Charleston had to develop effective fire fighting methods.  One innovation was underground water wells that stored the brackish water from the bay.  Firetrucks could pull up, lower hoses into the wells covered by manhole covers, and pump water onto the fire.

Ben's First Blog Report:

Peering in the open bay of the brick fire station, we saw old pieces of apparatus- several 1920's era engines and a horse drawn steam-engine, along with antique fire department equipment.  This Gamewell Fire Alarm Punch was a paper punch tape device connected to pull boxes located at intersections around the city. 

Someone discovering a fire would sound the alarm by pulling the lever on a box nearby.  An electric signal would be sent to the punch machine in the central office, and a three digit code would be automatically punched in the tape. The number would correlate to the street intersection nearest the fire, and the alarm bell in the station tower would be rung with the number of rings related to the three digit code - dispatching equipment and crews. 

The number on the tape coincided with a stack of cards, each with a number and description of the intersection or building the alarm came from. This was called a "Joker Card" system - because the punch tape could not produce any number with zero in it as there is no way to ring a bell "zero" times! 

The sky was beautiful above St. Michael's Church (circa 1752) as we walked back to our car after our personal sidewalk tour of Charleston.  The drive home was spectacular, with a gold and pink sunset over the marshy waterways of the Low Country.  We didn't pull over to get a picture, but hope for another chance!