CHARLESTON -SOUTH CAROLINA

23rd - 28th February 2011

By road to Charleston, the original capital of South Carolina ( until 1865 ); a touristy place but good fun. It is ( quite ) famous for a) being established by King Charles 11 and given, along with all Carolina, to his supportive cronies in 1670, b) the first shot of the Civil War was fired here by the Confederates at a ship resupplying Unionist held (by Major Robert Anderson) Fort Sumter in April 1861, c) Hurricane Hugo, which flattened the place in 1989 and, I suppose, d) for inventing a rather silly dance.

It is in Cherokee country and the setting, along with Georgia, of the  'Gone with the Wind' story and film. There are many old cotton and rice 'plantations' ( now defunct ), mansions, Rhett Butler lookalikes and freed slaves around the place. Extraordinarily, it has 137 churches and no building is allowed to be built higher than the highest church spire. These Yanks, whoops sorry Rebs, love their churches.

 There are also loads of organised 'tours' by bus, boat and horse or mule drawn carriages. Tours to plantations, mansions, Fort Sumter on a man-made island, around the town, the slave market ( closed ), an aircraft carrier, a Civil War ( first ever ) sunken submarine ( the Hunley which sunk after destroying a Yankee ship ),  etc. etc.

Below right: the 'rainbow houses' along one of the smart streets. Most of the old houses have 'earthquake bolts' through them to hold them together during an earthquake.

Below: One of the many mule towed guided tours. Rather more fun if they had races with them, in my opinion.

Below below: The Palmetto tree ( a smaller leaved palm tree ) which forms part of the blue South Carolina flag. The trunks of this tree are very tough and resilient and they reinforced the original city walls with them. They withstood all the British cannon fire in the War of Independence, and thus became iconic to the Charlestonians. Charleston was the capital at the time.

I took a bus tour ( reckoned it would be quicker than the horse drawn variety ) and therefore give me more time to tour their bars and restaurants of which there is a plethora. Yes, lots of quaint and colourful historic old houses and sites from the 'Gone with the Wind' days. There is a  large and old fashioned open City Market which sells locally made produce, including the ubiquitous 'sweet-grass' woven baskets made by the indiginous 'Gullah' folk. The Gullah culture consists of black people with traditions and a strange 'patois' language that extends down the east coast of the Carolinas and Georgia. I think I heard someone talking it, and it was impossible to understand. Or maybe they just had a speech defect.

    

Right: a knob's house in Charleston. The plantation owners kept these places to 'entertain' in Town. They all have two converging entrance staircases, one for the men and one for the ladies. They were rather conservative in those days.





Left: a tour bus.
Below right: One of the many 'sweet-grass' basket weavers/sellers' I think she might have had a few left over at the end of the day. I didn't buy one.

Below:...... and, of course, the mandatory Oirish Fenian 'Bear' serving Guiness and, surprisingly, Newcastle Brown Ale in which the 'Woild Rovarrr', inevitably, was played endlessly as well as a new one on me, a song which contained the lyrics " ..Moi Faathor was a hampstor.." No, I didn't get it either. Must be a local variation.

I visited another fairly strange institution here. The "Citadel'. This is a quasi-military/academic establishment with some weird 'initiation' rites and traditions. The students all dress in a sort of Westpoint style uniform. Freshmen ( 1st year students ) have all their hair shaved off, cannot walk on the pavements and have to walk 'at the double' ( ie run ) wherever they go. Some drop out after a couple of months. The 'course' lasts 3 years and they pay $23,000 per year for the priviledge.

Most do not join the services but they get, apparently, a good education. It must be like the first term at Sandhurst, but tougher and you pay for it! They put on a military parade every Friday afternoon. I went. Photos below.

Left: the Citadel flag. They have a museum which I visited. It was rather dull.



Below: One of the imposing 'blocks' which make up the Citadel. Every building has a US flag flying from it. I counted 36 all told.







Below: The Parade. There were at least 1000 on parade. They have a Scottish Pipe Band, with their own tartan, as well as a normal 'oompah' one. For the life of me, I can't work out what the connection is between South Carolina and Scotland. I'm sure someone will enlighten me. Did they have Scottish plantation owners? Or slaves, maybe?( I don't think Hamish would have made a very good slave.." Whaat Baas? Weel yoos can just f**k off yoos sassenach c**t" ).
Their drill seemed mainly to consist of very long, loud and unintelligible words of command followed by, as far as I could see, not much! They eventually marched off and most of them were in step.




The 'Pipes and Drums' were OK, but I suspect any self-respecting Scottish Regimental Pipe Major would have had a fit.





Below: The pipe band in action.

Of course I had to see a plantation and duly went on another 'tour' to the Boone Hall Plantation just North-West of the town. It was rather a pleasant place, horses in the paddocks, Scarlett O'Haras in the tea rooms and has been used as a backdrop for various 'movies' which demanded that theme. The life of the owners and slaves was well explained, "yas Baas etc." The place grew rich on growing cotton, indigo ( hadn't heard of that before ) and nuts. And in the winter, to keep the boys amused and occupied, they made bricks.

Left: Boone Hall, where the 'toffs' lived. They always kept their kitchens separate from the house because they ( kitchens ) often burned down and they didn't want the houses to go up with them. Wise.

Below right. Slave alley huts, just along the drive approaching the main house ( this was a 'status' thing, just to show off how many slaves you had ). Actually, these brick-built ones were comparatively luxurious.

Below: A slave's bedroom. Eat yer heart out Tracy Emin! I was told a 'family' of up to 16 people lived in one hut.

Does't look to bad to me. I've known worse. They probably weren't in it for very long anyway.

 The 'living' oak ( they always have leaves on, new ones pushing out old ) lined drive to the hall. The grey stuff that always hangs down from these trees is called 'Spanish Moss'. 'Spanish' because the Indians thought it looked like the beards that the early Spanish invaders wore. It is not a moss.


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As I mentioned, there is a great variety of bars and restaurants in this town, as indeed everywhere in the country, but I have yet to get the hang of the food and drink in the US, in general. The photo on the left is of a typical bar/restaurant. Firstly, I was introduced to 'Grits', an apparently popular southern delicacy. My advice is; don't. It is a sort of gooey porridge made from sweetcorn. The sort of stuff you might feed to a sick calf. Secondly, all their meals seem so complicated and are always covered with lots of different and equally disgusting 'goo' or 'toppings' as they call them. To give you an example, I will quote from a menu for a typical 'appetiser'. I always just order 'appetisers' because the main courses are usually big enough to feed a normal family of 4 for about a week. Anyway, this appetiser ( and I couldn't make it up ) was described as...."Sauteed calamari tossed with capers, orange zest, tomato, basil pesto and shaved fennel served over wilted spinach with salsa cruda and jack cheese quesadilla"... probably with a choice of bloody 'toppings'!  I mean........whaaaat?! Is this a description of food or some sort of culinary masonic coded message? It cost $10. Cheap. And, whatever you do, resist the temptation to ask for their recitation of the 'Specials'. This involves a brilliantly rehearsed soliloquy which goes on for a solid 5 minutes without breath being taken. After the first word, chicken say, the rest might as well be in fluent Martian. One is left with eyes wide and mouth open, comprehending zilch. You just say "can you repeat that" and do a runner. My advice, which will not be taken, is that US meals should have 1/2 the ingredients,  1/2 the quantity and be 1/2 the price. I suspect my search for 'fish and chips', or 'beans on toast' will be entirely and hopelessly in vain.

OK, that's my compilation for the last week. Moving on tomorrow. Where to? As someone once memorably said around here " Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn..."

Hang on in there.......I will communicate again sometime soon.

PS. Nearly forgot, the Charleston was invented here by an orphanage black band called the Jenkins Jazz Orchestra in, about, 1890. Look it up on 'youtube'. There is only one recording of them left.