Jason F.C. Clarke

I apologize for the almost epic pause between posts. I spent all of last week in Savannah, Georgia for a training session for my job. I ended up having to be there from Monday through Saturday evening, so it was one long trip down there in the land of Oglethorpe.

I stayed at the Hilton in downtown Savannah, so I had the chance to become pretty well acquainted with the city.

The main impression I was left with is that in mid-summer, Savannah is really hot. And muggy. Hot and muggy. Sweat was the order of the day. I was pretty ripe when I got back; in fact, DG demanded that I shower immediately when we got home, because I “didn’t smell like Jason.” I would argue that I smelled more like Jason than I ever had before, instead of soap and Pert Plus. In any event, it was a relief to wash off yet another layer of dried sweat.

Most of our time during the day was spent in training, but we were done by 5 PM and at that point we could stroll around Savannah to our heart’s content. Savannah has a lovely boardwalk along the Savannah River on what is aptly titled “River Street.” River Street is home to River Street Sweets, where I discovered I apparently love pralines. A lot. I brought some back for DG, but the sugar was a bit too much for her, so I think I ended up eating most of that box too.

I spent most of my time in Savannah with my co-worker Jackie (see below). Somehow we managed not to drive each other crazy, and we had a good time hanging out with all the other librarians. We were the only Yankees in a group of Southerners, yet there were hardly any references to the War of Northern Aggression or grumbling asides about “that old drunk Grant.” Maybe one or two.

On Friday evening my college roommate Jim drove up to see me from Atlanta and, along with Jackie, we went on a so-called “Ghost tour.” Savannah is allegedly home to many ghosts, possibly due to the constant yellow fever outbreaks that struck the city every summer for the first 200 years of its existence.

However, I have to admit that this ghost tour was less than impressive. Our guide clearly didn’t believe in ghosts at all, and it became evident over the course of the tour that he was doing this to pay off those student loans on his Masters in history. The guide also refused to make eye contact with anyone, instead keeping his eyes focused on a point somewhere above our heads, which was disconcerting after a while. The scariest part of the tour was when he started talking about how the yellow fever was transmitted and we all noticed we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

That’s Jim and me on the ghost tour. Yes, it was damn hot, even at night.

In order to take a direct flight back (rather than have to go through, say, Detroit), Jackie and I ended up staying an extra day. So on Saturday, we visited Fort Pulaski, a Civil War-era fort who had the dubious honor of being the first victim of rifled cannon, which forced the Confederates to surrender within a mere thirty hours. Some of the shells are still embedded in the fort’s brick walls.

That’s Jackie and me in front of the fort. Again, it was really hot. Apparently the moat was full of alligators, though I didn’t find that out until later, after I’d been walking along the stone edge.

One of the earliest known photographs of men playing baseball was taken in Fort Pulaski. We were fortunate enough to catch a reenactment of an old-timey baseball game (I should mention the last two photos are courtesy of Jackie, while the first is from Jim—I forgot my camera).