Chapter 11
Charleston South Carolina
I’m not happy with our accommodations at the Charleston Inn Best Western. This is a rare, two-star choice I’ve made, and it’s a fail. Our room isn’t in the main hotel but in a building behind it, in a back parking lot. The building looks like a military bunker and/or a run-down mini strip mall: a long line of separate doors, one after another, all gray, all drab. Our room is no better: standard fare but with off-white cement walls, and worn furniture. The cement walls especially irritate me and even Janet, who’s always chiller than me about these things, turns her nose up, especially at the tattered bed cover.
“It’s not great but it’s okay,” she says, which is her way of telling me to quit complaining.
We’ll be here for two nights. We have a 2:30 lunch reservation at Henrietta’s Restaurant, located inside the elegant Dewberry Hotel in downtown Charleston. It’s a splurge and it doesn’t disappoint. We leave a content Mattie and her blanket and a Greenie snack in the hotel room and now we’re sitting in a rich mahogany-filled room, at a sweet corner table for two, with starched cloth napkins. and a red velvet bench that extends the full length of the wall. We’re officially in the South now. I order Shrimp and Grits. It comes with a tomato base and I’m blown
away by how delicious it is. This will be my number one favorite meals of our entire trip. We eat leisurely, we take selfies, and we’re as relaxed as kittens.
Janet has signed us up for a horse-drawn carriage ride through historic Charleston. We know very little about the city, but one important thing we do know is that Janet’s favorite artist Jonathan Green lives here. We’ll be seeking out his artwork, but first, on a drizzly and chilly day, we find ourselves in an open carriage, listening to a thirty-something tour-guy tell us about the history of Charleston. Janet likes him more than I do: I think he’s a bit sarcastic.
There are six of us in all in the carriage. No one else seems as cold as I am, but I distract myself by focusing on the horse-trot sounds on the cobblestone streets. We learn that Charleston was founded in 1690. Known for its historic and gorgeous architecture and a cultural blend of English, French, and African culture, it’s the oldest and largest city in South Carolina. As our guide rattles off the history, which isn’t especially interesting to me, he redeems himself when he mentions that Charleston had the largest slave trade market in the United States. I appreciate that he brings that part up, but I sense he’s been instructed to not delve too deeply on the topic. Afterwards, when I google Charleston’s Slave Trade, I can see why. Of the four hundred thousand enslaved people who were brought to the United States, forty percent arrived in Charleston, to be auctioned off to wealthy Plantation owners. The city was the wealthiest in the colonial era in large part because of the labor of slaves. From 1783 through 1808, approximately a hundred thousand slaves were sold in Charlestown: young strong men, women who would cook and care for children, field workers assigned to picking cotton in the scorching sun. Now, as Janet and I enjoy ourselves as food-loving adventurers, we could easily overlook the reality that there are several modern-day Charleston tour companies that offer plantation tours. But the tours are misleading: mostly white families are guided through the sprawling mansions and fields where black families were bought and sold by a wealthy white aristocracy. The tour guide ads read like a wedding destination: “Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is a historic house with gardens located on the Ashley River…It is one of the oldest plantations in the South, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.” The more I read, the clearer it becomes that the tours won’t say much about the slave trade at the Magnolia Plantation. There’s a reason for this: apparently a fair number of tourists complain when too much time is focused on the enslaved people who worked on the plantation. Why is this, Is the history too painful? Or does white society simply not care, instead enamored by the splendor of the Plantation mansions and manicured grounds?
There are a few exceptions–The McLeod Plantation Historical Site, the Boone Hall Plantation, and The Magnolia Cabin Project Tour each tell the accurate story of families involuntarily working the land; show exhibits of the slaves’ cabins; and offer information about the Gullah culture. One of the tours shows a diagram of what a slave ship looked like and how ‘the slaves were often stacked like books on shelves.’ If you happen to be in Charlestown and are planning your itinerary, I hope (so much) that these are the plantations you choose to visit.
*****
Charleston drops down a notch in my view because of this history, but there’s no doubt it’s a historically beautiful city. Everywhere we look we see grand Southern architecture: proud buildings with tall white pillars, verandas, and breezy porches. We walk around a little in the gray drizzle, and return to our military bunker hotel ready for naps. But Janet’s determined to find Jonathan Green. Every year we buy a calendar of his paintings of African American women dressed in colorful dresses and hats, all from his Gullah community of Gardens Corner located near the South Carolina Sea Islands. We’re seriously hoping to buy one of his original paintings, until we learn that they each sell for five or ten thousand dollars. That’s definitely out of our price range.
It’s six o’clock and we’re still tired when I somehow manage to locate a phone number for Jonathan Green, and by some weird chance, I actually reach his home. A man named Richard answers the phone and patiently listens as I tell him we’re fans, and I ask where we can see Jonathan’s paintings. It turns out Richard is both Jonathan Green’s life partner and business manager, and I’m pretty sure I’m within seconds of being invited to their house and home studio. But suddenly, Jonathan Greene himself takes over the phone. He’s in no way as welcoming. Once I clarify that we’re probably (and sadly) not looking to buy an original, he quickly explains he’s already late for an out-of-town appointment, and he directs us to a gallery in the downtown Charleston City Market where his signed prints are sold. Okay, that’s what we’ll do. At least we’ve found his gallery.
We both decide to eat from our snack box for dinner, then watch TV, and fall asleep We’re surprised that our energy isn’t higher, but so be it. We’ll have a full day in Charleston tomorrow.
*****
Our plans for the next morning are set. We pack up the car and Mattie gets a long walk before the three of us drive to the downtown Market. In a series of connected buildings, the Market extends four long blocks along Meeting Street and the whole area is bustling with tourists like us. There’s nowhere to park, and with Mattie in the car, we decide that an excited Janet will go inside the Marketplace in search of the Chuma Gallery. I double park the car and Janet sends me photos of several of Jonathan Green’s paintings. Each is signed by the artist, and each is a hundred dollars—a steal. We’re psyched: this will be the first official purchase of our trip. We narrow our favorites to two and I tell Janet either is fine with me.
“But I want you to go inside and look too,” she says. She especially likes the one of a young woman dressed in a billowing yellow dress and a head scarf with large orange polka dots. “There’s one problem though,” she says. “It only comes in a black frame.”
We’re both fussy about our interior design choices. The spot in our living room where the print will likely be hung has only natural wood or gold frames. Black won’t match. Janet comes back to the car and we trade places. I walk into a hopping building with open air shops all along a very wide walkway that seems miles long. Most of the shops are small lean-tos tucked into ten-by-twenty foot spaces. I pass by postcard and trinket and souvenir shops and plenty of food stands, until I spot Jonathan Green’s prints. Yup, I too like the woman with the yellow dress and orange polka dots, even in its black frame. It’s a sale! I carry it back to the car and we carefully wiggle the brown paper wrapped purchase onto the floor of the back seat of our jam-packed car. We giggle. Things are going well.
We spend the afternoon driving along Charleston’s cobblestone streets and walking past pastel antebellum houses on the Battery Promenadeand the Waterfront Park that overlooks Charleston Harbor. I can’t keep up with the photo opportunities. This is a charming city.
Once back in our room, we settle Mattie in and end our day at a no-frills diner a few blocks from the hotel. We’re not seeking out diners, but we’ve now ended up at three. It already seems that food compromises are going to be necessary on the road. We’ll be balancing greasy spoon cooking with fancy restaurants. Still, we try to advance-google the restaurants we go to, and I especially read the reviews. It’s not foolproof, but the reviews and descriptions from Google, OpenTable, Yelp and TripAdvisor apps are unusually helpful. In the case of this particular diner, however, we’re tired, it’s nearby, and we take what we can get. It’s not much. We order burgers and fries and chocolate shakes and call it a night.
The next morning, before we leave Charleston, we take Mattie to the James Island County Park. It’s the best dog park ever. There are already at least two dozen dogs running at
full gallop across a field that must be as big as four football fields. Their human owners are clustered in small groups chatting while the dogs play. The best part of all, which Mattie soon discovers, is the lake. The dogs can run down a slight decline, splash and jump and frolic in a good-sized lake, and then turn around and scoot back up a nearby incline. Mattie latches on to a small white poodle who seems fearless and they sniff and run together. I chat with a guy who has just moved to Charleston from Massachusetts, and he confides that he’s trying to bounce back from a nasty divorce. He’s moved to Charleston to be near his son.
“How’s it going?” I ask.
He shrugs, “Pretty good, I like it here. But still…”
He’s a middle-aged man who’s starting over. His son works and he doesn’t and he’s moved to a to a foreign place with no other family or friends.
“I hope it goes okay.”
“We’ll see,” he shrugs. “Thank God for the dog park. It gets me out.”
He’s sad. I feel for him.
Another Massachusetts native and another non-coincidence.
