South Carolina

November 7, 1999: Cowpens, South Carolina

Driving home from Atlanta, where I had attended the annual conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, we treated outselves to a stop at Cowpens National Historic Battleground. Once the scene of a battle that became a turning point of the American Revolution, this park is now a beautiful expanse of scattered trees and meadow. We traced the route of the Continental Army and local militia, who combined in a fascinating way under General David Morgan to defeat the British and frustrate their maneuvers in the South. We stopped there on a glorious day. Temperatures were in the 70s, and the colorful autumn leaves provided a gorgeous backdrop for our many pictures of Essie.

March 9-10, 1996: Charleston, South Carolina

Driving back to Chapel Hill from our spring break trip to Florida, we couldn't resist a stop in Charleston, our favorite city in the South and perhaps all of the United States. We splurged on a beautiful and elegant bed and breakfast, the Elliot House Inn, and enjoyed an outdoor jacuzzi in the courtyard, cheese in the afternoon, and a room Lisa called the most beautiful she had ever seen. We took a long stroll down the charming streets in the afternoon and spent part of the next morning at the Old Exchange, where the city's merchants paid duties on goods they imported before the American Revolution. Perhaps the most historically important building in Charleston, the Old Exchange is also the place where citizens discussed colonial politics and protested British taxes on tea and where the British army imprisoned Christopher Gadsden and other patriots during its occupation of Charleston during the war.

November 8-9, 1996: Charleston, South Carolina

It sometimes seems that every vacation we plan in a city comes during the city's biggest weekend of the year. We have traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains during the peak of the fall colors, visited the North Carolina coast on one of the last weekends of summer, and seen nearly every one of our visits to a college town coincide with a homecoming or parents' weekend. This weekend, thousands of relatives converged on Charleston for the Citadel's homecoming, but we squeezed into our favorite inn, the Elliott House, thanks to Lisa's last-minute negotiations before we left Chapel Hill.

Every bit as elegant as we left them six months ago during our last pass through Charleston, the rooms at the Elliott House once again delighted Lisa, who this time too great joy in sharing them with her mother. I saved my enthusiasm for the outdoor jacuzzi, which we used as a sleeping-aid before settling down to rest from another busy day.

The next morning, another magical day began. On a previous visit to Charleston, Lisa and I had attended a service at the Huguenot Church, where the only independent congregation of its kind in America comes to worship every Sunday. Knowing of her dad's interest in history and culture, we took Lisa's parents to the church for the morning service. Arriving 45 minutes early, we wandered around the building, and I read about the establishment of its congregation in 1681, four years before France's King Louis XIV nullified the Treaty of Nantes, which had given French Protestants the right to worship in the Catholic country. With the resulting persecution of these Protestants, also called the Huguenots, thousands left the country. Many came to Charleston and joined the congregation here. In 1845, the Huguenots in this city built the present church building. On its walls, we saw plaques donated in the names of Americans with Huguenot ancestry, including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Georgia poet Sidney Lanier.

After the service, which resembles Catholic and other Christian services in many ways, we joined members of the congregation at the nearby Huguenot house for hors d'oeuvres. We chatted with these friendly people for a little while and were about to move on when one of the members, a woman about the age of Lisa's parents, asked me about the topic of my dissertation. I told her I was writing on Edgar Allan Poe, and she became excited. A few years ago, she had helped a German scholar who was writing a book on Poe. In fact, she had taken him out to Sullivan's Island, where Poe had served in the Army and where his famous story "The Gold-Bug" is set, to show the author the exact scene described in the short story. Always eager to relive history and literature in places where it occured, Lisa and I had visited Sullivan's Island years ago, but had not known where the key events of the story had taken place. "Are you free this afternoon?" the woman asked me now. "I could take you out there."

Minutes later, I was riding in the front seat of Arla Holroyd's car, and Lisa and her parents were right behind us. A former biology professor at Winthrop College in South Carolina, Arla talked about education, science, and Poe as we drove out of Charleston and over the river. I asked her how she knew so much about Poe, and she said she had always just loved knowledge. Before taking us out to the island, she stopped at her modest home and invited us inside. Soon forgetting that we had known this woman all of 20 minutes, we wandered from room to room, taking in her fascinating collection of paintings, sculpture, and stained glass by friends such as Anne Richardson and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner; her memorabilia from her Scandinavian ancestors; and her stories about her life in Charleston. As she pulled one book after another from her shelves, telling their stories as she went, she chuckled at the way she missed running a bed-and-breakfast inn and sharing her mementoes with guests.

Out on Sullivan's Island, she took us down Gold-Bug Lane and pulled up in front of a giant, knarled oak tree, whose branches sagged to the ground. After snapping several photographs of me and Lisa in front of it, she led me up to a house nearby. The former owner had died, and a middle-aged woman whom Arla didn't know was at home. "I have a Ph.D. candidate here who is writing on Edgar Allan Poe," Arla explained to the startled and confused stranger. She wanted to know if we could walk down behind the woman's house and take pictures of the marsh that Poe described in the story. Obviously uneasy, the woman granted her permission, then timidly offered to let us take a picture from her porch, which offered a spectacular view. On the way back to our cars, Arla thanked me for letting her take part in my work. I protested that I should be thanking her, but I also knew--from what she had done for us and how she had done it--that I had made someone's day by letting her make mine.

Returning to our schedule, the four of us drove to Boone Hall plantation to watch a re-enactment of a Civil War battle, the 1862 Battle of Secessionville. There were plenty of intrusions on our disbelief, of course. One Rebel exchanged casual conversation with a Union casualty; cheers erupted on the sidelines when two Rebels picked off an injured Yankee. Still, though it came not nearly close enough for many of those around me, this play was as close as I have come to the Civil War and indeed to war itself, and I think I will remember it.

We spent the last day of our brief vacation exploring the neighborhoods and historic buildings of Charleston. In the morning, I went for a jog along the battery, through a couple of parks, and down several streets. Later, the four of us went for a drive and then a walk together, gawking at the stately mansions, peeking into courtyards, and gazing through binoculars at Charleston Harbor and Fort Sumter. After lunch at the Griffon near Waterfront Park, Jerry and I visited the aircraft carrier Yorktown in Charleston Harbor, while Lisa and her mother found a bench downtown and sketched buildings. On our way back to Chapel Hill, we stopped at Charleston Southern University, which has advertised for a professor of English. After a look at the charming campus and a visit to the Student Building, I picked up some information from the school's welcome center, and we hit the road again, finally arriving back home in Chapel Hill later that evening.

October 16-19, 1997: Charleston, South Carolina

Something about this city lifts our spirits every time we visit it.

Taking advantage of my fall break at Pembroke, Lisa and I came here this time to celebrate our eighth anniversary. It felt like a homecoming, perhaps because we have been strolled down these streets so many times or because Charleston's rich history and culture make us feel that we belong here--or maybe just because for the second year in a row we managed to show up on exactly the same weekend at the Citadel's homecoming. What appeared to be bad timing turned into good fortune, however, because we discovered a great place to stay. The Sea Cabins, one of the few places in the area with vacancies that weekend, are on the beach on nearby Sullivan's Island. For a rate half that of the hotels in downtown Charleston, we had a view of the ocean, a patio, easy access to the beach, and a very comfortable condominium with a kitchenette. On our first night, we went for a walk on the beach, and later I went for an exhilarating jog there on a cold, rainy evening.

I think the secret of Charleston's appeal for us is its culture. It's a classy city. When it was growing up in the 1700s and 1800s, its literature, arts, gorgeous homes, and public buildings--including the first museum in America--made Charleston the undisputed cultural center of the South. Today, it continues to promote the arts while also preserving its magnificent architecture, gardens, and general design. Of course, Charleston is a city of class in another, less appealing away. In earlier times--and, to a lesser extent, today--the people with the most access to this culture are the members of relatively high social classes. Plenty of areas of the city remind visitors that they haven't left reality. Still, though not a perfect city, Charleston sparkles as few others do and reminds us what humans can create when resources, commitment, and a love of beauty come together.

Much of this culture--the kind we can afford--is free or relatively inexpensive. We spent a lot of our time, as we always do, strolling down the narrow streets, tour book in hand, admiring the gorgeous houses and gardens, sometimes pausing to read the sign on a house or historic building. Occasionally, we ducked into a shop, such as The Southern Literary Tradition, a bookstore located just across the street from Cabbage Row, where the musical Porgy and Bess is set. On the inside are scores of early editions and other rare books, arranged on inlaid wooden bookshelves. While in the neighborhood, we also visited the Heyward-Washington House, built in 1772, and saw its small landscape garden as well as some spectacular furniture; the highlight of the house was the enormous Holmes bookcase, which a brochure describes as "the finest American piece of furniture known in the country today." Later, we relaxed in Waterfront Park and visited the Charleston Museum, which was founded in 1773 as the first museum in the country. In addition to modern exhibits on the city's Huguenot heritage, early silversmiths, and plantation life, we saw some of the museum's early holdings, including an Egyptian mummy and a reproduction of the Rosetta stone.

May 31-June 3, 1998: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

After a brief delay imposed by the arrival of our daughter, Esprit, we have resumed our hobby of traveling, this time driving to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where Mark attended Literature and Literacy in an Age of Technology, a conference sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. While Mark spent every morning in meetings, Es and I spent wonderful time together walking around the Ocean Creek resort, exploring the shopping area called Barefoot Landing, swimming in one of the resort's many pools, and frolicking in the sea.

I learned a lot about Essie during our trip: she LOVES to swim (which did not surprise me after seeing her at bath time), she LOVES to travel (like Mom and Dad), and she is a GREAT sport (she didn't complain and even managed a smile when I inadvertantly kicked sand into her carrier). Es was enormously popular wherever we went -- the pool, the beach, the shopping center -- and earned Mark lots of popularity at his conference. As a matter of fact, at the meetings's end, Mark received compliments on his excellent comments and his beautiful baby. If we're not careful, Essie may demand an increase in salary, and we're not sure we can afford doling out any more love and kisses.