CHAPTER FORTY NINE: WORK TIME, PLAY TIME, REAL TIME

CHAPTER FORTY NINE: WORK TIME, PLAY TIME, REAL TIME

Sometimes the Admiral appears to have ESP. He had been trying to get in touch with a former colleague, Kim, in recent days, and he reached out to a lot of other people he worked with to help find her. If you put out enough feelers, usually you get a response. And sure enough, Kim called and they had a great reunion. Oh, it was better than great. Turns out that Kim has work for the Admiral, the computer work that challenges his mind and brings in a little money to help with the Social Security. So the Admiral is happy, as he spends hours at his computer calculating rates for agents in Arkansas.

And I’m happy, because I get to go exploring. I went to St. Simon’s Island yesterday. It is a lot busier than Jekyll Island. There is a “village” on the Island near the Lighthouse, and the village is 2 or 3 blocks of stores, cafes, boutiques, T shirt and souvenir shops, and some higher class shops as well. It’s like Ocean Avenue in Carmel, California, if you’ve ever been there, but concentrated into three blocks. At the end of the stores, there is the St. Simon’s Pier and the beach. You can park for free, yes, I said “for free”. And from there you can walk to the Lighthouse and the museum store. The first lighthouse was built on St. Simon’s in 1810. Scottish plantation owner – I didn’t know there were any Scottish plantation owners – but anyway, Scottish plantation owner John Couper sold 4 acres of land to the U. S. Government in 1804 so they could build the lighthouse. The first lighthouse was built of “tabby”, a mixture of oyster shells, lime, sand and water. The lighthouse was first lit in 1811.

Then the Civil War happened. And in the summer of 1861 1500 Confederate troops were stationed at the Lighthouse site at Fort Brown. They destroyed the first lighthouse before evacuating St. Simon’s, so that the Union troops couldn’t use it as a navigational aid. The Union troops that took over St.  Simon’s were African American soldiers known as the First South Carolina Volunteers.

About those plantations, they cropped up in the late 1700’s on the Georgia sea islands, and the primary crop was “sea island cotton”. They also grew indigo (will somebody tell me what that is besides a color in the rainbow?) and rice. As you may recall the colony of Georgia had first outlawed slavery, but with the economic pressure from the slave-allowing colonies surrounding Georgia, this Utopia caved and made slavery legal in 1757. The plantations on the sea islands, including St. Simon’s, which was crawling with plantations, were only successful because of the hard work of the Africans kidnapped from West Africa and brought in chains to run the plantations. They were apparently experts at growing rice and cotton. But with the emancipation of the people who had been forced into slavery, the plantations were no longer profitable. Bye, bye, Plantation Era. There are still descendants of the West Africans on the sea islands, who are known as “Gullah” or “Geechee”.

What you see on St. Simon’s today are a lot of very large houses on the road to the village, another road that has Spanish moss dripping from live oak trees. You also see either gated communities or resorts. There does not appear to be any of the middle class housing which dominates all of Jekyll Island, save for the mansions in the Historic District.

One fact about St. Simon’s Island that I did not remember is that the G8 Summit was held on this island in 2004. This gathering of the heads of the world’s eight major industrial democracies (Russia is included! With Putin! Democracy? I think not.) is held in different locations. They started meeting in 1975. The 30^th summit was held on St. Simon’s Island. The leaders do something kinda cool for the place where they meet. They call it a “legacy project” to commemorate the summit and to thank the local community for providing them lodging and hospitality. So the leaders gave St. Simon’s money to build the A.W. Jones Heritage Center, which is right next to the Lighthouse and which has the most incredible gift shop I have ever seen for a relatively small tourist attraction. I can only guess that the eight leaders are still sending gifts from their countries to stock the shop. That would account for the cowboy hats and gear from Crawford, Texas – kidding!

Had enough history for one Blog? Okay, let’s stretch our legs a bit. As the Admiral still concentrated on the rates, I headed to the north end of Jekyll Island today, December 28 (my father’s birthday) to go horseback riding. They have a very nice set up with around 20 quite docile horses used to going on 1 and ½ hour trail rides for inexperienced riders through the wetlands and out to the waterway, then back through the Spanish moss-covered trees. I was given a big red stallion to ride named “Rebel”, who likes a very loose rein. Otherwise, he shakes his head up and down, pins his ears back and finally, just turns around and says, ala Mr. Ed: “Would you puh-lease loosen the reins?!” Yes, Sir, Mr. Rebel, Sir. Actually, we got along fine. He tried to eat the sea grass and I tried to keep him from eating it. He tried to get to the head of the line of horses, and I tried to keep him in fourth or fifth place. He had succeeded in passing three slower horses and riders. He had a great walking gait, and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy frolicking on the beach with me. Actually, we stayed in line and kept up a stately pace as we walked near the water’s edge.  When we got back to the corral, he ran to the water tank – it was kind of muggy and he worked up a sweat on his beautiful roan coat. I went over to the side of the corral and called his name, and he came right over. I guess we bonded after all. Or he expected some carrots for his hard work. Or both.

If you come to Jekyll Island, I recommend the horseback riding. Sure, you’ll want to bike all over the 20 miles of bike trails too, but travel by horse is still a great way to see the natural beauty around you.

What’s a Blog without a rundown on recent meals? Here’s the scoop, last night we had a fierce salad, made even fiercer by the ripest, tastiest avocado. And after the salad, we had, are you ready for this? Cheese fondue, made with Emmenthaler and Gruyere and German Riesling, by the Admiral, of course. Talk about your cholesterol count – I’d rather not after downing all those cheesy bread morsels. I don’t think I’ve had fondue since I went to the fondue restaurant at the ski resort at Lake Tahoe called Northstar. It is a wonderful après ski dinner. And, as we found out last night, it’s pretty good boat fare as well. Today, the Admiral has been preparing beef barley soup, when he takes his short breaks from “The Job”. I had made French toast with Italian sour dough bread and vanilla and cinnamon and the usual eggs and milk. So Slow Motion smelled like a vanilla/cinnamon candle when I left to go horseback riding. Alas, that smell was gone when I returned, replaced by the aroma of onions and beef bouillon. Not a bad exchange.

Since it is going to be unusually warm tonight, in the fifties, we decided to save the soup for the frigid temperatures we are supposed to get tomorrow night. And we went out to dinner at the Marsh Grill in Brunswick. They did have Brunswick stew on the menu, and I was tempted, because I have yet to savor that local specialty. But instead I went for the fish and chips, and the Admiral had succulent fresh oysters and shrimp --- fried, of course. This IS STILL the Deep Fried South. This place is incredibly popular, so if you decide to go, get there early or you’ll be waiting a while for a table.

Okay, this is just an observation, or a musing. Yesterday I connected with a college friend, whose Christmas letter I had just received. I emailed her to let her know I had received her card and filled her in on our latest exploits. She responded immediately from the ski slopes of Alta, Utah. And we had an exchange of emails and photos over a period of several hours. All the time Gretchen was skiing with her daughter and I was touring around St. Simon’s. It was cooler than a phone conversation, because we traded pictures too. (I’m not yet into Face Time or Skype.) And although we had not spoken since our reunion in early June at Wellesley, the communications we shared were so natural that it was just like we had been together the week before. This was email, not texting. I really do appreciate the immediacy and the intimacy of this form of communicating. With snail mail, you send out the letter and wait forever for an answer. By that time, you’ve moved on to so many different things than what you wrote about. But with email, you’re in the moment. It is very cool. I know I’m not the first to notice this, but my contacts with Gretchen yesterday really felt good, spanning the miles from sea to shining mountain top. Which leads me to this standing offer: If you email me, I will respond, and I will try to do so as quickly as possible, so that we can share some real time together. Let’s not get radical and move on to Face Time or Skype just yet. Let’s stick with email for a while and enjoy each other’s company for a few minutes or a few hours. Okay, sometimes one of us will just have to pick up the phone and call to finish the conversation. That’s okay too – that just means that the connection is really strong and/or our fingers are tired from striking the letters. These connections are a high point of the day for me, and I hope they are for you too.