Savannah

Cities.

I've been to a lot of them, either passing through or visiting. When I say passing through, I mean going directly through it, not on some beltway that skirts it.

Portland, Bangor, Portsmouth, Boston, Quincy, Worcester, Danbury, New York City, Newark, Scranton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington DC, Richmond, Harrisonburg, Charlotte, Asheville, Spartanburg, Charleston, Atlanta, Macon, Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Canton, Denver.

Many more much smaller as well.

I may have been there attending a convention, catching a ballgame or concert, doing the tourist thing. Or maybe just spent the night on the way to somewhere else. I may have been there for years or just a few hours, but I remember them all with varying degrees of opinion as to the experience.

Whether it was seeing the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument or hitting Miami Beach or taking in a Braves game at Turner Field, most activities took place under the yellow face of a dayrider sun.

Except for Savannah.

Savannah was all about the night.

Oh, I've been to Savannah during the day, gone to the mall, played mini-golf, eaten at restaurants and so on.

But the night is what I remember most about Savannah.

There were many. They were streaming and rumbling. Promises were made, some kept to this very day, some never intended to be kept.

Music threaded the nights. Music and a strong beat, both external and internal.

There was heat. A lot of heat. The moon and stars glinted off the river as if to highlight the motion of the eventide.

Bearded shadows hung from trees which stood above the river, and connections could be found in the cobblestones of Upper and Lower Factors Walks. Trees along the river were tamer, more decorative, but the old oaks above told stories of long ago.

Oysters and candy, Bailey's and sandals, the nights were rich in flavor and feeling. They were a  decalescent aphrodisiac, a roseate romance. It was easy to revel in the bright lights dotting the night or slip away through its deep umbra.

There was much nighttime in Boston as well, and those memories are as exuberant. But its ambiance was drastically different. Boston was urban with all its amenities. Savannah was history with all its nuances.

I can well understand why General Sherman couldn't bring himself to lay waste to Savannah like he did with Atlanta.

Because once you step inside her boundaries, she envelops you with sultry sweet arms and never lets go.

Legacy Yawning

I was looking through some old Doonesbury anthologies recently. The particular one which inspired this was the first where the characters show up at college and decide to live communally. That would have been back in the late 60s. The latter portion of the book covered the Watergate scandal and Trudeau was very clever in his portrayal of the progression which led to the downfall of Nixon. He had a good touch with his writing and art back then, which grew rather heavy-handed around the presidencies of Reagan and Bush and beyond.

But I got to thinking about Watergate and all that happened back then. I was a young teenager when Nixon resigned, and so all of my Watergate knowledge came well after that. Fourteen year olds don't notice political events all that much. Or at least they didn't when I was growing up.

Maybe it was just me.

I remember helping a friend with his paper route one day, and when we went to pick up the papers there was a huge headline across the top that simply said, "NIXON RESIGNS!" I held up the paper so passing cars could see it. Can't recall if anyone responded - they all probably knew by then anyway. Then we delivered the papers and went back to doing whatever kids do.

Like all of history, we have passed beyond this event to where we can look around and see no real effects from it any more. It all becomes rather academic to the point where one would almost want to say, "So what?"

It's not that it wasn't a turbulent time, or that the things that took place during Nixon's presidency weren't despicable, but as of 2013 it all seems like just a blip now. I observe our culture and don't get any sense of anyone having "survived" Watergate. Certainly not like seeing veterans who have survived past or current wars. Of course, war is much more traumatic. To hear people speak of Watergate back then and several years after, though, you'd think that the world, or at least the United States, was coming to an end.

Most of the major players in the scandal are gone. Here's a short list which includes the Watergate Seven.

Richard Nixon - died 1994
H. R. Haldeman - died 1993
John Mitchell - died 1988
Chuck Colson - died 2012
John Ehrlichman - died 1999
Robert Mardian - died 2006
Kenneth Parkinson - died 2006
E. Howard Hunt - died 2007
John Dean - still alive
Gordon Strachan - still alive
G. Gordon Liddy - still alive

Watergate is gone, too, assigned to the dusty annals of history books and stale memories of those old enough to remember it.

And it turned out to be what I described earlier. Just a blip.