Overheard, out and about, Mrs. Grundy sees all, tells all

Mrs. C.R. Grundy

Published Friday, July 17, 2009

Peeping through my Venetian blind, I saw Miss Cora Covington, coming across the way with what I hoped was the blackberry nectar she had promised me. Meeting her at the door, I was pleased to find that she had a jar of the sweet nectar in her hands. It didn‘t take long for me to mix some with ginger ale and to sit back and sip on the rare treat and talk over some news.

Miss Cora and I both had heard the rumors that Off the Square Cafe was either closing or moving to a new location. Neither is true. We enjoyed a good meal there just this Friday, and “Miss Debbie” said she doesn’t know where that rumor originated.

I happened to be driving nigh July 9 when I saw the Little Kitchen, going up in flames in an intentional burn, monitored by the fire department. Many happy memories came to mind of the thousands of delicious meals and multitudes of friends who have enjoyed meeting there and eating and fellowshipping through the years.

The senior adults of First Baptist motored to the Buckboard Restaurant on Gantt Lake July 9, driven in the church’s bus, “Old Yellar,” by Kim Dyess. Enjoying the food were Bill Law, Gordon and Trudy Vickers, Gillis “the Combman” and Laura Ann Jones, Wilma Short, Becky Andrews, Eleanor Dyess, Margaret Smyly, John and Mary “the Belle of Excel” Hill, Jean (Carter) Fuqua, Jeanette Keith, Herb and Sue Carlisle, Graham Tucker, Margaret Eiland, Sybil Smith, Lucy Martin, Zelmer Jones, Betty Bass, and Joe Wingard, whose birthday was celebrated with songs, gifts, and cards, and a meal, provided by Gillis Jones, who also provided some spanking of “the Birthday Boy,” an old tradition in which the “birthdayee” is given a lick for each year of his life, plus “one to grow on.”

Irene (Davis) Butler entertained at home July 9 with a birthday luncheon to celebrate the 65th birthday of her friend, Joe Wingard. Guests were Joyce Leddon, Sonja James, Sue (Bass) Wilson, Wayne Caylor, and Ashley Butler.

Mrs. Butler served her homemade, delectable dumplings, chicken, pork loin, barbecued ribs, fried okra, butter beans, pineapple casserole, sweet-potato souffle, cold corn-tomato salad, fried bread, biscuits, birthday cake, rainbow ice cream, peach ice cream, and tea.

The honoree received cards and gifts after lunch.

The other day “the girls” and I had tea again with the Portly Gentleman; this time, at Covington Hall. Miss Cora had prepared the traditional cucumber sandwiches, as well as chicken-salad – crustless, of course – and had iced enough petit fours to keep our friend in smiles.

The Portly One resumed telling us of his travels with the day he drove up from Savannah to meet his cousin, Miss Jo Driggers of Lexington, South Carolina, at Magnolia Plantation just outside of Charleston, the “Old Lady of the South,” the City of Light.

Said he, “Jo and I spent the afternoon, touring this former rice plantation along the Ashley River. The Ashley and Cooper rivers form the peninsula on which Charleston lies and meet, as locals claim, to form the Atlantic Ocean. The rivers are named for the same man, Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper.

“Magnolia lies between Middleton Plantation and Drayton Hall, three tourist destinations along the same, shady road.

“Jo and I took the ‘Nature Train’ first, joining a group to see wildlife – alligators, turtles, herons, egrets, all kinds of birds – as well as marshes, ponds, and forests, old rice fields, duck weed, and the largest Indian mound on the Eastern coast. Audubon himself visited these grounds.

“A tour through the grand, old plantation house followed. This is the most recent structure to stand on the site of former houses of the Drayton family, whose relatives include the English poet, Michael Drayton. The house has been extended over the years and is filled with lovely antiques. It is skirted with expansive, covered porches where Jo and I rested in the shade and drank lemonade. We were told that the family is now in its thirteenth generation in America.

“Our third tour was on a nature boat through the canals of a former rice field. Some 85 percent of the rice used in Europe was once grown around Charleston. In the canopied boat we enjoyed a quiet respite amid cooling breezes across the waters and caught sight of ducks, cranes, snake birds, cattails, and the marsh hen, made famous by Lanier in his ‘Marshes of Glynn.’

“Magnolia has a petting zoo with peacocks and other animals. We watched them as we took refreshment at a little center.

“We concluded our visit with a walk through the trails of the romantic gardens, which wind by statuary, ponds, giant trees, over bridges, and by the Drayton burial vault. We were interrupted by a heavy and prolonged rainfall. Finding refuge in the conservatory, we waited out the storm and then resumed our walk. The azalea, we were told, was first introduced into America at Magnolia. There are some 20,000 at Magnolia, so I guess I know which season to visit next time. We also saw many camellias. The guide pronounced the word ‘ca-MEL-lia,’ which is correct but not commonly used, for the man who ‘discovered’ camellias.

“Jo and I drove into Charleston, over the giant Ravenal Bridge, and into Mt. Pleasant where we took rooms for the night. We ate supper at one of the best restaurants I have visited anywhere, Locklear’s. (Don and Dot Lingle and I have dined together there.) I want John Givhan to know that I had she-crab soup to my heart’s desire! I also dined upon the other, must-eat food of the Low Country, shrimp and grits. Any visitor to the coastlands of Georgia and the Carolinas must try those two! I was served as a relish something called ‘tomato jam.’ I had never heard of it before nor tasted it before; it was delicious; and I highly recommend it to you, gentle reader.

“The next day Jo and I enjoyed breakfast in our motel and then headed north up l7 for McClellanville, a quiet, sleepy, little town of oak alleys, old houses and churches, a marina, a town tucked between a national forest and the ocean, and the birthplace of Archibald Hamilton Rutledge (l883 – l973), the first poet laureate of South Carolina, an educator, and a man of letters. His portrait hangs in the state capitol.

“We found ‘Summer Place,’ the modest house in which he was born and lived at times of his life, still in use by the family.

“My interest in Rutledge came from Mr. George Williams, who, in his old age, taught vocational agriculture at the Andalusia High School. He had written a textbook for his subject, used by schools across America. Mr. Williams was a fine, old gentleman, who carried his pipe as some carry a cane. He landscaped our high school, courthouse, and library. The concrete benches he ‘planted’ at the high school are still in good shape while those placed by others have long since been destroyed. Mr. Williams once told me that his favorite book was Life’s Extras by Rutledge and that he read it every year. That prompted me to buy and read the little book, a philosophy of life. I agree with Mr. Williams that it is worth reading by everyone.

“It took Jo and me only 30 minutes to drive up and down every road in McClellanville – twice. It is a charming breath of country air. Its most fascinating structure is St. James Santee Episcopal Church, a one-room, Victorian, gothic building, covered with wooden shingles and presenting a porch, belfry, stained glass, and gingerbread filigree. It is one of five Episcopal churches established in the area. It and one other are the only ones left from long-ago.

“For lunch Jo and I dropped in at the Pinckney Street Kitchen, a small restaurant on the main street. There, John Givhan, I had she-crab soup – again – as well as squash casserole, green beans with new potatoes, and the eatery’s specialty, a crab-shrimp sandwich on toasted sourdough, with lemonade. The vegetables were fresh from the owner’s garden and, delightful!

“Driving north, we came to the old Hampton (rice) Plantation, once the home of Archibald Rutledge and now a state park.

“Parking, we received instructions in the welcome center and walked through some woods, uphill, across a large lawn to the grand, ante-bellum house, fronted by a wide porch with six columns, each made from a single pine and dating back to the time of George Washington. In fact, the first president, on a tour of the South in l79l, ate both breakfast and lunch in this very house. Before the porch stands the Washington Oak, whose life the President begged and won from the owner, who had wanted to chop it down. Alleys of dogwoods and of hollies crisscross the front lawn.

“Jo and I walked over the grounds and took a tour of the house, which is empty of furniture and is being restored slowly. Even empty, the rooms are impressive, especially the grand ballroom where Washington dined. It seems three-stories tall.

“Our guide through the house, Roy Williams, did an excellent job.

“Leaving the house, Jo and I joined a small group down a woodland path to a small cemetery, surrounded by a short wall of brick. Herein were buried Archibald Rutledge, his wife, and two of his three sons, not too far from his ancestral home. He had been the last to occupy the old place before the state took charge.

“The small, park-like wood through which we meandered was set with azaleas, dogwoods, camellias, live oaks, hollies, and magnolias.

“Concluding our tour of Hampton, we drove down several dirt roads to return to Highway l7. Rain had begun to fall, making the driving a bit messy. Jo insisted, though, that we find the other St. James Santee Episcopal Church down one of those muddy roads. I’m glad she persisted because the church, made of brick with old, wooden, boxed pews within, was something to see. This Brick Church was erected in l768. The one we had seen in McClellanville (nicknamed ‘the Chapel of Ease’) was built in l890. Three others are gone. These five churches, erected in the parish of St. James Santee, once served members of the Anglican (later, Episcopal) Church in the area.

“Despite the heavy rains that then fell, Jo and I continued up l7 to the port city of Georgetown, driving through its lovely streets, admiring the colonial and ante-bellum houses and churches. The main street is named Front Street. Georgetown is the third oldest town in South Carolina.

“Returning to Mt. Pleasant, we took dinner at R.B.’s Restaurant, eating by a windowed wall, and staring out at Shem Creek, which empties into Charleston Bay where our ancestors landed in l753 as new Americans. Once again, John Givhan, for the third time in two days, I ate she-crab soup. Through the windows I could see restaurants across Shem Creek, including Vickery’s, a favorite spot for John and Martha Givhan, who have enjoyed the food and the view from there many-a-time. I saw the sun, setting over Charleston, the seagulls, fishing boats, pelicans, and dolphins, curving to the surface again and again.

“Before retiring for the evening, Jo and I drove over the great Ravenal Bridge to see the sun as it set.

“The following morning Jo and I took flowers to Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston and placed them on the grave of William Gilmore Simms, the greatest writer of the Old South, ‘the Sir Walter Scott of the Old South.’ Jo and I belong to the Simms Society, which strives to keep alive Simms’s memory. We also paid our respects to William John Grayson of Beaufort, another writer of the Old South, also buried in Magnolia. His autobiography is as lovely as the essays of Washington Irving.

“Driving down Meeting Street, the main street of Charleston, which splits the peninsula, Jo and I parked at the Old Market, now a series of shops, once a slave market. At the head of the shops, like a raised Greek temple, stands a Confederate Museum, owned and managed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. We spent a pleasant hour within.

“The director of the museum for the last 5l years, June (Murray) Wells, a past president of the national U.D.C. and the granddaughter of a Confederate and great-granddaughter of two others, gave me a good bit of her time to discuss common interests. I learned that Mrs. Wells was present when the famous Confederate submarine, the Hunley, was raised. It was she who had done the research prior to the raising.

“Learning that I was interested in A. J. Ryan, the poet-priest of the Confederacy, Mrs. Wells showed me a hand-painted picture of the Catholic celebrity and a copy of a 2008 biography of Ryan, Poet of the Lost Cause: A Life of Father Ryan, by Donald Robert Beagle and Bryan Albin Giemza.

“Jo pointed out a lock of Robert E. Lee’s hair.

“There were Confederate treasures by the thousands.

“Exiting the museum, Jo and I shopped a bit. She later presented me with a small, sweet-grass basket as a souvenir. One can see black women at most public places, weaving these intricate and expensive native-grass baskets.

“We drove down Meeting Street to the Mills Hotel for lunch in the Barbadoes Room with its ceiling fans, plantation shutters, plush furniture, and tropical atmosphere. Through the large windows one could see the courtyard and its fountain outside. Again I had she-crab soup and shrimp-and-grits. That’s four times in three days, John Givhan! Beat that!

“After lunch we drove around downtown Charleston, around the battery with its bust of Simms, the grand, old houses, and the historic district. We could see the gleaming, white steeple of St. Michael’s, a church being built when our ancestors walked the streets of Charleston.

“We soon ran out of time, though; and Jo headed back to Lexington; I, to Savannah.”

I thanked the Portly Gentleman for his story and passed him a petit four.

Upcoming birthdays are those of Petrarch, the Italian poet; Hemingway, an American novelist; Stephen Vincent Benet, an American poet; George Bernard Shaw, perhaps the best playwright since Shakespeare; Beatrix Potter, who gave us Peter Rabbit; Booth Tarkington, who wrote some of the best stories for young people ever penned; and Alexandre Dumas, a French novelist.

The Battle of Atlanta was fought on July 22. The Portly One, whose father is still alive, told him that he used to sit on his porch as a boy and hear the story of that battle from Dr. Nix, an old neighbor of his who had fought in that battle. Amazing – that a man is still living who talked person-to-person to a Confederate who fought in the Battle of Atlanta.

Let me encourage each of you, gentle readers, to be in your place of worship this weekend. Fare thee well.