March 20, 2007
ROAD TRIP: EATING OUR WAY TO SAVANNAH
The Salad Clan is on the road this week, spending spring break visiting the port city of Savannah, Ga.
We've found a little cottage on Tybee Island, a small barrier island about 25 minutes east of town right on the Atlantic Ocean.
For some advice on what to do and eat, I asked my friend Willie Drye, author of Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and commentator on the History Channel's "Nature's Fury: Storm of the Century" episode of the series "Violent Earth,", last week for a few tips.
He replied:
To: Houck, Jeff B.
Subject: Savannah
Hey Jeff:
Savannah is a wacky old town. If you saw the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," maybe you remember the line where the guy says Savannah is "Gone with the Wind on mescaline." (I've borrowed that line for Plymouth, which I sometimes describe to visitors as "Mayberry on mescaline." But for obvious reasons, I don't use this line with locals.)
When I was living in Georgia, I heard a great joke about Savannah: When you visit Atlanta, the first thing you're asked is, "What are your politics?" When you visit Macon, the first thing you're asked is, "What's your religion?" When vist Savannah, the first thing you're asked is, "What do you want to drink?"
Savannah has been called a beautiful lady with a dirty face -- gorgeous street vistas framed by decaying old buildings and tinged with squalor. Some of the streets are, to use a florid phrase, dream-like. Wide boulevards with medians, huge old oaks, Spanish moss, lots of little neighborhood parks and plazas. And if the people haven't been changed too much by the tourists, they're generally extremely well-mannered and friendly and they speak to you with this wonderful old coastal Georgia drawl. You get the idea that everybody has a couple of Bloody Marys with breakfast.
There is -- or at least, was -- a pretty good visitors center downtown that can get you oriented. By now, they may have devised a "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" tour of some sort. Seriously, I'd ask about it. That's the book/movie that really opened the town up and brought the tourists flocking in. And I think Savannah has cleaned up its act considerably since the book. When I was in Macon and going to Savannah occasionally, I was advised not to venture too far from River Street after dark. But that was many years ago and I don't think it's as dangerous as it was in those days.
It's been a while since Jane and I would occasionally duck into Savannah on our trips between NC and Fla., so I don't know what may have changed. It's too bad you're not going to be there on St. Patrick's Day. They have a huge goddam drunken party/friendly brawl on River Street. I think Savannah has the second-largest St. Paddy's Day celebration in the U.S. Then again, you're a family guy now, so maybe it's best that you missed it.
You should definitely check out River Street because that's sort of where one is supposed to go when one visits Savannah, although it may be a version of Duval Street/T-Shirt Shop Row by now. But give it a look. Grace might find a boutique she likes. It's sort of weird to look at all those old 17th and 18th century buildings on River Street and think of all of the desperate, shady, dangerous, clever and demented characters who came through them a couple of centuries ago when Savannah was one of the nation's major seaports, and see them used now to sell T-shirts and scented aromatherapy oils. Things have changed.
I wish I could tell you that you have to go to a certain little obscure bar or restaurant that only locals and worldly visitors know of, but I can't. My guess is that you can get great shrimp-and-grits and other low-country (I.e., coastal South) fare in that town.
Seems like the town is, or was, known for charming little piano bars. Johnny Mercer was from Savannah, and he certainly knew how to lay down the lyrics.
Hope this helps. I assume we'll see a report of your trip on the blog.
Later,
Willie
You can bank on that, my friend.
Let the blog wine flow.