Nothing in Common Goes South, Part 2, Day 9 or 10, or both

Day by day our relationship deepens. We are in sync. Often we don’t even need to communicate with words, so visceral is the connection.
William Shatner and I have gone from mere acquaintances to bosom buddies, BFFs, bonded at the hip and the fingertip. I honestly don’t know how it is for the rest of you, because I know William Shatner is pointing at me personally and that he is doing his best negotiating on my behalf. I know that when Captain Kirk is putting up his dukes, he is doing it to assure me alone (& CSB by association) the best possible price at the No-tell Motel in Savannah, Georgia. In fact, Captain Kirk directs us to the Cotton Sail Hotel, in an old cotton warehouse and with a river view. One morning we will watch a container ship slide by, and I will be thinking of William Shatner.

There are many wonderful things to see and do in Savannah, most of which involve old houses, lovely squares, and cemeteries, but it goes without saying that the one thing above all I long to visit in Savannah is the childhood home of Flannery O’Connor, at 207 East Charlton Street, off Lafayette Square, and a stone’s throw from the ginormous Cathedral of St John the Baptist.
I am particularly eager to see the “kiddie koop” Flannery slept in as a babe, because my mother had the identical model of "kiddie koop"* for us, including the screened top, and I used it a generation later for my number one daughter when we lived in a house on the salt marsh with a vast and various population of biting spiders.
According to the guidebook and the website, the house is open from 1 to 4 pm, on Wednesday through Sunday. Or we could say: it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I have timed our travels to ensure that we are in Savannah on the proper days.
I am also eager to see the backyard where Flannery raised the chicken that learned to walk backward – a news sensation in the late 1920’s. http://www.britishpathe.com/video/do-you-reverse-1
So after lunch on Wednesday we walk over to East Charlton Street. And here I am, sad, bereft and downtrodden, because for reasons unknown and clearly spurious, Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home is CLOSED when it is meant to be open. I call the number listed on the sign and leave a rather long message to the effect that I am bereft, sad and downtrodden that the house is closed and that I have made a special trip from the land of Yankees to visit it, and someone should call me immediately to explain and rectify the situation.
No one calls.
The house never opens while we are in Savannah.

This is me, sad, bereft and downtrodden outside Flannery O'Connor's closed Childhood Home.
Just now I revisited the website and found this message, which was not on their website back when we were in Savannah, and perhaps was put on the website in response to my pathetic and tragic phone message.
We apologize that we will have several exceptions to our regular hours over the next few months, and appreciate your patience with our changing schedule. If you are devastated that your trip to Savannah will not be complete without a tour of the Childhood Home, please get in touch via email with a week or so notice, and we will make a heroic, if not always successful, attempt to accommodate.

Or maybe I just should have put William Shatner onto the case of Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home?


*Through the miracle of Google, I have learned many poultry farmers are using kiddie koops for their chickens. Or they are on the Internet.

Day #1 of Nothing in Common Goes South, Part 2

There are fond farewells with Bruno, more cursory farewells with the chickens, (yes, I admit to preferring, canine over avian pets) and we depart Hastings for the second iteration of Nothing in Common goes South. But first we go to the bank and the drug store for items already forgotten. Ten minutes later we turn around because I forgot my watercolors, and even though I never once lifted a paintbrush during the entirety of the first incarnation of Nothing in Common goes South, I have a sixth sense that this will time I will. Hence the U-turn on the Saw Mill Parkway.
Three states away there is a horse stranded in the middle of a highway, which will be the subject of our first photograph. Who knows how the horse got there, but he/she is clearly not happy.
Our first lunch on the road is in Hagerstown, Maryland. The eatery calls itself The Rhubard Café, but there is no rhubarb on the menu, and the food goes downhill from there. What you need to know about Hagerstown is that on July 6, 1864 Gen. John McCausland’s Confederate cavalry demanded a ransom of $20,000 and some clothing from the town. I don’t know the style and color of the clothing, or if it was specified, and this seems like an unfortunate lacuna in the historical record. Having seen what happened to neighboring towns when the ransom was not paid (conflagration, destruction) the local bankers paid the ransom, and Hagerstown was saved. After the war the bankers were repaid by a tax levied on the people.
I like free maps. Ladies in welcome centers like to give away maps, so we are well matched. After Pennsylvania we drive though the western panhandle of West Virginia for exactly 26 miles. In order to get my free map of West Virginia at the West Virginia Welcome Center, I am asked to sign the register with my name and home state, and indicate whether or not W.Va. is our final destination. I do as required, and note that everyone else on the register (from New York, Maine, Quebec, and Pennsylvania) had likewise indicated that No, West Virginia was not their final destination. I feel bad for the ladies, handing out free maps to a state no one is actually visiting. I consider changing my answer to yes, just to enliven their register. I never consider not taking the free map.
Outside Roanoke I begin what will be a long and complicated relationship with William Shatner. With the Priceline app my nephew just last week installed on my phone, I banter with William, that eager battler and barterer, and find us a hotel room. Just me, CSB and the specter of Captain Kirk.