Under the Baobab Tree

Pineapples of Hospitality

I have just returned from four days of hard work in Charleston, S.C. I am now resolved to move there.

My witness was a delightful Englishman who has retired to the South Carolina coast where one of his sons is an Assistant Gold Pro at some resort. My witness has receding white hair and a high sunny forehead. He is an expert in where to eat in Charleston. My other two companions were my tall Irish colleague from a Chicago law firm who is related to Queen Gracie O'Malley, who went to be punished by Queen Elizabeth I for getting too uppity or something but they got on so well as powerful old single women in charge of realms, etc., that QEI spared her. The other was a youth of Lithuanian heritage who said Irish names were more interesting than Jewish names. We concurred. The four of us spent most of our time eating our way through town, thusly:

Night 1 -- Fig, a Mediterranean hotspot. I ate four scallops and a grouper. Didn't pay attention to what the witness or my other two colleagues ate. One glass of Chianti.
Night 2 -- Coast, a "fish house." I ate six Swan Quarter oysters and two crab cakes. Entire table has something similar. Two glasses of Merlot.
Night 3 -- Oak Steakhouse. I had six oysters from somewhere nearby and a lamb chop. Also my share of 2 bottles of wine (we were a table of four), followed by 1 glass of Drambuie and a piece of chocolate cake. I have never before in my life had Drambuie. Odd beverage.
etc.


Each time we went somewhere we were picked up by a Charleston "Black Cab" which are built to look exactly like London cabs, with the huge seating area and the little jump seats and everything. We would get in and start whooping and hollering as the cabbie careened around the little cobble stone streets. Each morning we would convene on the club floor of our hotel (The Charleston Place) and sit looking out over the harbor eating biscuits and drinking grapefruit juice and leisurely chit chatting about the political news and the baby giraffe at the zoo and the exploits of our various pets.

One night we walked back to the hotel past the Francis Marion Hotel which is next to Marion Square Park. Francis Marion is the famed "South Carolina Swamp Fox" who rebelled in various ways and I think was also a blockade runner. Although he would have to be very aged to have rebelled against the British and also run the Union blockade. So perhaps I missed part of the story.

Today I had a free afternoon so I went for a shopping walk. It was very overcast and frigid and windy and frigid and also cold and frigid. I was all bundled up and walked through all the little alleys with the enormous old houses, almost all of them bearing historic plaques. I began to imagine the house I would own in Charleston -- it would be set about with live oaks and camellia bushes and we would serve hibiscus tea on the wide front porch with dogs and saddles thrown hither and yon. The driveway would be made of oyster shells and we'd have a widow's walk and an upstairs library with three exposures. The walls would bear homage to the South Carolina Swamp Fox and blockade runners of yore. The front door would actually be on the side and open onto an alley running between low walls of moss-covered red earth. Star-shaped earthquake bolts would dot the facade. A papier mache camellia blossom above the front door....roman shades lowered, soft sea breezes blowing. Ah....

During my stroll I stopped at the Charleston Historic Foundation and purchased one Pineapple of Hospitality, four star-shaped earthquake bolts, and one camellia blossom earthquake bolt. The earthquake bolts will decorate the "ceiling beam" in my condo, i.e., the heating vent painted to look like part of the wall. The Pineapple of Hospitality -- Charleston is fairly bursting with them -- is a beautiful bejeweled objet d'art that is the traditional symbol of colonial hospitality. It will go on my black marble table in my office, away from the meddling claws of Edward.

Then it was off to the airport to try to beat the winter storms coming east. My Black Cab driver was a wild man -- Antonio the long-haired Italian swashbuckler who drove like a maniac, talked on two cells phones and still managed to tell me how he doesn't understand American women and how "jealous" they are when he starts dating more than one of them at a time.