A Tidewater Gardener: Anniversary

January 3, 2015

Milepost 500

I started blogging back in 2008, and I am finding it hard to believe that I have somehow managed to produce 500 posts. I know I have not produced 500 quality posts, but in this age of infographics, click-throughs, contact lists, tweets, virtual friends and short attention spans, 500 is not so bad. Lately I have been having trouble finding the time to be a good blogger. I know I have not posted as frequently as I once did, and I have, regretfully, not been able to keep up with what other bloggers have been doing as well. I am not normally one to make excuses, but I will anyway. I can equally blame lack of time, Facebook, at-home competition for the computer, and better things to do. So if you haven't seen me lurking around your blog recently, please don't feel slighted -
it's not you, it's me.

Ironically, I have much blogging material to work with at the moment, including one more Colorado post from this summer, and I just got back from a photo-rich trip to south Florida. However, before I get to any of these posts, I did not want 500 to pass by unnoticed, even though that number is only significant because we make it so. I guess if our species had a different number of fingers on each hand, different anniversaries would be celebrated. And speaking of celebrating, just how does one mark 500 posts? How about with something completely random? We drove home from Florida yesterday, and as in any long road trip, random things are seen, random stops are made. In Lumberton, North Carolina we stopped to fill up our tank with the gasoline that would get us home. Someone at the station had been quite creative with the landscaping, especially with containers. Since sharing is the very essence of blogging, let me do so.

The southern magnolia planters were the most interesting. The trees are actually planted in the ground, but the trunks are wrapped in black drainage pipe. There were a matching pair flanking the entrance to the service station.

Whether this is your first visit, your 500th, or more plausibly, something in between, I thank you for stopping by.

September 21, 2014

Hurricane Hugo 1989

Once upon a time, a young man was supposed to meet some friends for a long weekend at a beach house in North Carolina. However, he was given the wrong address, and in those days there were no such things as cell phones, and he had no way to find his friends. So what was the young man to do? He certainly didn't want go back to gray Richmond, rather he headed further south to Charleston, a place that he had always imagined he would like, and indeed he did, so much so, he decided that very weekend to make his home there. He loved Charleston's architecture, the ghosts of its history, its Gothic atmosphere, and its beaches, but he especially loved the Lowcountry. In places he felt that the landscape of palmetto, marsh, and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss still held some of the earth's original magic, and this feeling startled his usually cynical self.

Being an innkeeper by trade, the young man had no trouble finding employment, and as soon as he secured a position, moved himself to one of the sea islands just outside the city. For the next three years he made many good friends, learned the area's stories, grew fat on shrimp, and explored the Carolina countryside. It was a wonderful life. Then a disturbance from the west African coast, later to be named Hugo, appeared on the radar, and he was overcome with a premonition of dread and inevitability. As the storm neared, he and his fellow citizens pleaded with the gods to spare the beautiful city. Perhaps Hugo could take Myrtle Beach instead. The pleas were for naught, and at the last minute he was forced to evacuate his island home, heading inland in a car full of dogs and one brave cat. The night Hugo hit was spent huddling with others in a Columbia hallway as tornadoes swirled outside. It was the longest night of the young man's life. Two days later he and his fellow evacuees made the long drive back to the coast, where it quickly became apparent that the place he had come to love seemed to have been forever changed.

Although the destruction was vast, the young man's home was spared but for minor water damage and the loss of utilities, so he moved back in. He was also fortunate to still have employment, and spent the next few months inspecting hotel rooms, condos, villas and houses for hurricane damage. Despite his good fortune, he couldn't bare looking at what had happened to Charleston and the Lowcountry, and with heavy heart decided to leave the place. He would prefer to keep his memories of the time before, and to not have splintered trunks, missing buildings, and mountains of rubble be constant reminders of the time after. Though given the opportunity, in the years that followed he chose not to return, but in time his now middle aged life found him back again for several visits. It did his heart good to see how the trees had grown, and how the city had not only healed, but was more vibrant than ever. To him it was almost as if the storm had never happened, and was just one more thing the city had survived, another page in its history book to accompany the British siege, the Union bombardment, the great earthquake, the tornadoes, and being discovered by the outside world.