TROUBADOUR

‘Til this month it has been my habit to have my Friday posts written

 well in advance. I’ve fallen into lazy ways, and today I’ve run out of 

essays. Oh, I could repost one, but I’ve already got a few reposts on the schedule. 

So – you will have to be content with just one picture today.

This gentleman was serenading no one in particular when we walked 

beneath his perch in Cagnes-sue-mer, the next town west of Nice. 

One day, maybe soon, I’ll write about all the serendipitous 

‘concerts’ we’ve heard in our travels.      

BLUE!

When I was a little girl, my grandparents lived right down the block in Richmond Hill, New York.  In the middle of their front yard was a huge hydrangea - blue and beautiful. I've loved hydrangeas ever since then. Recently I found the house on Google Earth. No hydrangea - just a paved over area. Why would they do that? Plant something else - the city needs all the greenery it can get - but don't pave it over! You can't even park a car there.

Sometimes I think everything is just going to pot.

AQUARIUMS

(Lots of trouble with Blogger today - it won't let me add pictures, and I've tried it on both of my PCs. Ah, well. Someday, when it all works once again, I'll add the pictures from the South Carolina Aquarium.)  (Woo - in looking at the preview I see that it used several odd fonts/sizes, and is splitting my paragraphs with strange spacing. What's going on today?) (5/26 Well, here's an update. Some time in the past week, Blogger has decided that I don't have the right browser. Thus, the mess with my postings. So I downloaded Google chrome and I will use it just for Blogger postings.  Meanwhile, I'll add some pictures, albeit not too good ones, from the aquarium visit.)

Or, as they are known to some, aquaria. I love them. I don’t know what is so fascinating about watching fish swim around and around and around, but it is: fascinating.

I’ve enjoyed aquariums from California to Connecticut, from the wonderful Monterey Bay Aquarium to the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration.
I’ve even been to the Bergen Aquarium in Norway – the only aquarium I’ve encountered in our European trips. The South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston is the latest addition to my growing list of aquaria visited.

Why don;t these suckers stay still? 

On the way back down to the first floor, a guide stopped us. He was scheduled to lead a tour but at that hour no one happened to come by - the school groups were busy having their lunch, or perhaps others hadn’t arrived yet – so he collared us and asked if we’d like a tour of the behind-the-scenes. Are you kidding? Lead on!

It was just wonderful – if a bit fishy-smelly – and something I’d always wanted to do in person, having seen behind the scenes only on TV documentaries. Buck, our guide, took us up to where they were preparing the next meals – all sorts of great gobs of fish, chop, chop, chop, and other oooey looking stuff – and finally to the top of the big tank. It was a real learning experience.  I wished I had some of my granddaughters there – they would have loved it as much as I did. 

Buck, our enthusiastic and very informative guide.

When we resumed our own way we were in time to see the results of all the chopping and mixing when the feeding devices were lowered into the tank. A yank or three on the line and the cover opened and the goo and gish spilled out. What a mess! Sewing as how the tank was completely clear before the feeding started, I'm sure that every bit, large and small, was consumed by every fish according to their own size. Buck has told us that the sharks don’t eat any of the food delivered this way. What happens with them is that later on someone will bang on the side of the tank at the top, and that will be the dinner bell for the sharks’ special meal.  I’d love to have seen that, wouldn’t you?

Just restin' my eyes here.

The next on my list must be the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, to date the world’s largest.  How can I not see that one?  I hope to go next January – stay tuned!

(ALMOST) BARE NAKED LADIES

Shocking, shocking, shocking!

The mouse ran up the stoking.

When he got to the knee

Oh what did he see?

Shocking, shocking, shocking!

Well, the mouse had no stockings to climb on a recent Saturday in Charleston, but things were a bit shocking – at least to this old lady.

To set the scene: it is a lovely late April, breezy blue sky day. We are in Marion Square, surrounded by the Charleston Farmers Market, the annual Charleston Dog show, and hundreds of people. There was one nice, sunny spot on the lawn. This gentleman had already claimed a spot to one side.

Did he know the show that was about to present itself?

One by one, over they came, the sunbathing young gals, most likely college coeds, in their skimpy suits. Suits? To me, this ensemble above looks like underwear. Underwired, flesh colored – yep! Underwear! The darlings get more daring day by day.

Ah, these are better! At least the colors are more swimsuit-like.

Having had many beaches close by where I lived as a young woman in various places on Long Island, I cannot get my mind to accept sunbathing in the park. I suppose it’s done in Central Park, I suppose it’s done in parks all over the world. Yes, I do remember folks sunbathing in Nordnes Park in Bergen on the day we went to the aquarium there. It was a lot cooler and windier that May day than it was in Charleston: the sun was shining but the temperature was in the high 50’s. To the Norwegians it was a great day for swimming in the big pool by the harbor – brrrr! -  and sunning themselves on the lawns.

 I suppose it all comes down to this: to each his – or in this case, her – own.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Old Curmudgeon has spoken -
and I am unanimous in this!

DOG DAY IN CHARLESTON





A very gentle giant

Last Saturday it seemed like every dog in Charleston had its day in Marion Square. The 11^th Annual Charleston Dog Show was held in the midst of and alongside of the Charleston Farmers Market. It was a breezy, blue-sky day and everyone was in a great mood. The people were smiling and the dogs were behaving themselves.    

These were for little girls, but we saw one on a large dog!

That day, as every Saturday, there were lots of farmers and their wares – from eggs, veggies and herbs – lots of herbs and annual plants – and meats and things like honey, cookies, beignets, and, of course, lots more stuff to eat. Then there were the artists – jewelry, glass, pottery, leatherwork, photo work, fabric things of all kinds, woodwork, and, what I especially wanted to acquire: the sweetgrass baskets.  Mixed in with these were purveyors of all sorts of things dog: from fresh-baked treats to leashes. You could even arrange to adopt a greyhound. At many of these booths the vendors had set out large bowls of ice water for thirsty canines. Very thoughtful of them – very clever too.

Two of a kind

What struck us as we strolled through the market, watching all the passers-by, was that not only was every dog was well behaved, but that we saw no two of the same breed of dog unless an owner was walking two of the same kind.  There were every breed we could think of from a diminutive Italian Greyhound to a charming Great Dane, from a Pomeranian to an Alsatian, a Basenji and a Beagle. The list is loooong. Thinking about all the breeds we knew, we realized we’d not seen an Akita or a Standard Poodle. They may have been there but we didn’t see them.

The Princess and the Dragon
A Purple Dragon!

Just our luck, we got to the show area just as they were judging the costume class. Some of those folks were very inventive. My favorite was the Princess and her Dragon.  I am a sucker for dragons, and I was delighted when she won a prize. There were many more classes to come and prizes to be awarded, but we had more places to go and things to do that day.

 

Who wouldn't want to take him home?

ASSISTANT CHEF

My handsome assistant chef

Once again I've found a very interesting photo. A while ago, I started a project to scan in some of the better photos from the two dozen or so albums I've got going back over 40 years. This one is from 1988, and I'd think it was around the winter holidays because Frank was creating in the kitchen - a thing he loved to do around that time of year. I can see the condensation on the stove window, so that means he was about to bake something - perhaps his usual croissants or a tarte, though surely not whatever was in the Waring blender. I can also see that he has the recipe taped up to the cabinet door - clever him. I asked him about the picture but after all these years he doesn't remember it at all.  And he surely doesn't remember wearing that apron, that's for sure!

A LULU OF A MEMORY

The mind is a wonderful thing, and it’s strange the things people remember.

I remember…

…my mother telling me about a party at my Aunt Lou’s house in Richmond Hill. I think it was for my Cousin Virginia’s high school, under age, friends.  After the party my Aunt was up in the bathroom and saw a big puddle on the floor. Bending down and swiping her finger through the puddle she brought it up and smelled it. Indignantly, she turned to my Uncle Cornell and exclaimed “liquor!” And Uncle Cornell thought about it, thought about where they were, and calmly asked “What if it had been something else?” I’d have turned green!

Speaking of Aunt Lou, who was named for my grandfather’s mother, Louise, my Great Aunt Lou, my grandmother’s sister, I found out on her 100^th birthday, was really Lulu.  She was a lulu alright!  A large woman who was suitably corseted in those days when corsets were de rigueur, I remember her always dressed in black, wearing her pearls. You know how they say someone is always looking down their nose at others? That’s how it seemed Great Aunt Lou was looking at me. Maybe because I was a little kid and she was tall and so large. She always wore Tabu perfume, and I remember that first because of the scent, which I didn’t like, and second because once, within my hearing, someone asked her about her perfume: “Oh, I always wear Tabu.”  Oooh, la la – or Oooh lulu.

Both Great Aunt Lou and her sister Elsie lived to over 100, my grandmother, their middle sister, lived only to 91. My mother and I kidded that it was because the other two had only two children each, whereas my grandmother had eight.  91! I’d like to live that long.

THE OUTLOOK

 

The outlook for today is warm and drier - typical Carolinas weather for this time of year.  I plan to do a bit of shopping (10% off for us seniors at Harris Teeter, of course!) and some household chores.

 

I've got a cache of interesting photos that I'm going to post from time to time. 

All my favorite blogs have been showing some lovely pictures of late. I wouldn't actually call this photo lovely, but it is interesting. I took it a few years ago at Portsmouth, New Hampshire's Strawbery Banke Museum (yes, that's spelled correctly.)  It was a sublime visit on an early September day.

 

 



SUNDAY IN THE CAMARGUE - REVISITED

For those of you new to my blog I am repeating the story of one of our favorite days in France.

 

It was a serendipitous decision to spend a Sunday in St. Remy-de-Provence during the annual festival in celebration of their saint’s day. The day began with the running of a bull through the town. Most spectators stood behind temporary barriers, but some were up trees or on walls or light poles. The true ‘crazies’ just stood about and scattered when the bull came down the street. It was hilarious to see them panic when the bull turned and started back toward them. A large group of Camarguaise horsemen, the Gardians, dressed in black and carrying trident spears, trotted along behind on their white horses, generally herding the lone bull in the same way they herd the semi-wild horses and bulls of the region.

We had been to St. Remy on their regular market day. Vendor stalls of every kind radiated out from the town square into the side streets. Everything from bras to bananas to baskets was available and attractively displayed: clothing, antiques, art work, jewelry, fabric, and flowers. There were foods of all kinds, enough to make a serious foodie weep for joy to see them, or for sorrow that so many of them are not available at home. A few days later that square was jammed with carnival rides and games. I don’t know how they wedged them all in there. We wandered around town, entertained by a strolling brass band. Everywhere we looked there were folks in Provençal costume, all very happy to pose for pictures. One lovely woman, dressed like van Gogh’s L’ Arlésienne, chatted with us and described the various parts of her costume.

For lunch we went a bit south of town to Glanum, the site of an ancient Roman city. Their restaurant offers lunch as the Romans would have enjoyed it. The dish of the day was the Domitia Plate, four different things: a dish of mashed chick peas with olive oil, pepper, and cumin; roast pork with an absolutely delicious sauce of honey and - yes! - anchovies; duck pâté on toast; and melon chunks tossed with olive oil, cumin and coriander. I don’t think the Romans lacked for culinary delights if they ate a meal like that one.  

Lunch under our adjusted belts, we went back to the town arena to see the Camargue’s version of the bullfight. Much to our surprise, it turned out to be the grand re-opening of the arena, with all the local dignitaries on hand for some pomp and circumstance. The speeches and entertainment were accompanied by the same band, now in more elaborate uniforms. There was an amazing group of whip-wielding men performing a rhythmic, snapping, routine. We wondered how they kept their wrists in shape for such strenuous tricks. A few more speeches, and then, to our delight, in came all of the Gardians on horseback, performing a practiced quadrille, and the costumed folk we’d seen that morning. From little girls to elegant gentlemen and ladies, including L’Arlésienne, they did a measured promenade and a lively version of a May-pole dance.

Before ‘Inauguration’ we had located our ticketed seats and decided it was going to be a tight squeeze. Some folks had already spread out into our numbered spaces, so we hopped up and sat on the top wall where the view was unobstructed and perfect for taking pictures. Our move delighted some of the locals already sitting up there. They’d rarely seen tourists at such a local event. After the Inauguration the ‘Course’ began. Despite the language barrier - I’m only a bit conversant in French - they got over to us all about what would be happening.

This is a bull fight where the bull has all the advantages. The ‘fight’ is called la Course à la Cocarde, or the Course Camarguaise. Teams of agile men, dressed in white, vie for the cockades or knots tied to the bulls horns. The ‘raseteurs’, the ‘shavers’, wear a small rake-type device over their knuckles, and they dart in to meet a charging bull, trying to rake or snatch the knotted string from the bull’s horns. The team winning the most knots wins.

 

 

The bulls are a small breed but their horns are wicked. They run the teams all over the arena. You can bet those men are extremely quick. Twice we saw a bull jump over the arena’s guard wall in pursuit of a raseteur. Many times they chased men who had to jump up on the guard wall and then up onto the concrete wall of the stands in order to evade those horns. But when the bull starts to tire, when he starts to foam at the mouth, he is quickly retired and a fresh bull enters the fray. Do the tired men get replaced? Mais non! Certainly not! At the end we couldn’t tell which team won and which lost, but it can be said, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that for several hours there was never a dull moment. 

Exhausted and elated, we headed back to our château home-away-from-home to celebrate our day with a bottle of good Rhone wine.

À votre santé! 

 

A GUSTATORY TOUR OF ITALY - REVISITED...

 

...in honor of Lasagna Awareness Month I am reposting this essay from two years ago.

Funivia from Rapallo to Montallegro

July is Lasagna Awareness Month? Are they serious? Why should we be ‘aware’ of lasagna? Isn’t everyone? Just who came up with this? The cheese industry? The pasta industry? The tomato industry? No, not the Italians. They’d celebrate all food and wine, not just one tasty dish. Who would own up to wanting to celebrate this in July: this is a dish for the cooler weather. I never had lasagna in Italy, but all this food talk reminds me of what I did have.

I have to admit that I’m partial to Italian food. You will appreciate, of course, that the best pizza I ever had was in Italy: a wonderful Margherita pizza we enjoyed at lunch in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Or was it at that restaurant in Rapallo? So many pizzas, so little time.

The best way to experience any country is to go with a native. We had this luck in Liguria. Liliana, a colleague of our former daughter-in-law, took us on a gustatory tour. In Chiavari we enjoyed farinata, a pizza made with chick-pea flour. Further west on the French Riviera this is called socca. In Santa Margherita we had, among other delights, a salad of fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh anchovies. I’ve come to love certain ‘iffy’ foods like escargot and mussels, when I was embarrassed to admit I’d never tried them before. Not wanting to say that I didn’t like anchovies, I took a bite - heaven! Those fresh fellows were absolutely delicious!

In Portofino Liliana knew everyone. She got our boat a berth right at the harbor master’s dock, and then took us for a tour and a decadent dessert of ice cream covered with berries and other fruit. In Vernazza, in the Cinque Terra, we had Ligurian pasta, trofi al pesto, and an unlabeled bottle of local white wine that was just fabulous.

Pansotti alla Noce

My most memorable meal was in Rapallo. Le Santuario de Nostra Signora di Montallegro (say that three times fast!) is a beautiful church, a place of pilgrimage, reached via funivia, a cable car that takes you up a small mountain. On the way from the car terminus to the church we smelled a wonderful aroma coming from a hotel along the way. Liliana stopped in and ordered our lunch, to be made to order for us, for our later return. That lunch is probably the best one I ever had. The dish was Pansotti alla Noce, and my travel diary says “to die for!” On handkerchief-like squares of pasta they spread a mixture of chopped herbs, including borage, and vegetables. The pasta is folded up around the filling so it stays together in cooking, and there are many layers to each piece. They are served covered in a sauce of walnuts and cream. The aroma of that sauce is what had enticed us on our way. The funivia stops service until two in the afternoon, so we had a long, leisurely lunch. Some wine, some cappuccino, some dessert. I could have rolled down that mountain on my own.

So, back to lasagna. Go on line and check out lasagna and its history. There are northern versions, mainly using béchamel or white sauces, and southern versions using tomato based sauces. Basically, it is sheets of pasta layered with sauce, cheese, perhaps meat, and other ingredients, and all baked in a dish - a lasanum. Google ‘lasagna’ and you come up with hundreds of versions. You really can’t go wrong. Lasagna is on most folks lists of favorite comfort foods - mine too!

WHITE SHOES IN SUMMER

See that bottle of shoe white? Its presence in the shot – just one I took at random in the Depot at Gibson Mill in Concord, NC - wasn’t significant until I just noticed it today and put it together with my memory of white shoes in the summer. 

As she did the rest of the year to keep our school and dress shoes looking good, almost every week in summer Mom would lay out sheets of newspaper and have us bring out our white shoes to be polished. Shake, shake, shaking the bottle, then getting some of the liquid on the little white fuzzy pad used to spread the polish on the shoes. Once hey dried she would polish the chalky finish to a nice shine with a soft rag.  Every once in a while, as she re-shook the bottle during the job, the little pad would be off kilter and the polish would go all over the place.  That was a nasty mess, especially if it got on her clothes.

I’m also reminded of a picture of my cousin and me, both aged about three. In it both of us are wearing brown sandals. I remember my Mother telling me, when we were going through her photo album many years later, that my cousin first had white sandals which were very hard to come by during the war years of the 40’s.  She complained so bitterly that her Mom finally had to get her a pair of brown sandals like mine. See that? I was a fashionista at an early age!

 

 

 

 

IMAGINARY FRIENDS

My doll Deadly (I made her) and some of her pals.

The blurb on Sunday’s New York Times webpage was this:

Opinion

A Child’s Wild Kingdom

By JON MOOALLEM

Why do our kids still have imaginary animal friends?

 Ha! Imaginary friends! The article was about how children usually have animal figures as imaginary friends and how those children, little animals themselves, relate to the animal world as they grow up.

It has been my observation that it is usually the oldest or only child in the family who has imaginary friends.  The younger ones have the older ones as friends and usually don’t need imaginary ones.  My oldest granddaughter had great imaginary friends: Dench and Shari, and a third one whose name I’ve forgotten. It was a delight to be sitting somewhere near her but where she couldn’t see us, and she would interact with her friends.

My own imaginary friends, I was told later by my mother, were Jesus, Mary and Leadus. Leadus? I guess it could be spelled that way: I got it from “Lead us not into temptation.”  I guess I must have told her that at one time. ‘cause that’s what she told me. Really.

Deadly, in red, with the whole gang.

 

FOR THE BIRDS

 

If you are a birder, if you are looking for the ultimate in ‘eye candy’, be sure to go to go to YouTube and see Fast Forward Through a 264 Species Birding Day.  Last week, my regular email of enews from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology alerted me to this great presentation compiled to show, in the same order, the 264 species Team Sapsucker, setting out to see as many species of birds as they could, saw in 24 hours. I was delighted with how many species I recognized right away, but they went by so quickly that my brain didn’t have time to spit out the names.

I’m pleased to have been able to increase the number on my life list to 185 since we moved to the Carolinas. Seeing 264 in 24 hours seems like the Holy Grail of birding – and it is a record.  The group will try to beat their record this year – I wish them luck, and I wish I could go along with them.

FRENCH POSTCARDS

 

I am indebted to Sharon Santoni of My French Country Home, in her piece Letters from a Doting Papa, for reminding me to tell you about the post cards that my own Father sent to my sister and me from France and Belgium during the Second World War.  I had many of them framed years ago, and I took pictures of them for you to see.

HEUREUX ANNIVERSAIRE

What are particularly pertinent at this time of year are the post cards of St. Nicholas and Piet.  This version of St. Nick is the first one I ever knew. The Thomas Nast version was a bit strange to me. In his bishop’s robes, this is the Santa Claus I pictured for years.

I finally saw him in Amsterdam in 1996. It was a raw November day, and I was my birthday – the best birthday I ever had! 

 

 

The parade was long an very colorful, and we stood along the route for what seemed like hours.  I know our feet felt like blocks of ice.  But I was so excited, I was just like one of the kids. They all began to yell “Piet, Piet” when the many Black Peters came by, handing out candies and little cookies – I got some too!

 

 

I took a lot of pictures that day, but when St. Nicholas finally came I was so excited I took only a few – and the one that should have been the best was blurry – it was me, not the camera!  I was absolutely thrilled – still am when I remember it! – to see my version of Santa live.

I smile when I read in the shelter magazines and blogs about decorating for Christmas. I don’t go to even moderate lengths to decorate for Christmas, after all, I’ve got a bit of Christmas around the house every day of the year.

 

                                            Joyeux Noel Y’all

 

 

RUNNING AROUND...

 

...like a chicken with its head cut off?  Well yes, Thanksgiving is next week, and I have been reminded today that Christmas is just 41 days away. Some folks are decorating already.

I must brag and tell you that I am not running around, I am not even flustered: 1. someone else is doing all the major cooking for Thanksgiving (I'm just bringing one dish) and 2. my Christmas shopping is done.  I am one of those anal folks who do the shopping all year long.  And as for my granddaughters' books (I am the book Grandmother) I've got those for them, Christmas and birthdays, into the year 2016.  When I see a good book I grab it!  So now I'll spend the rest of the year relaxing.

A LA CUISINE JULES!

 

This is Jules, the late éminence jaune of Le Château de Vergières in Saint Martin de Crau. We got to know and love him in the times we stayed at the  Château during our visits to the Camargue.  The bane of Marie-Andrée Pincede’s existence, he would be forever roaming around – you see, he could open the lever-handled doors – and she’d find him and scold him: “A la cuisine Jules!” He would slink off to the kitchen – or to the back of the Peugeot – and contemplate his next move.

 

HONEYCOMB

On our recent trip to th Blue Ridge Mountains I bought one of these jars of sourwood honey at a roadside stand on Rt. 221 outside of Linville, NC. I opened the jar yesterday and tasted a bit of the honey - delicious.  Certainly beats the commercial stuff.  I've never eaten honeycomb, so naturally I went on line and did a bit of browsing.  My farorite idea was to serve it with good cheese and  great crusty bread or crackers.  Just cut into the honeycomb and spread it and savor it.  Ooooo - sounds like a great plan. Come on over and share it with us.

HISTORY GETS INTERESTING AGAIN

This week Frank and I took a leaf-peeper drive along South Carolina’s Route 11, the Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Highway. Our first stop was Cowpens Nation al Battlefield. As at any battlefield we’ve visited there isn’t much to see in the lay of the land – you have to use your imagination. We stopped off first at the information center.  They’ve got just about the best battle presentation we’ve ever seen.  It is a narrated summary of the war to the date of the Battle of Cowpens, and later to the surrender at Yorktown,  complete with a fiber optics display on two large maps: one map of the south in general, and one map of the battlefield.  Later we took the loop road drive around the battlefield and, with the presentation in mind, could get a better idea of what went on where.

I wrote the following article for the July 2011 issue of Living @ Sun City Carolina Lakes.  As today is the anniversary of the surrender at Yorktown I thought it appropriate to use the article again.

 

 

HISTORY GETS INTERESTING AGAIN

The Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, formalizing the conflict between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The conflict was all but ended south of the Mason-Dixon Line on October 19, 1781, with the British surrender Yorktown, Virginia, only 330 miles from here as the crow flies.

 

The Redcoats are going! The Redcoats are going!

 

Coming from one of the North Atlantic states I was fairly well schooled in the northern events of the Revolutionary War, but it never kept my interest for too long, seeming to be just a series of names, battles, and dates that I had to memorize for a test. Moving to the South has awakened my interest. 

Since my school days I’ve learned that some of our ancestors, especially the more noted ones, had a lot more going on in their lives than just leading the nation. Fourth grade history and the study of American Revolution never mentioned that Benjamin Franklin was quite the ladies’ man or that Thomas Jefferson had a concubine. Interesting! 

Fourth grade history in the North also never mentioned much about the role of the South in that war, and it was probably the same in reverse for students in the South. Nor did it mention what it was like for those on ‘the other side’ – in this case, the English on the other side of the pond.

 



Queen Charlotte

Did you know that King George III was married to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz?  That wouldn’t have interested me before, but, living where I do just south of Charlotte, now it does. Poor guy: wars going on all the time, suffering from a mental illness that may have been a blood disorder, he had troubles galore. And some upstarts in the American colonies wanted things like “no taxation without representation,” and they had other objections to being mere colonies. They wanted their independence.  Think of it from George’s point of view: it was appalling.

If it weren’t for the South we might all be British.  Though the primary action of the opening years of the war was in the north, at the same time the persistent southern forces were handling British actions in Charleston and eastern Florida, and nagging at the British and Loyalists whenever they could. The North began to get help from the French, and in the last major battle there they defeated the British at Saratoga in 1777.  Still the British remained a large presence in the north, harrying and engaging the forces in a series of smaller battles. 

The same year as Saratoga, the southerners did lose Savannah, their biggest city, to the British.  Then Charleston went, and the Americans retreated in defeat to the Carolinas. There they met the British in several engagements: one of them was the Battle of the Waxhaws.  For about a year it didn’t look good for the American cause, but then the tide turned and they won at Kings Mountain and Cowpens.  The British kept at it, winning some battles, but at great cost to themselves. Finally the American southern, northern, and naval forces came together in Yorktown to defeat the British and accept their surrender.  King George lost control of Parliament to the factions within his own country that were suing for peace with the Americans, and that, in a nutshell, was that.  

Of course, the Revolution can’t be covered in 600 words. There’s so much to be learned, seen, and enjoyed.  You can begin on the internet researching the Southern states’ Revolutionary War Trails, starting at oldeenglishdistrict.com, or hit the brochure racks at the highway visitor centers.  Our nations’s history will keep you busy and entertained for a long time to come.

 

 

IT'S PUMPKIN TIME

 

 

but where would I have put it once I got it home - that is if I had won the bidding?

 

FALL FAIR

Our granddaughter at the Altamont Fair on a windy fall day in 1993!  Can't you just taste that candy-apple?  Makes my teeth itch!