Marooned in Charleston

Charleston Battery

Jimmy Buffet’s “A pirate looks at 40” is becoming my all to cliché theme song ever since I left Black Beards old stomping ground of Cape Fear NC and landed in Charleston.  Yes I am a pirate, 200 years too late, the cannons don’t thunder there is nothing to plunder…..arriving too late, arriving too late and the feeling I felt when entering Charleston on my bucket list quest to do the “Charleston in Charleston”. Only off by 80 years, its long been forgotten. When mentioned on the street people look at you with blank faces as if they have no idea what you are talking about. I guess that’s the natural progression of things, out with the old and in with the new. Although I don’t think that Boston will ever forget the Boston Massacre and to add a parallel to dancing the Charleston in many areas of Boston you will get the same look if you mention the Great Molasses Flood that killed 4 times more people and injured 25 times more than the Massacre did. Great Molasses what? No biggie if you are not that polished on your history all you need to know is that in 1915 a massive molasses tank exploded in the North End causing a tsunami size wave to rip down the streets at 35 mph taking out everything in its path. It was one stickie mess to clean up, taking 87,000 man hours and leaving Boston Harbor brown for 6 months.  If you ever are in the North End on a hot summer’s day, the smell you smell isn’t some old Italian women baking cookies, its 100 year old embedded molasses. Moving back to dancing in Charleston, one old man said it best when he looked at me and said “At my age doing the Charleston consists of me going down town once a week with my lady, walking through the shops, the market and grabbing a bite at one of the cities restaurants”. Normally I would be disappointed but it’s kind of hard to hate the city for modernizing its cultural trends all the while maintaining its architectural history. If you are a shopper or a foodie this should be on your destination list. As always I hit Charleston in my own Anthony Bourdain-ian style of approaching everyplace I visit looking for those cultural food and drinks that are regionally based and although found globally their true essence is authentically found in one spot. Here its shrimp and grits a dish that goes to the top of my favorite list and have also found some other smaller “you can only get it around here” hits like the boiled peanut (said byl peanit), fried pickle (better than what you get at the fair once a year) and sampling a little moon shine.  Southern Sam I am becoming but no fear no matter how much time I spend in the south I will never become a NASCAR fan, like Duke Basketball or get a confederate flag tattoo. Really I am ready to move on but am stuck waiting on engine parts…If you are ever stuck, Charleston is a good place to be marooned.

I am hoping to explore a lot more of Charleston before I go in a week or so.

Boston Below