A Short Trip Mid-Week

Coffee Underground

On Monday Claudette looked at our calendar and exclaimed, "We have nothing on the calendar after today! We need to go somewhere!"

"But where?" I countered.

"We can get a free room at a Marriott!"

"Really?"

"Yep, we've got enough points on our Visa card.  What about Greenville?"

"Fine by me. We haven't been there in a while. I wonder what is their current show at the art museum?"

"Okay.  Tomorrow we'll hit the road right after we get home from the gym"

"Why not skip the gym? We'll be walking all day after we get there."

According to plan, the next morning found us on I-26 west on our way to Greenville, South Carolina. The trip was uneventful with fairly light traffic. It was approaching eleven when we parked our car at the northern end of the tree-lined Main Street. Greenville is a hilly city at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The temperature tends to be quite a few degrees cooler there than at our low country home and the humidity is considerably less. On our way down the tree lined sidewalk we passed a statue of Max Heller, an Austrian Jew who became one of the most popular mayors of the city. His family had escaped the Holocaust in Germany before making his fortune at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in South Carolina and becoming the first Jewish mayor of a major South Carolina city. Mayor Heller's leadership is seen throughout the area.  The shady streets we enjoyed as well attracting such multinational corporations as Michelin Tire to the area are attributed to his leadership.

A few blocks away we found our favorite Greenville coffee shop. We had visited Coffee Underground before and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere.  The delicious  lattes with almond milk were enjoyable as we snuggled in the overstuffed sofa and planned our day.

Upon leaving the coffee shop we went our separate ways.  I would continue walking down Main Street toward the restaurant in West Greenville while Claudette would find a place near the restaurant to park the car.

I had a considerable wait for her at Pomegranate, the restaurant we had chosen. The hummus I ate while waiting for Claudette was quite "garlicky", the way I like it.  Upon her arrival we placed our order for Persian dishes. The Persian fare was quite good. A variety of roasted and marinated vegetables. Middle Eastern restaurants tend to have vegan dishes or those that are easily modified to fit our diets. Usually just a matter of leaving off the goat cheese.

We were in the neighborhood of the statue of another famous Greenvillian, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. Interestingly enough, Joe Jackson of early baseball fame, got the moniker "Shoeless" after playing shoeless in only one game.

Did I mention that my walk had been down hill and I had crossed the Reedy River? The river provided for a natural landmark in the center of the city, the Reedy River Falls. The cascading waterfalls are the centerpiece of a lovely park filled with large shade trees and blooming flowers.  Stone stairways and walkways give access to river's edge and a semi-circular suspension bridge gives access to the other side.  We saw some folks enjoying walking in the shallow water.  We did not join them.  On our way back up to our car we stopped by a juciery for a cool wholesome beverage.  The area near the river is lined with interesting shops and galleries. And, of course, Canada Geese which seem to be required at any body of water larger than a mud puddle in South Carolina. One must walk carefully! We window shopped on our walk. It was a chamber of commerce kind of day, warm temperatures and puffy white clouds in a cerulean sky.

Reedy River Falls

There was a new museum in town since our last visit and we couldn't wait to visit it. It was on Heritage Green. This block in downtown Greenville has the Greenville County Library, the Greenville Little Theater, The Greenville County Art Museum an the Upcountry History Museum. The one we wanted to visit was the Upcountry History Museum.  As a native of the upstate, I was  very interested in seeing the museum. It was the newest structure  on Heritage Green at the very end of the Green with free parking behind. (a plus!) We paid our entry fee and got the maps of the floor plan on the building. The exhibits tell the story of the area from the early pioneer days to the present. Through hands-on exhibits as well as modern audio-video techniques the story of the upcountry is revealed. Also featured at the museum was a traveling exhibit which happened to be about the films of Alice In Wonderland. There were many props from the Tim Burton film.

The Upcountry History Museum

The Springhill Suites by Marriott was only one block off Main Street and easily accessible. We decided we would opt for valet parking since our room was free. After checking in we had some nachos in the bar.  Not good.  At six there was free wine and brats in the breakfast area. That was much better. We did not go out to dinner and satisfied ourselves with the free food. In our room which was upgraded had a small sitting area where we planned our next day activities.

After watching sunrise from our east facing window we checked out and went back to Heritage Green.  This time for the Greenville County Art Museum.  This museum has always been a favorite of mine.  The featured show was of water media paintings. Some Andrew Wyeth paintings were the centerpiece of that show. One of the largest collections of Wyeth paintings once graced the walls of the  museum before local textile magnet Arthur McGill sold it to the Japanese. Notable in the collection is a number of works by native South Carolina artist, Jasper Johns. The discovery I made while there was unique to the work of David Drake. I did not recognize the name but I did recognize the work.  He was known to me as Dave the Potter. I had always heard that this enslaved 

David Drake pottery

craftsman decorated his pots with Bible verses. 

Supposedly because his master had taught him to read from the Bible. I was surprised to find Dave's pots decorated with verses of his own poetry! This is a great art museum and I believe the only one without an admission fee in the state.

Later we had lunch at the Pita House on Pleasantburg Drive, formally known as the 291 Bypass.  The food was great at the restaurant/grocery store but only cash was accepted for payment. Styrofoam cups and plates with plastic utensils. It was a very popular eating spot totally lacking in any sort of ambiance.  But if you serve good food they will come!

from the Pita House

It was an uneventful, though picturesque, drive back to the Creek. We took the blue highways.

Security Checks

I really don't know why but I get anxious when someone performs a security check on me. Thankfully, it doesn't happen very often. The most recent incident was at Camp Lejeune. We were there to meet our grandson who was returning from a seven month deployment as a member of  MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit). He's not a Marine, but like his father, a sailor.  He' a Hospital Corpsman assigned to the Marines.

Camp Lejeune is in Jacksonville, North Carolina.  I doubt if there would be a Jacksonville if it were not for Camp Lejeune. We had to obtain visitor passes to enter the military base from the base Visitors Center. It was furnished very sparsely. That was fine with me.  I would rather the military spent my tax money on weapons rather than comfy chairs.The somewhat taciturn lady in her early fifties was very nice and furnished us with the required forms on clipboards.  She gave us pens too.  My pen skipped over the poorly printed form.  (I don't think their printer had been serviced since the Civil War.) It was the usual numbers, addresses and questions describing us physically. We sat on the hard chairs and waited to be called to the counter. Patience is not one of my virtues.

Eventually our names were called to the counter manned by dutiful public servants. They wee civilians.  There were no military personnel in the Center. The counter ran the length of the room and was cluttered with keyboards and monitors and video cameras. Claudette dealt with a bearded man with a ponytail and receding hairline. He had the personality of a rock.  (I'm being kind.) I, on the other hand, was being served by a lady with a bubbly personality with tangled unkept brown hair. She dutifily reviewed the information I had entered on the aforementioned form. She laughed when I said I waa six feet tall except when I was depressed. This lady was peering over the top of her computer monitor. Imagine this; she has one monitor on the counter and another above it. I could barely see her face peaking between them.  There is a device on the counter to take, I guess that is the proper term, my fingerprint. It refuses to take the fingerprint of my right index finger!  And middle finger, ring finger and thumb. She checks to make sure the equipment is working. I say, "It may be because I have callouses on my fingers from playing the guitar."

She says, "Really?"

"Yeah, I do a mean intro to Sweet Home Alabama!"  I felt a bead  sweat pop out on my brow and hoped she did not detect the lie I told. (I fret the guitar with my left hand.) After considerable fretting of another kind the technological marvel finally got my fingerprint of third finger, left hand. After I was fingerprinted, I had to be photographed. Once again, Lady Luck did not smile down on me. Oh, no... I think she signaled some thing with her finger. The camera is mounted on the counter. That's okay... if you are severly height challenged. "Stoop down," she orders.

I stoop.

"More," she says.

"Like this?" I ask as the arthritis in my left knee let itself be known. Yes, there was pain! I moved a little bit lower and I heard her say, "Got it!" Once you look at my picture on the Visitor Pass you'll understand the situation clearly.
I straightened up and replaced my USS Intrepid ball cap, the pain subsiding in my left knee.

And then I heard the voice from the other side of the cluttered counter say, "I think there is a problem."

I had the feeling something had been found in my past that would jeopardize my application. What could it be? I just wanted to  see our grandson. I was not a security risk. Probably some low level clerk in some far away city was holding up my perceived future happiness. Or maybe a computer glitch. After a very long moment the voice from the other side of the counter says, "Oh, the problem was just our printer! Here is your pass Mr. Young! Have a nice day!"

We walked out of the Visitor Center under threatening skies but I had passed another security check and we were going to see our grandson. All was right with the world.

A Sea Story

This is a sea story.  I was once a sailor in the United States Navy. In four years I managed to circumnavigate the earth twice. It was not my intent, it was simply the direction the ship took. I was not consulted. Actually, at my pay grade I was rarely consulted about anything. However, at my paygrade I had little responsbility, which in itself gives a certain amount of freedom. I'm not quite sure why I am telling you about this since it has little to do with this story. 

First let me say a bit about Navy tradition. When a young man completes basic training, which in the Navy is known as boot camp, he is usually asigned to a ship . Those sailors on the ship usually refer to these new shipmates as "boots". After you have been to sea you relish welcoming new boots, because the you are no longer considered a boot.  When I was a boot on the crew of the USS Bon Homme Richard, I and my fellow boots were the butt of many practical jokes. However, later in the voyage, other boots joined us and we were the admistrators of the practical jokes. Some of the jokes were very simple and usually involve some facet of naval life. For example, we would send the boot to find some much needed relative bearing grease for the ship's navigator. Or, for batteries were needed for the sound-powered phones. They could be ordered to procure one hundred yards of shoreline. 

While these jokes were rather simple we did have one that was the creme de la creme.    We had a new practical joke. We would take the new boots to see Pappy. Pappy was a yeoman in Main Com (Main Communications)  A yeoman is sort of like a secreatary in civilian life. Typing and paper shuffling, things like that.  Pappy was a rather rotund fellow with many years in the Navy. His buzz cut hair was gray. There were three hashmarks on the left sleeve of his jumper indicating over 12 years  of service. But the patch on his left shoulder was the three small bars of a seaman, the rank usually achieved in about two years. You could safely surmise that Pappy was not the sharpest knife in the drawer but had that personality that everyone liked. Pappy  did have one unusual feature though. He had a glass eye!  And he could do something very unusual with that eye. He could remove it and put it in his mouth. He would open his mouth just anough for the eye to be visable. Yep, it would freak out most people. I remember once in a bar in Olangapoe City, P.I. he was sitting at the bar when he had to go relieve himself. Not wanting anyone to disturb his drink he took his eye out and plopped it into his drink.  When the Filipino barmaid saw it she let out a shreik the shook the bamboo rafters of Noni's Bar. Of course we howled with laughter.

 It became regular procedure to expose all new boots to Pappy's eyeball in the mouth trick after getting underway on a cruise. And we did this until there was an incident that terminated Pappy's unique presentation of his mind's eye. We usually built a lot of hype around the event before the boots actually experienced it. 

We had picked up two new boots at Subic Bay in the  Phillapine Islands and were steaming north to the war zone, the South China Sea. The boots were fresh from electronic technician school. One, the larger of the two was Denubio, an Italian lad from Boston. With a big nose and jet black hair, he was immediately christened, "Boston Butt".  The other was his opposite; thin,  with buzz cut red hair and he spoke with the accent of the Appalachian highlands of his home in Tennessee. We called him "Cornbread". Time would reveal that Cornbread was something of an electronic genius, particularily if he had access to his seemingly endless supply of illegal Jack Daniels whiskey.  

I was a seaman assigned to the Electronics Division and had been to Navy "A" school to be an electronics technician at the time. My job involved servicing the electronic equipment in Main Com. Security was tight around Main Com. You would ring the doorbell and a little window would open and Pappy would appear. Upon identifing you he would unlock the door and let you in. We would call him and tell him we were bringing a new boot to see him and he would open the window appearing with his glass eye in his mouth. On one particular day when we took our boots to see Pappy he was in perfect form that day with a big cheerful smile on his face with that glass eye peeking out from between his smiling lips. The boots' jaws dropped with  gasps according to plan. At that very instant a chief radioman slapped Pappy on the back and announced in a booming voice, "How's it going, Pappy?"  Surprised , Pappy gulped and swallowed his glass eye!

That was the end of that particular practical joke. I don't know how Pappy got his eye back or if the eye I saw him with months later was the same one. I really did not want to know. But for a while it was a great joke to play on boots.