Savannah, GA - In Your Easter Bonnet

Sometimes we visit a really good museum, sometimes not so good but today we visited one with great promise that just didn’t have its act quite together. The displays were very good and the explanation was fine but the organization - whoo-eee. No order. We saw a good American Revolution display next to a WWI & WWII display next to a Civil War display and on the end a display about women’s hats. In the middle of all this was Forrest Gump’s bench.

My head was spinning. What kind of order was this? Chronological? Alphabetical? Higgeldy-piggeldy? I’m thinkin’ the last. Unfortunately, the order detracted from the displays themselves which were quite well set up.

They had one from a dentist’s office. This dentist practiced until the 90’s using this set-up which he bought for $600 when he started practice in the 40’s. ‘Works just as good as the new equipment’ he said.

There was a good film summarizing the history of Savannah through the eyes of the Oglethorpe statue which is in the center of town on one of the beautiful squares he laid out when he founded the town. He was narrating the history of Savannah from his founding to the present day. Twee but it really worked. Watch the film, cruise the museum.

But, we followed that museum up with a visit to Old Fort Jackson which was super. We’ve seen so many old forts these last few weeks that we think we might pass. But this was excellent. We saw not only the whole fort, a good film about its history and place in the Civil War but also had a marvelous guide/re-enactor who told us all about the food they ate, the things they carried with them, the medicine they took for sickness (it was an ‘interactive’ demonstration and some in the audience ‘volunteered’ to taste the medicine - like quinine.) and then led the group through a cannon loading and firing followed by an actual firing of the cannon. Pretty cool and we really enjoyed his presentations. As we toured the fort we saw many different displays inside each of the casemates, the vaulted section under each cannon on top of the walls. Very well set up of an old fort.

He showed us the iPhone they had during the war. Not wireless since it had to be hooked up to wire.

He even demonstrated loading a cannon but without real powder with some of the school kids that were on the tour. He then loaded it himself and shot it off - and we all had to put our hands over our ears

As were were inside, the Nina and the Pinta sailed by.

Well, these were really not the Nina and the Pinta but copies of them that sail around the world stopping in lots of ports for people to tour. And they were not sailing by - they were under motor. We had been excited to see them sailing by the fort but were both a bit underwhelmed. They looked like ghost ships since they were so dark and it’s hard to see how tiny they were in this picture. But, we were were amazed that anyone could sail across the Atlantic in something so small.

In the gift shop we noticed these cute little hats. Tell me, which side of the Civil War wore pink hats? Gary immediately shouted out: ‘the Losers.’ But that’s unfair. These are for little girls who would like a memento but want something bolder than navy blue or grey, the colors usually sold. But, then they also have these neat little bonnets (and Easter is so close. Won’t I be stunning in the Easter Parade in this cute little number?) I was having a hard time deciding which one to buy. When I sent a text to a friend, she told me to splurge and buy both. Good idea. I can wear the bonnet when we're traveling on down the road - like the pioneers.

Finally, we followed the museum and the fort with a cemetery, the Bonaventure Cemetery with is old layout, stones and markers. We wanted to see particular graves and looked them up on the cemetery locator computer and we took a smart phone picture of the diagram so we wouldn’t get lost. As we started out down the lane, we saw the signs pointing to the same graves we wanted to see. Looks like everyone wants to see the same ones. Guess we didn’t need the pictures.

One of the most well-known graves contains the small statue of Grace Watson, the 6-year old daughter of a hotel manager in Savannah. She died of pneumonia and a traveling sculptor made a statue which is the exact likeness of the little girl. Her father was the hotel manager in 1864 when General Sherman marched into town and wanted Sherman and his men stay in his hotel. Sherman replied that ‘we are not in the habit of paying board’ and stayed in a private home in the area.

Another well-known grave is that of the Runner, a woman who ran marathons and other races but was also well-known in the city.

Finally, we wanted to see the grave of Johnny Mercer of musical fame. I knew he did Moon River and Charade but I was surprised to see how many other songs he wrote that I remember. Songs such as:

        Blues in the Night - one of my favorites

        I’m an Old Cowhand

        Jeepers, Creepers,

        Autumn Leaves

        Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe

        Come Rain or Come Shine

        Days of Wine and Roses

        Hooray for Hollywood

        In the Cool, Cool of the Evening

        One More for my Baby

        Somethin’s Gotta Give

        That Old Black Magic

        You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby

How can you make a song out of ‘Ac-cen-tu-ate the Positive?’

But we were intrigued by all the other graves of people less well known. Very interesting cemetery and we knew we were not in Iowa anymore.

We had a three-fer today, time to get back to the RV, have dinner and begin to get ready for out trip tomorrow. It’s hard to realize that we’ve been here for a week. Have we seen what we wanted to? Heck no, I’ve still got things on my list that we can see next time. However, we also took time out to work on our taxes and my brother’s taxes. We do taxes on Turbo Tax and it is so slick - but it still takes time. At the end they give me the choice of how I want to get the message out that I’ve done our taxes: Twitter, Facebook or what ever. Oh, yeah, I want to send a tweet out that I’ve done our taxes. I don’t think so.