After a long day of driving, we rested briefly at the home of our old friend, Mary, in Columbia. Mary fed us, and we attempted to catch up on the events of the eighteen years since we’d last seen each other. We last visited Mary when she was living in a convent in Chicago (not as a nun). She worked in various programs hosted by the order, and her tour of the convent and community peaked my interest in Dorothy Day and the Catholic workers movement. Nowadays, she is married to George, a native of Greece and a marine geologist, and they have a daughter, Sophia. They work at the University of South Carolina. I was delighted to find Mary much like always; she’d just returned from studying in Paris when I first met her, and she was continually slogging through some novel written in French. Now she’s learning Greek, so she can talk to her in-laws.

We managed to make it to Charleston without ever encountering rain, but we ran ourselves a little ragged trying to squeeze two days of activities into one: boat ride to Ft. Sumter, dress parade at the Citadel, eating and strolling and eating and strolling. After dark, we scared ourselves silly with a pirate and ghost tour.

Raising the U.S. flag over Ft. Sumter and working on the hardest Jr. Ranger badge ever. We decided it should’ve earned a Sr. Ranger designation.

We don’t have camellias in Lubbock, so I stopped to greet every one I met in Charleston.

Cadets punctuated every sentence with copious “yes ma’ams” on the Citadel campus.

There may have been a few nightmares following the ghost tour.

As we walked past the rows of stately, pastel-colored houses, I recalled an ill-fated trip to Charleston in my youth. I confessed it, while we trekked to lunch on King Street:

When I was in college, I was crazy about a boy named Bobby. He had large, beautiful brown eyes, a sister (my good friend) with red hair, and was destined to take over the family farm in South Georgia. I’d been told our great-grandfathers were childhood friends. Clearly, he was my destiny, and I pestered his sister to fix us up. Finally, I got my way.

We enjoyed a series of epically charming dates, to my mind at least. One Friday evening, having exhausted the romantic destinations available locally, I suggested we drive to Charleston. “I’ve never been there,” I bemoaned, “We could get there in time to see the sun come up at the beach.”

The sunrise was lovely. If Bobby, possibly fatigued from a long night of driving, was somewhat reserved, I had enough enthusiasm for both of us. We went to town, strolled the beautiful old neighborhoods, and ate shrimp and grits.

Our happy idyll ended in a car wreck just outside of Charleston. We weren’t injured, though Bobby, who’d been napping in the reclined passenger seat, slid under the seatbelt and woke up in the footboard. The car, however, was a mess, and we were hours from home. A policeman dropped us at a McDonald’s, where we used the payphone to call Bobby’s sister. She arrived after dark, and we rode back to Athens in silence and with the windows rolled down. We stank from our morning at the beach.

I didn’t hear much more from Bobby after that. Crushed, I harassed his sister for an explanation of what went wrong.    “Well,” she finally conceded, “I think he was a little overwhelmed. Like on the drive to Charleston when you talked so much and asked so many questions.”
“What questions?” I pressed.
“You know,” she answered gently, “Stuff like ‘What are you thinking about?’ It made him kind of nervous because he wasn’t thinking about anything, really, and he had to come up with something.”
“Oh,” I said, a little more shine wearing off my Charleston adventure.

We arrived at Kickin’ Chicken, our lunch destination. The children were still shaking their heads about my irresponsible behavior.
“You won’t even drive after dark anymore!”
“I can’t believe you wrecked the car; what did Poppy say?”
“Now I know what NOT to say to a boy.”
“Hey look at that!” I interrupted, pointing to the side dishes on the restaurant menu.

Bobby Fries: French-fried potatoes with cheese, bacon, and a special ranch sauce.

We ordered a large basketful.