Moon River and Me

Like Tin Can Tourists of old, we love free stuff, so we made a beeline for Savannah and the Georgia History Festival. All weekend, museums and historical sites were free. We started at Wormsloe Plantation and the Colonial Faire and Muster event.

Crossing Moon River (an inlet named after the Johnny Mercer song from Breakfast at Tiffany’s), we camped at Skidaway Island. Nearby is Pin Point, a once-isolated coastal community established on land purchased by freedmen. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas grew up there; everyone called him “Boy” back then. At Pin Point, we were greeted with key lime cupcakes, lessons in Gullah lingo, and demonstrations of crab net knitting. The small museum there, usually open Thursday-Saturday, walks visitors through the workings of an oyster factory and offers a glimpse into a unique American community. It’s a little off the tourist path, but it is well worth experiencing.

In the city, we wandered through shady old squares, trying to convince the kids to resist handling the Spanish moss. Every time I washed clothes, I dreaded finding a wad of moss (and its itchy inhabitants) in some kid’s pocket. So far, no one is scratching. We walked through a historic home, looked for Forest Gump’s bench, and visited the synagogue of Congregation Mickve Israel. It was founded in 1733, just six months after Oglethorpe established the Georgia colony, by settlers fleeing persecution in Portugal.

As we strolled along, admiring tributes to heroes from Tomochichi to Casimir Pulaski, we ran into a living hero, Lt. John White. Lt. White was having his picture taken beside the World War II memorial for a news article, and the photographer asked us to be in the photo, too, posing as tourists listening to White’s stories. And did we get stories! Lt. White greeted us in the language of one of the Polynesian islands where he served with the first African-American combat unit. Later, he was the first black police officer sworn-in for Savannah and the state of Georgia, and he was a bodyguard for the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., when King visited Savannah. He also told us about his memorable arrest of a preacher, who signed people up for insurance all over Florida and then murdered them. The murderer confessed in his sleep!