Savannah, Georgia

I flew from Baltimore last week to Savannah, where I spent a long weekend with K before meeting the kids and grandkids at a resort called the Palmetto Bluffs Montage in South Carolina. This is a family week for me, which means I am working no more than four hours a day. Okay, yesterday I worked eight hours, but someone has to pay the bills. And anyway, who’s counting?

This was the third time I’ve been to Savannah. Each time, I’ve liked it better than the last. It sits on the Georgian coast, on the Savannah river, across from South Carolina. It is a beautiful city in the southern style, with dozens of small, well-kept parks, cobblestoned streets, stately Civil War monuments of OWM (Old White Men) and newer statues of YBW (Young Black Women). It has a fine collection of 19th century churches and public beaches, including the Gothic-Revival Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, a river walk reminiscent of Bourbon Street, museums, a theater district, good restaurants, great food, etc.

And tying it all together, are thousands of 100- and 200-year-old live oaks, with their heavy horizontal branches, draped with Spanish moss, arching over the streets and parks.

A Few Fun Facts About Savannah 

* The “Life is like a box of chocolates” scene in Forrest Gump was filmed in Savannah’s Chippewa Square.

* Instead of burning it to the ground, as he had done a month earlier with Atlanta, General Sherman gave Savannah to President Lincoln on Dec. 22, 1864 as a Christmas gift.

* Savannah’s Spanish moss is not actually a moss. It’s a close cousin to the pineapple.

* Savannah’s First African Baptist Church, a stop on the Underground Railroad, was the first Black church in the country.

* When Savannah was founded in the 1700s, the founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, made many things illegal, including Catholicism, alcohol, and lawyers.