From: "Oliver Phillip Nicholas" <bigo@ucsc.edu>
Subject: Oliver's Travelogue, Part 3
To: bigo@ucsc.edu
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 17:42:49 -0800

Sinners and Saints-

Well, I'm here at some family friends' house in southern Miami, FL, getting ready to leave in a matter of minutes for the airport. I'll be in Costa Rica in about six hours, god willing. My friend told me to watch out, not to get kidnapped cause all the retired drug lords go to Costa Rica. I said they're all retired, so hopefully they're not still doing any kidnapping. heh. heh. sorry mom. So...I'm going to attempt to relate some more travel experiences quickly so you get the US picture.

Let's see...we left off with racism in Charleston, SC and then maybe Valentine's night in Columbia. It was off to Savannah from there....

----bloop*bloop*bloop---- [obligatory time warp]

So I got into Savannah and made my way down to River Street, which is Savannah's premiere tourist strip. It's right along the river there (forget which one that is), and is a rather quaint, cobblestone thoroughfare. I saw a bunch of cars parked along the side so I parked in front of one of them and got out. A homeless man immediately asked me where in California I was from (I have CA plates on my car). I told him Santa Cruz and he was all like, "No shit I'm from Monterey." Small world, I suppose. I wandered around, watched the Sun set, and made some phone calls. I was talking to my mother (HI MOM) when I looked over and saw a cop walking up to my car. I ran over and was like, "is this not a legal parking space?" He goes, "You see that sign over there?" and points down the block. I had to squint to make out a red P with a circle around and a line through it, and was like "That applies all the way down here? All these cars are parked illegally?" Such was the case. They have quite a racket going on down there, in what if you ask me basically amounts to theft. Such is the way. At any rate, don't park on River St. if you're ever in Savannah. To be safe, maybe don't park on any street called River St. anywhere.

I found my way to the hostel I had located in my hostel book. The proprietor was weird as hell, and wouldn't let me bring in my sleeping bag -- told me the room heater would be enough. I ended up freezing my ass off all night in a room with a rather congenial middle aged man who had some extremely complex breathing apparatus hooked up for his sleeping hours -- looked and sounded like Darth Vader. I decided I couldn't be asked to spend another night there. I don't actually remember where I stayed the next night, which probably means I slept in my car oh wait no I remember. I ended up driving way outside of Savannah and finding an EconoLodge or something for like $45, which I decided was good enough. I'm looking over at this woman's TV in the office and there's a televangelist guy doing his thing who looked strangely similar to me, in the ethnic sense. They showed his name on the TV -- Joel Osenstein or something like that. I was like, "That's funny, dude's a Jew." The office lady was confused. I was, too.

That second day I was in a rather posh internet cafe/coffe shop, seated on a nice big blue leather couch reading Euripides' "Electra", when I heard something that almost made me burst out laughing. The shop's proprietor, a pretty late 20-something, was talking to an elderly couple in the cafe. She goes, "I tell you, Sherman never would have won if it was this cold." I did a straight up double take and looked around to see if anyone was as amused as I was. Nope, just me. They were all agreeing. Actually, to his credit, the one mild anti-semite (I figured from a later conversation) was like, "naw, they would've beat us worse." Ahh, the South. At least these people make good eye contact, though.

That night I had wandered over to a bar I had seen during the day with a sign about some live music going on. By the time I got there the place was closed, so I lit up a cigar and wandered down the street in a roundabout return path to my car. I happened by a bank security guard who asked me how I was doing. I was bored so his simple question started a whole long conversation. So we're standing there, him smoking cigarettes and me my cigar, and a rather distinguished looking gentleman walks by on his way to his car. Sam, my security guard friend, is all like "Good evening, mister mayor." After the guy left I was all, "Umm...the mayor?" To which Sam replied affirmatively. I started chuckling, which Sam misinterpreted. "Why you laughing" he asks. "Cause he's black?" I was like "hell no we've never had mayors who where anything but black where I come from." I was just amused that I had just met Savannah's mayor in such an informal setting. Last time I saw Anthony Williams he was standing outside some marble columns in Georgetown on a Friday night and there was a large black limo and a set of search lights. That's how it goes. Sam and I chilled for a good two hours before I decided I desperately needed food and went my way.

So the rest of the Savannah story is two things. The one was finding my friend KD, and the other was finding my friend Mary Ellen. KD went to a different high school than me and we didn't really ever hang out that much, except for a few intense periods. We were sort of peripheral friends, but I knew she was at school in Savannah and I hadn't seen her for years so I decided to look her up. Turns out that's not as easy as I had hoped it would be. The school wouldn't give out a shred of information -- not even an email address, nor would they post a message for me, so that route was out. She wasn't listed in the Savannah phonebook. I couldn't figure out her home number in DC cause her mom has a different last name. It was absurd. Finally, my friend Sarah who's in Spain emailed me her own mother's phone number. I called Sarah's mom, who looked up KD's dad's number in an old Burke directory. I called them, and got KD's new cell phone number, in the process probably greatly offending KD's step-sister: KD used to go out with a boy named Oliver, so when I called and said I was Oliver, a friend of KD's, her step-sister was like, "oh I remember you" and I was like "heh, sorry I can't quite place you," having absolutely no idea who the girl was. At any rate I finally got in touch with her and ended up staying at the place she lives in with 3 other friends in suburban Savannah. The house has two dogs, a cat and some fish, and KD's boyfriend was over a bit, so it was quite a madhouse. I treated it to a bottle of Petron Silver the second night sending the whole situation further into chaos. good times.

And then there's Mary Ellen. I met Mellen, as I call her affectionately, on a trip I took to Washington state the summer after my sophomore year in high school. We climbed Mt. Ranier together and did some other things. Truly an amazing person -- she was attending Stanford, studying marine biology, and had gotten a grant from the school to study the fan community around Widespread Panic, a jam band from Savannah. She was at a Panic show in New Orleans when she got out of a cab and was hit by a drunk valet parker from her hotel. She was in a coma for months, had to have some reconstructive surgery, and now lives at home under the care of her parents and a full time caretaker. She can't talk (her tongue, in particular, won't quite do what she wants it to), she can't eat (she is fed through a tube), though she has a tablet PC which allows her to type out, slowly, words she wants to communicate. It was a painful experience, seeing a woman who was easily one of the most dedicated, competent and really, promising, people I had ever met, relegated to such a state. It was good to see her but not a situation I would will on anyone, myself included. I'd rather the plug pulled while I still had my old memories, without the terrible weight of such new ones.

And that, more or less, was Savannah, GA. Decent people, good weather, beautiful city. Last time I was there, Mellen took me out on the bay in her family's Boston Whaler and we swam with the dolphins (literally - they were like 15 feet away).

From Savannah I made my way to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras festivities. But it's 8:30 and I've got to leave for the airport, so that story will have to wait for another day. A note: I have previously reported to some of you a particular interpretation of the words "adios" and "adieux". Turns out my explanation was only sort of correct, at least from a strict etymological standpoint. The literal roots mean "to God" in the sense of "I (will) commend you to God". So I had said it meant "before God", like "I'll see you again since everyone will stand together before God on judgement day". I guess the latter meaning is implied, but strictly speaking it means I'll speak well of you when I get a chance to weigh in on the worthiness of your soul. And with that...

adios,
oliver