7-13-19 Kinards & Columbia, GA

The prettiest tree lives here, the crepe myrtle.  They’re everywhere!  The blossoms look like lilacs and they come in white, pink and fuchsia.  I’m trying to nurture a slip to take it home but usually, plants die when they see me coming.

Rob went on a tour of the Freightliner factory, today.  I stayed home to do more interesting things like dust.  Maybe when he gets back and tells me all about it, I’ll regret my decision.  I interviewed out of school at Freightliner in OR.  I really wanted to build big stuff, ships, trucks or airplanes.  The guy who would have been my boss was a weird socially-inept little geek who spoke PDFD (Partial Derivatives in Four Dimensions).  They wanted me to work in the brain trust department, sitting on my ass crunching numbers all day.  They tested tractors for road noise by driving it at speed past a series of mics and it was going to be my job to analyze graphs, charts and waves.  I have one thing to say about advanced dynamics, wave theory and infinite series:  “Um… what?”  Thus ended my brief non-career in semi tractors.

So let’s move along to things of more interest.  Soda City Market is a street fair that happens every Saturday morning and guess what.  It’s Saturday morning!  These opportunities evade us a lot of times;  the right place but the wrong time.  The marketplace is four blocks long on both sides of Main Street and features locally grown produce, ethnic food, music, arts and crafts.  We didn’t know that blueberries are abundant here.  So of course, we obtained a quart of big fresh blueberries and a liter of blueberry jalapeno wine, made locally.  There were several paella stands.  The paella pans were an amazing 4 feet in diameter and were sizzling with fresh crawfish, mussels and shrimp and the saffron aroma filled the air.  It was gorgeous!  But alas, the farmer’s market food fest lost out to Pearlz Oyster Bar nearby.  Trust me, walking 8 blocks or so in this heat and humidity is a near-fatal experience but we made it.  Rob ordered a “trigger fish sandwich.”  In Hawaii, this fish is named “humu humu nuku nuku apua’a,” just a simple thing you never forget, right?  My lunch was accompanied by a locally-brewed Pearlz lager.

State capitol in Columbia

The capital of SC was originally Charleston but it was later moved to Columbia, a more central location.  The 2 original capitols were built of wood and then, of course, burned down.  The current capitol building was begun after that as a fire-proof building in 1850.  Humans were a long time learning that bricks and rocks don’t burn.  The Civil War brought everything to a standstill.  Sherman blew through town and decimated a lot of the city and there are still pock marks from cannon balls on the current capitol building marked by bronze stars.  Indicating, “Yay, bull’s-eye?”   In the interest of total destruction, the union soldiers pelted bricks at the bronze statue of George W and broke off his walking staff.  It still stands this way.  After the war, it took a long time to get the momentum going again and in 1907, 50 years and three architects later, the capitol finally got its finishing touches.  This is the first capitol, as far as we remember, that took so long to build.  (Boeing was probably involved.  Took 10 years to select a project manager?)  A bronze statue of John C. Calhoun stands inside.  He served under 2 presidents, JQ and Jackson.  He didn’t get along with Andrew at all and 3 years into his second term, he quit.  Never heard of a veep just quitting and walking off the job.  Calhoun was pro-slavery in the beginning but later became an abolitionist.  Nevertheless, today’s snowflakes have removed his statue in many places.  History eludes them.  Outside, the enormous columns on the north portico are each carved from one piece of stone.  The inside is heavily furnished with dark, rich wood which also frames the state seal made of more than 37,000 pieces of stained glass.  It would have taken me weeks to build this window!  It is a stately, pretty, still-active monument.

Lindy and John C.

George W's walking staff broken off by
Sherman's forces

37,000 pieces of stained glass!

Beautiful staircase