Hurricane Hugo

We moved back to Charleston,SC in 1988.  It was a homecoming for Mary Anne, and we were thrilled to be back to the town where we had courted. Caroline was born

in June of 89.  MA’s brother Tom was in Mt. Pleasant, so we got to spend time with Millie and him.  My brother Dunn was in law school in Columbia, so he was a frequent weekend visitor (since we had a real kitchen and all).  We had a nice house in Snee Farm Country club.  Sister Piel had lived with us that summer.  Life, as it frequently is for us, was very good.

In September, late in the hurricane season, the weather folks started watching a storm named Hugo.  Early indications had it on a straight line for Charleston.  Charlie Hall had been the TV weatherman forever, so had seen a lot of storms threaten the Holy City, but this one clearly scared him. As well it should have. Check Twitter #HUGO25 for the broader historical perspective. Or if you prefer only images, The Charleston paper, the News and Courier, just ran a retrospective of pictures from Hugo for the 25th anniversary.

I was busy at work as the week of Sept 18th, getting ready for a user conference. We had customers flying in from all over the country and were going to have a meeting at the Isle of Palms. They flew in Sunday. By Monday, prudence dictated that we cancel the conference and send the clients home. We got them all back out on the last Eastern Airlines flight out that had any seats left on Tuesday.  Mary Anne had a new baby, and figured the power would go out with the storm, so she headed up to Orangeburg, where her parents lived. I made an extra backup of the computer at the office and FedEx'd the reel to reel mag tape to Atlanta.

I moved equipment up on tables at the office in case of flooding, and taped windows at the house. Tuesday night on the 11 O'clock news, Linda Lombard, Charleston County chairwoman, basically said that if you were watching her on a local station, you needed to leave town.  I packed and got on the road and made the drive to Orangeburg in the normal 90 minutes.  As the path of the storm became more certain, Wed 9/20/89, Joe Riley (mayor for life of Charleston) got the Highway Dept to reverse the lanes of I-26, making it 4 lanes westbound.  It still took ALL DAY for many folks getting out of town.

We were together in Orangeburg, 90 miles inland, at MA's folks house. Time to hunker down and wait for the storm. It came in with a fury even that far inland overnight Thursday night. A large pine tree fell on the Horton's house.  Hugo was still a category 1 hurricane as it passed through Charlotte. Saturday was clear and beautiful, as frequently happens after a hurricane. We were chatting during the day, when the landline at the Horton's rang. It was Kim Patton.  He had a truck and roofing materials and a chainsaw, and he said he'd hit the road that night and be there Sunday morning.  He couldn't get a generator, even in Cincinnati, but I wasn't worried because I couldn't imagine we would be out of power for too long.

Driving down on I-26 (no longer one-way), there were still trees in at least one lane much of the way down. When we finally got to the subdivision, we cut our way into Snee Farm.  Literally.  A couple of houses were flattened.  Several had near misses.  We got to 1129 Ambling Way, and there were four big trees on the roof.

 

But the house held together pretty well.  We had a 2x12 joist in the roof, and it stood up to all those trees.  There was lots of meat in the freezer that was keeping at least cool, so Kim and I used the grill and cooked over the fire for a couple of days as we began to clean up.

That first week after the storm, every time I stopped to talk a neighbor who stayed in town during the storm, I asked them what it was like that night. Each one of them would stop what they were doing and look at me and say “I thought I was going to die”.

By the next week there were tree companies from a lot of nearby states going around offering to trim trees.  The one we hired managed to get the trees off the roof without any further damage.  I sure would hate leaning like that and operating a chain saw.

We learned a little later that different people grind stumps.  The folks with chain saws just cut down the tree.  So we hired Lloyd Goode.

lloyd the stump grinder

There was no power in Orangeburg, either, so after three weeks, MA brought the girls back home. A couple of days after that, friends of the Hortons found a generator and brought it down. We didn't have it running for a full day when the power finally came back on.

We had had 18 pine trees on our lot before the storm.  Afterward, we had 4. And a couple of those didn't survive for too much longer.

The piles of cut trees got even higher along the street as the neighborhood continued to clean up.  And the piles were there for months.

After the clean up

The TV news used the word “Devastation” so many times a day for so long that we couldn't stand to watch it. Despite the challenges, Charleston bounced back eventually. The aftermath felt then like it would go on forever, so it's hard to believe it has been 25 years.

Amsterdam

We went to go visit Eleanor during her time in Amsterdam with Boom Chicago.  It was a great trip.  We enjoyed the city even more than we anticipated and it was great to be with our girl after not seeing her for 10 months.

Mary Anne loves to pick things up in airport shops before we fly anywhere, and since we it was going to be a long flight, she bought one of those neck pillows while still in LEX.  My platinum status on Delta was good enough to get us in business class on the way over (the seats really do go all the way flat!), but MA still thought the pillow was a great asset.  Stay tuned, the pillow will reappear later.

We spent 5 days in Amsterdam and then did a side trip to Paris.  We did all the classic tourist things and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Eleanor and MA at the Rijksmuseum

Carriage driver

Carriage ride

The big clock from inside Musee D'Orsay

Outside Musee D'Orsay

Tour boat ride on the Seine

Notre Dame

Eiffel Tower

But, our favorite part of the trip was our last night in Amsterdam.  One of Eleanor's friends had a boat.  Eleanor and I went to a market and bought all sorts of picnic goodies.  The craft was even outfitted with a table in the middle, with wine bottle holders and cup holders.  We saw all of the old city, and with much more enjoyable commentary than a commercial tour could have had.  At one point, some of the young uns even took a dip in the canal.  As a creek swimmer myself, I couldn't really say anything, but did decline to join them.

As the wonderful night was drawing to a close, we were all gathering belongings and getting them off of the boat.  MA had brought the aforementioned neck pillow to soften the wooden bench seat on the boat.  She had sat on it all night, but when she handed it up to me, we didn't make the transfer.  Into the canal went the treasure.  Everyone was reaching for it and trying to get it.  Especially when it floated to the other side of the dock, we had folks stretching pretty hard.  No one but Eleanor and I seemed to realize that once it had been in that water, it was not going around herself's neck.  We finally convinced everyone that it was time to move on.

This pillow is dead to Mary Anne

A great time was had by all.

jolie jardin jaubert

We spent years without much at all of interest in the yard.  

The house in Atlanta

I still vividly remember our front yard looking like this during construction:

Since moving into Milllstream 2.0, we've had help from a gardener, a friend of the family.  The name of her business is joile jardin jaubert, hence the name of this post.

Thanks also to cousin Mandy for the pots.  Summer is looking good around here.

Know that you are blessed

I’ve got weddings on my mind.  We were lucky to be part of cousin Lucy Hollingsworth’s nuptials on May 30th.  The wedding was at Jay’s down the road.  The rehearsal dinner was here at Millstream 2.0

So were the pre-wedding pictures.

Cousin Rich took some great shots that show what a real photographer can do. Nic and the groomsmen wore Val’s ties; we all felt Val's presence though the entire magical weekend.

But mostly as I think about weddings, I’m amazed as I tell the 30+ year old story of MA and me, and our courtship and wedding. Sometimes I share this story with strangers as I travel, and it feels like a fairy tale.

I included the story of Mary Anne’s first hearing of me in TGP’s eulogy.  But it deserves the fuller version.   When Pha was exploring leaving private practice to join the Navy in 1980, he and Muv had dinner with the Hortons and their 17 year old daughter Mary Anne at a medical convention in Virginia.  Mary Anne had recently been introduced to some other Navy brat, so she must not have looked enthusiastic when Pha told her that he had a son about her age.  He took note of her reaction and tried to make it seem better for her.  He told her, “Don’t worry, you’ll like him.  He’s a blind, balding, albino paraplegic”.  She had to laugh.

On June 26th, 1980, the D V Hollingsworth clan packed up three cars, three kids (Soph was in Canada with Tish and Gruner), a dog, a cat, and a bunch of houseplants, left Millstream 1.0 and drove all day to South Carolina.  I was home for the summer from my Freshman year at Yale.  Our first stop was at the Navy Lodge, a Econ-lodge like spot on the base; Pha loved the military perk of hotel rooms for $20 per night.  The next morning, Mary Anne came to show us around the base.  Her first words to me were to tell me that cut-off shorts were not allowed, so I had to change clothes.  She’s been approving my wardrobe ever since. (Though I have recently converted her to the dark side - note her patchwork plaid pants in the rehearsal dinner picture above).  She gave a tour to Dunn and Piel and me all around that morning.  We ended up at the base pool after lunch and she finally dropped us off at the Navy Lodge late in the afternoon, probably breathing a large sigh of relief.

At TGP’s suggestion, I called her and asked her to join us for pizza that night.  Despite being a techie, I have to be glad that caller ID didn’t exist in 1980.  We went to the Pizza Inn in North Charleston (I later found out that she chose that place so we wouldn't be seen by any of her friends).  I still remember the silent Errol Flynn movies playing at the restaurant.  After dinner, I said something like “Let’s drop off these kids, and you can show me the town”.  Such a smooth talker. Mary Anne took me out to London’s on Shem Creek and taught me the Shag (a SC dance).  As we were leaving later that night, she turned around and grabbed my hand, so as not to lose me in the crowd.  I don’t think she knew at that moment that she had sealed her fate.

The whole family went to Anne and Ira’s house the next weekend for spaghetti.  I asked Mary Anne out to a movie. (Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back).  We went out that next Saturday and again the Saturday after that.  Then she went to Europe for her 18th birthday on a family trip.  I didn’t get enough details to know when they were returning, so six days after she left, I started calling her home number every day to try to talk to her to set up our next date.  Therefore, I connected with her on her first day back and she agreed to go out.  Her current boyfriend, who knew when she was coming back from Europe, didn't call until 5 days later.  Mary Anne and I went out that weekend, twice the weekend after that, then pretty much all the time.  I moved MA into her dorm for freshman year at the College of Charleston.  She put her shoes in suitcases so I wouldn't know how pairs of shoes she had.

MA came to visit at me in New Haven in October, and then we had to wait until I came home to Charleston for Thanksgiving to see each other again.  It was 9 weeks apart, and that’s the longest we’ve ever been away from each other in 34 years.

After a couple of years of a long distance relationship, we got engaged.  I had a family stone, and MA had worked with a downtown Charleston jeweler to get baguettes in a new setting.  I picked the ring up on the sly when I came home for Christmas in 1982.  As we did most nights after supper while the family lived on Broad street, we walked down to the battery, where “the Cooper and Ashley Rivers meet to form the Atlantic".  Standing right at the tip of the peninsula of Charleston, I turned to my love and looked her in the eyes and asked her to marry me.  I pulled the ring box out of my pocket and opened it.  It was upside down, and gravity worked.  Next thing I knew I was watching the most expensive thing I’d ever bought, which I hadn't yet insured, bouncing toward the aforementioned Charleston harbor.  I managed to chase it down and stomp on it at least a foot shy of that ring being lost forever.  Always the romantic.

Muv threw us a big party, as Emily Post said, “to let the cat out of the bag”.  Pha was on his adventure on the Saudi Arabian ship (his only Navy adventure on a boat for any length of time), but we pressed on without him.  

When we told brother Tom that we were having the wedding at noon, he thought we said it would be a nude wedding.

For our wedding day, we picked the Saturday between Christmas and New Year’s in 1983, so that we could get our out of town friends to attend.  That made December 31 the big day; we never forget our anniversary.  Leading up to the festivities, we had all the fun the law would allow in Orangeburg, SC.  The morning of the wedding was when Mary Anne’s favorite story ever occurred.  The one she would tell if she were ever in the Red Chair on Graham Norton.

Sister Piel was coming up the stairs to the First Baptist church to wait for the ceremony in the vestibule with the rest of the bridesmaids.  Her foot caught the inside hem of her bridesmaids dress and pulled it open.  She was upset and said “I can’t be in the wedding”.  TGP did not have his pocket knife.  Mrs. Rheney, the wedding director, was not immediately available.  Luckily Muv was around and ready as ever. Thinking quickly on her feet, Muv proceeded to kneel down in front of Piel and gnaw off the hem of the bridesmaids dress until it was even, so Piel could be in the wedding.

While waiting in the narthex with the preacher, Dr. Roy McLean, the organist struck the chime 12 times to set the hour.  At about 9 chimes, Dr. McLean leaned over and said “it’s not too late to back out if you want to, son”.  I believe he told that to all the guys.  We walked out to the center of the church.  I've never seen anything more beautiful than Mary Anne coming down the aisle toward me.  The ceremony was only about 7 minutes long.  Dr. McLean told us to live lives so that when others looked at us, they would call us blessed.

We certainly know that we are blessed and hope that that is what others see in us.

We had a horse in the Derby

Yesterday was the last Saturday in April, which means that next Saturday will be the first Saturday in May.  It has been a beautiful spring in the bluegrass, but it is time for the racing season to move from Lexington to Louisville.  Time for the Run for the Roses.  I have my mint infused simple syrup already in the frig; it will steep all week.

Speaking of bluegrass, I finally got a clear vision on what that looks like.  You can see the small blue flowers in the grass in our back yard.

Anyway, we love to tell stories in my family.  I love to tell stories.  One of my favorite stories is that we had a horse in the Derby, in 1946.  He was named Kendor, after named for Uncle Kent  and Aunt Dorcas.

Dorcas at 9 years old

Kent 1941

The family had moved from St. Louis to Central Kentucky after a particular bit of good fortune revolving around an oil field in Illinois.  Dorcus had loved horses from early on and Grandfather was ready to indulge in his dream of being a gentleman farmer and horseman.  As my friend Kim says, the best way to make a small fortune in the horse business is to start with a large one.

Grandfather Denzil talks with the jockey

Kendor was a mudder, which means he ran better on a wet track.  It rained leading up to the Derby in 1946 was not wet enough on race day to give him the advantage he needed.  I'd heard about this race forever, but always wanted to know a little more.  Then we found the broadcast and the Friday Courier Journal article about the race. Listen for the call ending with "As you might expect" in describing Kendor's last place finish. That part still stings just a little bit, actually.

Aunt Leslie was at that race with the UK band before she met Uncle Donn.  They were married in the summer of 47, a little more than a year later.  Uncle Kent would maintain a life long interest in thoroughbred horse racing and make a career out of it, as editor of the Blood-Horse magazine.

Now, some of the family stories are apocryphal, or at least verging on it.  My favorite part of the derby story is that there is proof that it is true.  Proof that is easier to share at a dinner party than an obscure old recording.  All KY folks know about the derby highball glasses.   Many don't know about the loser cups.

You can see Kendor listed at the bottom of that middle row.

I'm glad to be living in horse country again.

The Park

Cousin Bryan calls it "The Park" and, after all, it's his land, so we call it "The Park".  I have a Junior Park Ranger pin

in my hat, so it's clear that I'm official as I do my multiple daily rounds.

The two terriers want to be there all the time. It's their exercise and their adventure.  All I have to do is say "Let's go to the Park" and they are up and ready to head out the door.

Sparky checking the water below the dam

Scout checking the debris pile

We spent several afternoons last summer on the kayak.  Sparky especially loved the rides.  I'm ready to be back on the water.  It needs to warm up a little, because sometimes getting in or out of the kayak can be a wet transfer.

It strikes me that I wrote about the creek and the dam in 2008, before I had even an inkling that I would live here.  Be careful what you wish for...

We had lots of great snows this winter, and even had the creek freeze enough to stand/glide on it some:

But spring is finally coming. And after that, summer.  The best part of the park is the tire swing. Resurrecting a multi-generational tradition, we are once again jumping into the creek off of the tire.  Best we did in 2013 was 5 on the tire at a time.  I think we made 9 back in the 70s, but then, we were smaller in the 70s.  Can't wait for things to warm up just a little more.

The Elkhorn is beautiful all year round, and I draw peace and strength from my time here. 

Come visit us out on the creek.