The Pirate's House

**Guest Review for "the FredBook guy" **

Many Savannah tourists find themselves at the end of a well trod path, waiting hours in line with other well intentioned folks to enter "Momma and Her Boys" southern eatery.
(not the real name, cause here in the South, we don't slander our elders nor our local celebrities)

Like knee socks with Bermuda shorts and a long lensed Canon about the neck, don't fall into this tourist trap. The line leads only to disappointment and mediocre food.

If you came to rub shoulders with Miss Paula, head on over to Wilmington Island, where she is more readily found than in her restaurant. But, if what your hankering for is some good ol' southern cooking, follow me five blocks south to The Pirate's House on East Broad.

From real life shanghais to underground rum running tunnels, there is a wealth of pirate legacy to be discovered at The Pirate's House, but the real treasure is the food.

Famous in it's own right (but without all that FoodNetwork publicity) and conveniently located at the beginning or end of a jaunt down River Street, (depending on the day's parking situation), lunch at The Pirate's House incorporates itself nicely within a day's activities.

Whether you're at the start or finish of your cobblestone journey, you'll find a bounty fit for satisfyin' or energizin' during The Plantation Buffet. (11:30-3 PM) For around $14 you can fill your plate with the equivelant of an entire chicken, deep fried and glazed in a honey pecan sauce so good your momma's face will hurt before she's been slapped, then wash the whole thing down with a pitcher of sweet iced tea and start on a second chicken. But pace yourself cause we've only just begun. Leave room on that plate for the macaroni & cheese, collard greens, squash casserole, green beans, sweet potatoes and barbeque ribs. Oh! and don't forget to save room for the nanna puddin'.
There are other fixins to be had, but I can only speak as to what goes on my own plate, and then, only with my mouth full, cause it's all so good.
If you'd have told me when I was a child that someday I would go back for second (and sometimes third) helpings of any sort of squash , I would have told you to shur your mouth (not really, I was raised to know better!). But, thank goodness for the wisdom that comes with age. We aren't talking about the squishy squash and soggy saltine casserole concotion found at family reunions and church potlucks either. Made with chunks of squash that require you chew before swallowing, the dish is pure, edible gold. Is it any wonder the spirits of pirates past are believed to still hang around the place?

I'm getting ahead of myself though, because before it was a hangout for blood thirsty pirates, it was settled as the Trustees' Garden in 1734. Old as the city itself, the plot of land was used as a proving ground for all sorts of botanical ventures and is indirectly to be thanked by pretty gals all over Georgia for favoring Peach trees over Mulberry.
The garden keeper's home is considered "the oldest house in Georgia", and now functions as a private dining room called The Herb House. You can rent the room for a nominal fee and claim proprietary rights over the nearby dessert table, or you can just stick your head in and look around for free, annoying those who did decide to shell out the 35 clams for (semi) privacy.

Piracy on this plot started some twenty years after the abandonment of the garden settlement. With its eventual transformation into tavern and inn, the location became an ideal spot for sailors dropping anchor just across the street, in the Savannah River, to retreat for a little rum and relaxation and the perfect setting for pirates to recruit new crews (willingly or un-).

The Pirate's House will probably always be most noteable for it's role in Robert Lewis Stevenson's "TREASURE ISLAND", where in an upstairs room Captain Flint cried out his last words "Fetch aft the rum, Darby " (no doubt to accompany his second (or third) helping of the squash-- the stuff really is to die for)
Pirate activity continues today in the form of a roaming Jack Sparrow, theatrically tipsy and ever eager to hand the wee ones a handful of gold dubloons. ( If you're grown, they're 2 for $1)

The Pirate's House has also capitalized on the belief that Savannah is a "haunted city" by offering dinner packages and tours of the old rum cellar.

Whether you come seeking history or ghosts, you'll return because of the treasure hidden in plain sight at The Pirate's House. And like a true pirate, you'll only divulge your secret to the truly worthy, letting the rest of the hungry land lubbing tourist line up five blocks north, like sheep to the slaughter, while you go back for seconds.

** Can't get enough of a pirate's life? Come to Savannah in October for Pirate's Fest on nearby Tybee Island.

A

A

In my life, right now, "A" is for Alzheimer's Disease.

My grandfather was diagnosed just after Christmas. We knew it was coming, or I should say we knew something was on the horizion, we just didn't know it's name until after Christmas. Before you can understand the gradual sifting away, you have to understand the man who is slowly leaving us.

If it were you, who does not know him, instead of me, who does, it may have been funny to see that hearing device on his head, with it's large stereo-phones that went the way of the 8Track twenty years ago, and that not-quite-behind-the-ear-small-nor-so-subtle reciever sitting in his lap. To you he'd probably look like a little old man in really big headphones. To me, it was as if I had walked in on his nakedness.

The General is a proud man, you see.

If he were on a television sitcom, he'd be the old man behind the wheel, his reckless driving due to failing eyesight and dexterity; the laugh track would roll when the local deputy mistakenly pulled him over for DUI. But this is real life and there was nothing funny about the officer at the door, or the decree to suspend his mobility.

If you had grown up with his "woman driving" jokes (more like personal philospophy) as I have, then you may understand that having Grandma in his place behind the wheel now is no laughing matter.

Listening to a conversation with him now may make you chuckle; a person hard of hearing makes for a funny skit. But if he had bounced you on his knee and loved you all your life, you would feel the sand running out of the glass as you try to ask the things you want to know only to have him misunderstand, or to forget the subject entirely.

A passerby may see a yard that needs tending and some weeds to be pulled. As one who was grown on that land as much as the cucumber and tomatoes, looking onto that worm drilled crop and the garden gone dry, I see the body of a loved one passed away.

The repetition and forgetfulness may seem like a small annoyance to those who weren't there when, though he was already in his 70's, he enrolled in college classes- "just to keep the mind sharp"

Oh, and to help him build that beloved airplane in the basement, of which he says now

" I don't think I'm gonna get to finish after all"

An airplane? "Cool" you say- "wow, he liked planes, eh?" and you'd be right, sort of. Because he didn't just like them, he knew them and he flew them and he inspired an entire family to not only aim for those clouds, but to cut a trail right through them.

He was there when I flew around Lady Liberty and told me it wasn't a steering wheel, it was a yoke. I didn't realize I was amongst greatness then, even when air traffic control came over the line and lauded his landing the most beautiful, perfect one he'd ever seen.

If you'd watched as that grown man cried, describing the blessing his marriage had been, or seen him cover the newest family baby a dozen and a half times with the blanket, as we wound our way around that cold, granite mountain...

If he took you out for coffee and put his pride on the line, like only someone who loves you will do, if it were YOU whose life he wasn't afraid to embrace and discuss candidly...

Have you ever had anyone like that? Tell me- do you know what its like to be set on the straight and narrow, or at least pointed in it's direction, without feeling the slightest loss of affection?

If you'd been protected by him over the years, you may understand the fear of his disappearance. If your children had ever rubbed those three smooth nobs where his fingers once were, asking "Grandpa, tell me the story again?" you may understand needing to hear it and a dozen more others, at least again once more, before that day comes where you cannot ask and he cannot tell and you are left only with the past and what you are able to remember of it.

And maybe you would understand the fear of forgetting too, if Alheimer's kissed your grandpa and bid him run away from you.

(rhyming unintentional)

Stockholm

Those who have been taken captive are sometimes known to adopt the beliefs of their opressors; often declaring loyalty to them against all logic.



And so, having been held captive in my own home for many years, subjected daily to hours of propoganda, you'll not be surprised to know that no longer is The Code simply repetitive programming to me. I have adopted it as a guide for future entries and see it as a foundation, given to me on which to build. Until I graduate to further plateaus of knowledge and inspiration, I will draw from **TLOT DAY method, as taught by The Big Guy himself.



(this method has been called upon by such great works of literature as The Book of Psalms in the Holy Bible, so let's not mock Kelly, shall we?)



**The Letter Of The Day