I’ll start with the good, however. Our Sunday morning activities were extraordinary; prepare to be impressed: we ate brunch at Paula Deen’s restaurant Lady and Son’s. Oh, yeah: I can practically feel the heat of your envy. For those of you living under a rock who don’t know who Paula Deen is (and I was one of you up until the day before I ate at her restaurant) let me assure ya’ll: she’s huge. She’s an Empire. She’s a modern Southern icon. She has a cooking show on the Food Network, she has her restaurant, she has a line of food products, she has a store, and a magazine, and a line of cookbooks. Her two grown sons also have their own show and cookbooks, and her brother has a restaurant too. And when she married Captain Mike, a former river boat captain, it was broadcast on TV. Now Captain Mike has his own brand of love coffee (so called by me because the packaging contains a note from Paula and Captain Mike where they talk about their love for coffee, and their love for each other).
The restaurant in Savannah is wildly popular and there is generally a four hour wait to eat there. We were able to get reservations for Sunday morning, which they lost, but they squeezed us in anyway. They only do buffet on Sundays, but it was – hands down – the best buffet I’ve ever had. It was, of course, very southern and very unhealthy, and very tasty. Let’s see if I can remember what the buffet had: biscuits, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese (real style, not KD), something with mussels, green beans, sweet potatoes, something creamy with zucchini, and hoe cakes, which are like cornbread pancakes. They also served the best sweet tea (“iced tea” in Canadian English) I’ve ever had. It was a great meal.
That was pretty much the highlight of Sunday. Other than that, it was a day of tragedies. The first incident occurred before our brunch and the other two after.
The first. We were driving through the city and we passed a one-way street and noticed that there was a car parked the wrong way on the one-way. It was parked askew, on angle, and had one door hanging open. I said, “Oh, look, an abandoned car.” And we didn’t think much of it. The we ended up circling the block (I think we were looking for parking) and the next time we passed the car there were three cop cars parked around it, with cops all over the place, looking in the car and taking pictures. It was unsettling.
The second, and most major, occurred early in the afternoon. Our trolley tickets were good for two days, so we decided to do the tour again. The trolley passes by the residence of the Southern College of Art and Design (SCAD). As we were passing by, we heard a scream. We all kind of looked around by reflex, and my cousin turned in time to see a girl fall five stories and hit the ground. My cousin said at first her mind didn’t process what she was seeing. When she realized what happened she jumped up and told the driver to stop and call 911. From where the trolley parked, we could see the girl on the ground. She wasn’t moving.
My aunt tried calling 911 but couldn’t get through. Someone did, though, because the cops and campus security responded quickly. We just stood on the bus and watched. Some people were going up to her, but she wasn’t moving and no one was doing anything to help her. The ambulance took longer to get there. We just stood on the trolley in shock, we were sure she was dead. Eventually the driver asked the people on the bus what they wanted to do. Everyone else said to go on with the tour, so we got off then. We just weren’t in the mood. My cousin went to talk to the police, since she had witnessed the fall. My mom and I stood back with the gathering crowd. The paramedics were with the girl and were strapping her to a board and turning her over. When they did there was this horrible cry. I thought it was from one of the people watching, but it was from the girl! She was alive. She survived the fall! We didn’t believe it, but were very happy. Instead of witnessing a death, my cousin had only witnessed a horrific accident. Apparently the girl was leaning against a railing and it gave way. Can you imagine?
The third occurred after we’d gone for drinks to deal with our shock. We were driving out of town and passed a house fire. I’ve never seen anything like it. The smoke was so black and it was pouring out from under the roof. We saw someone run out of the house and gesture wildly at the arriving firemen. We didn’t want to stop or rubber neck, so we just kept going. We felt really bad about all the destruction we were leaving in our wake. We thought it best to sit quietly in our condo and not harm any more people.
The girl is going to be fine, as far as I know. When we drove by the house fire the next day, it was still standing and didn’t look all that bad. I don’t know what happened with the creepily abandoned car, though.
1 comment:
Wow! I'm in shock just reading about it...
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