The New South

Cross-Country Trip, Day 15

Lake James, North Carolina to Florence, South Carolina
(with stops in Hickory and Winston-Salem)

If you find yourself in North Carolina and in need of a snazzy European haircut, go and see Ronnie Major at Le Grande Salon in Hickory, NC.

I would never have thought that, from this small town of 40,000 people nestled in the Carolinas, Marina could emerge with the most stylish haircut she's had in years.  That's due to Ronnie's skill and talent as a hair designer but it also made me question my pre-conceived notions about this whole region.  

Like a lot of Americans, I thought of the South as a conservative, backward place without much respect for people of color, gays, atheists or progressive thought of any kind.  Highway 10, which runs along the southern part of America, is the shortest route to Miami, but it would have taken us close to the heart of the Deep South -- southern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida panhandle.   The Ku Klux Klan flourished in these places and vigilante mob lynchings of black men was a way of life.   Remnants of that thinking still color these towns and their people, and the Confederate flag, representing the union of Southern states who sought to break away from the USA, is still flown from the dome of the capitol building in South Carolina.   

The South's claimed  "constitutional right" to treat people as property (and preserve their economic base of cotton) was the reason for the long and bloody American Civil War, which lasted four years and took 600,000 American lives. The real issue was states' rights, i.e., the right of the federal government to create laws that trump any individual state's laws.  This fundamental philosophical debate continues today and it's this battle over who has the right to legislate over cultural matters that creates the notion of two Americas, in my opinion.   Every time the federal government seeks to legislate on cultural matters such as gun control, abortion and gay marriage, a handful of die-hard backward Congressmen (and women), usually from the South, cry foul and claim for their individual states the right to pass laws on those issues. 

But as I learned today, there's an Old South and a New South.  Whatever that term may have meant in the past, today the New South stands for a more modern economy and way of thinking.  Health food stores and vegetarian menu options are part of the New South.  So are European haircuts and gay pride parades (Hickory's 4th annual is coming up this year).   The university towns are full of bookstores and cafes and wine bars and (somewhat) progressive thinking.   All this is what we've encountered on our trip along Interstate 40, a belt of highway running (approximately) through the lower third of the country.  

I've been pleasantly surprised at the non-hostility of gas station cashiers and hotels and the helpfulness of staff at restaurants and shops.  I chalked it up to being in big cities, but Fort Smith is a small town and virtually everyone we met (hotel staff, shopkeepers, museum volunteers, meter maid, restaurant staff) were all very helpful and friendly.   This must be the New South.  

And a good example of it is the historic arts district in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where we made an impromptu stop for lunch yesterday with friends we just found out/remembered were living there.  We ate at a restaurant called Sweet Potatoes (well shut my mouth!!) owned by two black lesbians.  How's that for the New South!  And yes, the parenthetical and exclamation marks are all part of the name --see the sign below. 

And that was our last stop on I-40.  Florence, South Carolina is only a 3-hour drive from Winston-Salem, and the most direct route takes you on the 38, a real back-country road through what is most certainly the old South.  We lost cell phone service and I felt the same anxiety going through Texas.  Will we get stopped because we have a rainbow sticker on the truck and California license plates?   Will the police or the locals drag us out of the car and beat us up because they don't like Marina's British accent?    We stopped at a gas station, and I walked into the shop with trepidation to see if they had SmartWater (even though the stupid water costs less).   Then I saw the man behind the counter and instantly relaxed.  Of course!  He's Indian (dot, not a feather).  My peeps!  They own the gas stations and the hotels and where there's an Indian hotelier, there's sure to be an Indian restaurateur (the hotelier's brother-in-law or second cousin once removed), so even in the South, I know I can always fill up with gas and food and find a bed for the night.  Ha!  Take that, Klansmen! You may make people run but we make the economy run.   Indians are the new black.  Wait, that didn't come out right.  What I meant to say was Indians are the New South.  

On our way to Florence, we passed through Bennettsville, a tired town that looked inhabited only by cars.  The downtown is full of lovely but empty brick buildings.  Land is probably dirt cheap.  For a brief second, I thought about buying up some of the buildings and neighboring land, creating a development for progressive people from the north who want a better quality of life, opening up art galleries and restaurants downtown, et voila!, creating a little Santa Fe or Asheville. But by the time we got to the on-ramp for the freeway, that dream had collapsed in a shudder of construction nightmares, zoning codes, neighbor disputes, nasty battles with governmental authorities, and a general sense of weariness.  It's good to have ideas, and some ideas are best left unexecuted.   But in case anyone reading this blog has a bunch of money and about 5 to 10 years lying around, there's an opportunity for you to shape and mold your own little town in Bennettsville, South Carolina.  

The Clintons

Cross-Country Trip, Day 9

Little Rock, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee

We had the first real rain we've had on our trip. That's downtown Little Rock in the distance, and the bridge spans the Arkansas River.

We started at the Clinton Presidential Center and Library in Little Rock, an impressive structure.  Here's a night shot, courtesy of the New York Times.

Between the audio tour narrated by President Clinton, the long-winded descriptions of our tour guide (a member of the Arkansas Travelers, a group of diehard volunteers who traveled the country on their own time and their own dime to help get him elected), and all the interactive audiovisual media at each display, we felt bombarded and had to abandon ship before seeing everything.  There's an area called the Timeline which is jam-packed with presidential memorabilia and audio and visual displays documenting Clinton's 8 years in office and his various doctrines and policies.  If you're a political nerd, plan to spend the entire day at the museum.  And bring an umbrella in case you get caught in the rain like we did.   

Oddly, the museum restaurant has extremely limited vegan options, and we made sure to let the manager know that since Bill is a vegan, they ought to do better than that.  But Bill has his own 2,000 square feet pied-a-terre above the museum with a west wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that looks onto downtown Little Rock (I guess in these parts that counts as a great view) and he probably travels with his own chef.   He visits once a month and stays there when he's in town.  In case you were wondering.  

The funniest part of the museum was a video exhibit called The Humor of the Clintons, featuring Clinton spoofing himself in speeches over the years and Hillary doing a Forrest Gump bit.   There's also an entire wall showing a tiny sample of the gifts given to the Clintons over the years.  What I learned from this was never to give a gift to any President because they get so many they can't appreciate yours and it will end up in the back room of the presidential archives.  Only the choicest gifts from world leaders and celebrities make it to the displays.    I also learned that if you want to get lots of really cool gifts from really cool people all over the world (like gold-covered horse sculptures from the Amir of Bahrain), you should become President of the United States.      

The coolest part of all these presidential centers are the replicas.  Clinton's has the only full-size replica of the Oval Office.  

There's also a replica of the Cabinet Room, and you can walk in and sit down at the table and pretend to be Secretary of State.  Wish I'd had thought of doing that while I was there -- it would have made for a much more interesting picture.

And here's a replica of a table set for a State dinner along with the menu for President Nelson Mandela's visit.  I'm not sure why I found this compelling enough to photograph at the time.  I think I was just trying to keep warm (they really blast the air conditioning to preserve the exhibits).  

A surprising aspect of the Museum was all the childhood memorabilia from both Hillary and Bill, like third grade report cards.  By show of hands, who still has their third-grade report card???  Maybe it has something to do with your parents living in the same place forever.   By the time I turned 13, I had lived in three countries and about six different houses (and my mother wonders why I have wanderlust), so some things just got dumped along the way. 

The museum had a brief section on Hillary's rise to power and I was really impressed with a speech she gave to her class while still a college student at Wellesley.  It caused quite a stir and resulted in her being interviewed by Life magazine.  Really powerful and well-written for a 20-year-old.  If you can enlarge it and read the excerpt, please do so, especially since she'll probably be running for President in a few years.  Did you know her father was a staunch Republican and she was president of the young Republican club at college?  Her politics changed during college and law school because of the turbulent times. 

 Here's a pic of her and Bill in younger days.

And a picture of Marina in front of the actual limousine used by Clinton during his presidency.  

We hit the road again after our visit and headed for Memphis.  We've noticed that there are vast numbers of 18-wheeler trucks (and quite a few trains) continually moving goods across the country.  When we overtake the trucks, I look at the driver and the driver looks at me and we move on with our lives.  But I was thinking what a great series of photographs it would make to take photos of each driver at the exact moment that we passed alongside them, each with their own unique expression of tiredness, frustration, joy or contentment.  Unfortunately, Marina doesn't like to slow down for me to get the best shot because she's more concerned with road safety.    

The second thing I've noticed about the open road is the number of campers, RVs and trailers.  Every time we pass an RV, I think with longing of the time we're going to do this trip again in one of them.  Here's a guy who really knows how to enjoy nature.  Check out the bicycles, kayaks, canoes, and goodness knows what else he's got strapped to his SUV and his home-made trailer.   He had a scruffy beard and his dog sat in the passenger seat; I'll bet he was playing Radiohead or folk music. 

   

Hidden Treasures

Cross-Country Trip, Day 8

Fort Smith, Arkansas

Today is our one-week anniversary of the trip, although it's the eighth day that we've been traveling.    In the week since we left Los Angeles, we've passed through almost 2,000 miles, a handful of national parks, a couple of state capitols, countless small towns, and a lot of stories.

Fort Smith, Arkansas was supposed to be a waystation, a place to spend the night before moving on the next day.  Instead, we spent the day poking around this charming little town proud of its history and character.  In the Civil War era, this town was so full of lawlessness that the most number of U.S. Marshals died in the line of duty here than anywhere else in America.   The main drag still has a very old West feel to its architecture with its wide boulevard and brick facades.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a decent picture to give you an idea so I'll just have to use someone else's.   It's a better shot than I could have taken anyway because I wasn't about to stand in the middle of the road no matter how much I love you guys.

Some of the architecture is a little New Orleans-ish, like this little number.  At one time over 50 saloons lined the main drag, and it's not hard to believe.    

Fort Smith has an extraordinary number of consignment shops and possibly the cheapest meter parking in America.  Can you remember when you only paid 25 cents an hour to park? 

And yet, we still got a ticket!!!  We lingered too long in a store and came out to find this on our windshield.   But it wasn't too bad -- $5 if paid within 24 hours.  The collection box was attached to the meter so we put our money in the envelope and dropped it in the box.   In LA, it costs $5 to valet park at the CVS and $68 for a parking ticket.  So I think we got a bargain.    

The Fort Smith Visitor's Center is housed in this building that was once a brothel, which has seen glory days as well as neglect and ruin, as recently as the 1990s, when a tornado blew the roof off and a storm dumped 5 inches (or was it 5 feet?) of rain into the house.

Stepping into the house was like stepping back in time.  The whole house has been thoroughly and lovingly renovated with period furniture and as much recreation of detail as possible.  For example, in this picture of the parlor where men played cards and socialized, the wallpaper has been custom-made by a manufacturer in England to reflect the exact design and color that was found buried under layers of plaster.  I love me some renovation so I got a kick out of finding out the lengths to which the City went to stay true to the house's origin and history.

I also love me some real estate so I found the financial details interesting too.  The house and land were purchased for $500 in the late 1800s by Miss Laura, a former "working girl" who had made good and become a madam.  She borrowed about $3,000 from a local bank to fix it up and make it into a brothel.  Less than 10 years later, she sold the property and business for $47,000 to one of her former working girls, Big Bertha, pictured here.  You can see how she got her nickname.

Miss Laura's Social Club was located on Bordello Row, which included one owned by Pearl Starr, daughter of Belle Starr, a female outlaw known as the Bandit Queen.  But Miss Laura's was the most expensive of the lot, charging $3 per visit compared to the buck charged by the others.    Legend has it that when they had a good week, Miss Laura filled the 800-pound cast-iron bathtub with champagne for the girls.  Just like Cathouse on HBO documenting the life of the girls at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Nevada (What, you don't watch that show?), Miss Laura's "working girls" were good friends who socialized together when they had time off.

Miss Laura's "working girls"

     

It's interesting to note how well-dressed the girls were and how much was left to the imagination.  In fact, the staircase leading from the parlor to the private rooms upstairs has very low risers because it was inappropriate for a lady to show her ankles so the steps are low enough to allow a woman to climb them without revealing any skin.  Of course, when they got to the bedroom, it was a different story.  Here's an example of what one of the rooms would have looked like back then.  Well, except for the mannequin.  I don't think she would have been in the room when it was in use.  

And here's one of the four pieces of furniture original to the house.  Some people go through a lot of trouble to get a piece of furniture to look aged like this when all they have to do is leave it sitting in a brothel for 100 years.

The house was abandoned in the 1940s, then purchased by a local businessman, placed on the National Historic Register in the 1970s, and finally restored by the City in the 1990s.  The house has a collection of artifacts salvaged from the renovations and from locals that reveal a glimpse of what life was like back then.  Some common household items look more like torture instruments, and probably hurt like hell.  

And some things just made for a good picture, like these poker chips and war ration tokens.    

This is what Good Housekeeping magazine looked like in October 1905.  (By the way, did you know if you clicked on the picture, you'll see a bigger clearer version?  I'll bet you're kicking yourself right now or swearing at me for not telling you sooner.) 

Here's a picture I found particularly interesting because the woman looks genuinely happy, unlike most pictures of that era when people are stiff and posed.  They're at a swimming hole of some sort and she's revealing a lot of skin so this must have been a very private moment and the photographer must have been very trustworthy.   Did she have a good week at Miss Laura's?  Was she happy to be away from work?  And who's the woman in the background?  We'll never know.  

But we do know who these girls are and they are VERY happy to be away from work and traveling across the country.