Charleston, SC - Not just monumental shifts like the Fall colours but small details tell me when I'm somewhere different - the septuplet click of the wait signal at Richmond Virginia pedestrian lights; the acronyms in various places (like CARTA for Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority); the names of people I wouldn't have heard of if I hadn't visited a place, like Ravenel or Manigault, big family names down here in Charleston, or artists like the blacksmith Philip Simmons whose work was so fine it's ended up in the Smithsonian.
Note here the rattlesnake motif in the gates he designed for the mansion that belonged to Gadsden who designed the 'Don't Tread on Me' flag from the War of Independence. Look close. Simmons prided himself on how he tapered the ends.
Then there is also Antwon Ford the master sweetgrass basket maker or 'spinner', or Charleston's early women artists like Henrietta de Beaulieu Dering Johnston.
You notice sounds too, not necessarily the chuck-chuck-chuck of woodpeckers such as you would hear around Falls Church, but the constant sound of fire engines in this wooden city - and their really ugly horns. You hear them several times a day.
Then there are the incredible sloping porches. Why? Do they get torrential rain here?
I notice little differences because I compare the swimming pools in the various places. They often have their own rules, which you don't know about until you've broken them. At the YMCA in Greenpoint (New York), the attendant yelled at me because I was keeping a circular motion around the centre line (as you would in Australia). 'No, no, no, straight up and down,' he yelled as if I was an idiot for not knowing. I also found out, after I'd arrived, that I was meant to have my own bathing cap. The public pools in NYC are free but they won't let you in without a padlock. The pool here at the Medical University of South Carolina is excellent, nice, clean, new, with a great weekly rate. There's an indoor running track above your head. It even has a spin drier for your swimmers. I could possibly write a book Pools I Have Known. It is definitely a theme running through my life.
Note here the rattlesnake motif in the gates he designed for the mansion that belonged to Gadsden who designed the 'Don't Tread on Me' flag from the War of Independence. Look close. Simmons prided himself on how he tapered the ends.
Then there is also Antwon Ford the master sweetgrass basket maker or 'spinner', or Charleston's early women artists like Henrietta de Beaulieu Dering Johnston.
You notice sounds too, not necessarily the chuck-chuck-chuck of woodpeckers such as you would hear around Falls Church, but the constant sound of fire engines in this wooden city - and their really ugly horns. You hear them several times a day.
Then there are the incredible sloping porches. Why? Do they get torrential rain here?
I notice little differences because I compare the swimming pools in the various places. They often have their own rules, which you don't know about until you've broken them. At the YMCA in Greenpoint (New York), the attendant yelled at me because I was keeping a circular motion around the centre line (as you would in Australia). 'No, no, no, straight up and down,' he yelled as if I was an idiot for not knowing. I also found out, after I'd arrived, that I was meant to have my own bathing cap. The public pools in NYC are free but they won't let you in without a padlock. The pool here at the Medical University of South Carolina is excellent, nice, clean, new, with a great weekly rate. There's an indoor running track above your head. It even has a spin drier for your swimmers. I could possibly write a book Pools I Have Known. It is definitely a theme running through my life.
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