Charleston, South Carolina

I arrived in Charleston at the end of August for Erica's wedding on Sept. 4.  Here she is being the flower girl at my wedding:

On the bride's side there was her mom, her aunt (and my cousin) Linda, Phyllis (my (step)sister and Erica's um, 2nd cousin?), her Aunt Melinda (family friend), and me (taking the picture).

On the groom's side, there were these other approximately 150 people:

I don't know who these adorable people are, but they were playing with the props by the photo booth.

Here are my photo booth pictures with the bride:

I had never been to Charleston before and looked forward to meeting the groom and his familiy, visiting with my step-family who I had not seen in ages, and seeing the sights. We went to Ft. Moultrie (Ft. Sumter's sister fort, where the Civil War started, and the bride's mother and I did the historic walking tour at Charles Town Landing (where the wedding took place), and some other museum. I learned that King Charles not only imported into the Colonies indigo, tobacco and cotton seeds, he also imported ginger seeds, along with the entire slave based economy, from Barbados.  So, if a non-slave based economy had thrived in Barbados at the time, I may not have had the opportunity of visiting Market Street where the slaves had been bought and sold, or to visit any forts because there may never have been a Civil War.  For reasons long forgotten Folly Beach had been on my bucket list since the 80s, and I finally got to go.  The bride's mom and I waded in the warm Atlantic, had what had become our traditional afternoon drinks with the bride, and generally had a folly good time. Here we are at Fort Moultrie:

Charleston is beautiful.  Virgin forest is still in everyone's back yard.  You can easily see what the first settlors saw:  abundant forest everywhere, and so easy to chop down a couple of trees and clear off enough land for a house.  Some homes were lucky enough to be bordered by swamp with lazy weeping willows on one side and forest on the other - or unlucky enough, as flooding is a huge problem in Charleston.  The city is below sea level.  Often front yards have ditches where you would see sidewalks in any other city.  Us out-of-towners marveled that the bride and groom's family and friends were mostly all married, homeowners, had children and pets, and had as much employment as they wanted, 2 or 3 jobs. If you are looking for work and a spectacular lifestyle, consider Charleston, SC. And there's more - they have soft water!  


I had the best time, but the trip was emotional and tiring, and I returned home totally pooped. I'm re-thinking the idea of becoming a traveling vagabond in my retirement.  It was emotional because many long-standing misunderstandings came up that had to be clarified (which was wonderful, actually) but I ended up apologizing yet again, hopefully for the last time, for the  Mothership faux pas of my past.  Meeting all the bride's new in-laws, which are a loud, exuberant, big-hearted bunch, was exhausting, but left me feeling like I have a gazillion friends in Charleston.


One person I met, who is simply called "Sensei" (runs the dojo near them, is like a father to the groom and officiated at the wedding), walked into the house one day when it was filled with people (as it usually was) and sat down, unnoticed.  I asked him, "are you Sensei?"  He was, and it turns out is from Hawaii and knew the bowling alley where I was a waitress in 1969.  He even knew the name of it (even said it in Hawaiian), but I never knew its name.  It was "the bowling alley on Kamehameha Highway," just as where I lived then was simply "Wong's Village." Sensei did not know Mr. Wong, but he did know the bowling alley very well, and said they had great food there.  What a small world.


And speaking of great food, Sermet's on King Street (in the stylish shopping and dining area of Charleston) has the most delicious (and healthy) food, and if you go there you could end up getting your drinks made by this lovely creature:

Applying for the marriage license:

I left it up to the wedding photographer to take pictures of the actual wedding.  But I got their first dance:

The bride got exactly the wedding she wanted, which was for everyone she loved to be there, and for them all to have a great time. She arranged it all herself (with a wedding planner who told her she was her best bride), and they both paid for it themselves (the bar was one of the wedding gifts). The weather was great, and not rained out. It was the perfect wedding.

 

Oh, and they gave me the best room in the house (the bride's office)!  Sometimes I shared it with Ichi: