(It's butterfly migration time)
Hello out there! We hope that peace and happiness prevails with you all. Everything is fine with us here in Savannah, and we’re back with an update.Actually, not a whole lot has been happening with us since we last wrote. On Sunday the 13th, we decided to start off the week by going to church, so we went to St. James A.M.E. Church in Savannah. The service was very similar to most of the others we attended; however, there was one funny thing. Jesse noticed that there was a pair of dice on the cushion of the bench where we were sitting. He pointed it out to JoAnn who whispered that maybe the dice had been sanctified. Jesse decided to leave them there. (P.S. Two weeks later, we went back to the church, same pew, to see if the dice were still there. They were. – That’s one way to get us to come back.)
On Friday Jesse took a 12:30 am train up to D.C. to pick up his car that he had left with Ayo, and to help her pick out one for herself. It was a great trip. Jesse got to hang out with his kids and thoroughly enjoyed that quality time with them. Ayo got an 87 Camry to get her through the school year. Friday evening, Jesse took Kofi to Aikido practice where Kofi was given the challenge of instructing a younger child. On Saturday they went to Kofi’s African drumming class. Jesse was one proud grand dad. That afternoon Ayo and Jesse went to a street festival on “V” Street NW, which wasn’t all that impressive, but they had fun hanging together. Then, that night Heshima treated Jesse to a “father and son” steak dinner which was very enjoyable, after which they went to the Bohemian Cavern for a jazz set. The whole evening made Jesse very happy. One thing that stood out during this visit was the drastic change in the character and demography along “U” street that has taken place over the years. Folks who are familiar with the area (or 125th Street in Harlem for that matter) will know what that means; what they call “gentrification.” Sunday afternoon, Jesse, Ayo, and Heshima took Kofi to the go-kart race track and everybody took a few turns around the track. Needless to say, Kofi loved it. And he’s a very good driver.
While Jess was gone, Jo found ways to fill her time. On Saturday, she and Sara spent an afternoon at Tybee beach; a beautiful day for a beach wedding and wind surfing.
(Can you find the wind surfer?)
That evening, she went “solo” to an evening of jazz standards sung by Claire Frazier in the garden of the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum. In true “Slo-vannah” fashion, Jo thought she would be getting there in time for the 2nd set (the starting time was 7pm) only to find out when she arrived at 7:45 that the very first song was just ending. So she got to see the whole program sitting next to a young (30-something) sister who is a newcomer to Savannah. Around noon on Monday, Jo had a very interesting picnic lunch in Forsyth Park with Sara. Jo was sitting on the park bench when Sara pointed out this little black animal scampering very quickly towards us. When Jo turned around, all of a sudden they heard snorting. Well, it was a pot-belly pig which had gotten loose and had about 4 college students running around the park trying to catch it. First they tried luring it into a dog carrier which some other people had brought their 9 dalmation puppies to the park in. When the pig would not go anywhere near the carrier, they tried to get the pig to go inside a fenced in tennis court. That attempt also failed. After about 30 minutes, the college students just left, but along came a police officer who was not having any better luck. When we left the park (after about an hour), the officer was on his cell phone calling for back up. As we were walking back to the car, we passed some brothers who had been hanging out on one of the benches. They told us that they had been watching this fiasco since 8am. We thought this would be a great story for a slow news day, but it didn’t make it. Jo wonders if they ever caught the pig. Too bad she didn’t have a video camera. After the lunch, they took in a stained glass art show by Erica Rollings at the city’s art gallery, S.P.A.C.E. It was fabulous. Two major subjects were anatomy parts and game boards. The photos on her web site really don’t show how vibrant the glass is, but they are the next best thing to being there. Here are Jo’s pictures.
Jesse returned to Savannah on Tuesday and we were glad to see each other. This was the longest amount of time we have been apart in ages. Thursday evening, we went to the Savannah Jazz Festival “blues night” at Forsyth Park and found it to be a pretty nice gathering of mainly caucasian people and a line-up of regional groups with Mose Alison headlining the evening. We heard Tybee Beach calling us on Friday, so we answered the call and went along with sandwiches and beer. The weather was perfect-not too hot, and not too cool.
Moon River
Saturday morning, Jesse went fishing on the Moon River (while Jo read and tried taking pictures of the butterflies that are migrating south). Jesse caught one decent size croaker, big enough for lunch; all the others were way too small so Jesse threw them back. We both had fun.Well that’s it for now. We’ll check in with you all later. Stay well.
JoAnn and Jesse
