Editor’s Note: The Staff Meeting this morning was subdued and in keeping with the steady cold rain falling on the gravel between the loading dock at the barn and the green-covered table inside the headquarters building. The discussion veered wildly between that meteorological matter and mention that it has been a really frosty April across Central Europe. Germany so far has seen its second coldest April since records began in 1881, and the absolute chilliest since the war year of 1917. That could have led to a fuller discussion of the changing climate, currently trending colder, which we loyally attributed to a function of warming. Or changing. Or something.

Masks worn during the meeting have added to the generally surreal nature of most Monday gatherings. There were plenty of other issues lying about the table, including the remarkable greeting of the Prime Minister of Japan in Washington, and the status of nesting vultures in the Piedmont. The legal staff seemed willing to accept an examination of the Migratory Species Act of 1918, since the review of the 1934 Firearms Control Act appears mostly complete.

The two surveys provide useful counterpoint to other critical issues. The former Act also protects non-migratory species while the latter legislation does not appear to address anything relevant to the current role of citizen and government. The legal beagles chuckled, since all the work, necessary or not, provides billable hours. That is welcome, of course, except for some bottom-line issues of concern further up the table. We returned to the matter involving production of light-hearted and mildly ironic stories and we laughed.

The consensus view was that Marlow could have an answer, as he unfolds his remarkable story of relocation in a nation that has become a Hemingway-style moveable feast.

– Vic

Author’s Note: Today’s offering is a short draft of a second follow-on to my earlier Now and Then story. It needs some work to fit into the larger flow. I’m working on the promised de-interments that might fit in as follow-ons.

Onward.

Happy Hours await.

-Marlow

Arrival

W and I hurried down last few feet of gangplank and across quay upon our arrival in the city many years ago. Our new Victorian shed was highlighted by multiple corbels, gingerbread and four or five different complimentary tints of paint – she was close to being a painted lady. Since the neighborhood was, like the house upon its restoral six years prior, one in transition, several floodlights, security cameras and a hugely expensive security system had been installed and loudly and proudly announced by metal signs implanted on stakes in the front garden. The garden and its parterres were sparsely planted to keep surprise attack or B&E entrance places to a minimum.

A previous neighbor directly across the street, a retired DEA officer, had importuned the city or federal authorities to emplace a 24/7 omni-vision camera system, high up on a streetlamp pole that made life a bit safer — thus moving the hookers, johns, drug dealers, pimps, dopers, and east and west side gang-bangers to the alleys out back of our houses along Park Avenue one block away from Forsyth Park. To reinforce his message to those of his concern, he used to do his gardening armed with his holstered service revolver. He and his wife, due to their looks, speech patterns and northern manners, were nicknamed Thurston and Lovey. T & L aged out of the hood, but their legacy, but memories lived on strong of those stalwarts in the hearts and minds of those who remained from Park Avenue’s wild west times during the 80s and 90s.

As I was told, Savannah, if nothing else, was and remains covetous in its marking new immigrants with distinctive, known-only-to-residents monikers. It was an honor to have such lovingly bestowed upon you.

(As my previous tales and photos have shown, some things changed — our garden and house colors freshened, then the gardens of neighbors and now the houses colors along the block.)

What we saw that long ago August day was the sweating faces of locals and tourists shine in the hot near-tropic day. Almost by chance did I see, as the movers emptied two big box trucks of our southernmost stuff into our new house, local enforcement and do-gooders checked on the street folks.

Opposite these officials did straggle up the hood’s needy, hungry, sketchy and dangerous. Mostly as shabby-looking as the neighborhood had been a brief ten years earlier. The officials reached out and took the free city or state issued IDs from the person directly in front of them. Their names were called out with the individual required to assent that he/she was the so named. Checks were made on clip-boarded sheets of paper with the person then transferred to one or more other folks for services, interviews, parole check ins, food, wellness checks and healthcare.

A brief while later with IDs, appointment and bus fare cards, and/or food in hands They were free to go back to their places along the street, bus shelters or alley lane hidey holes. All of them were known by their proper first names by their housed neighbors.

I now suspect that more than a snitch or two made his report during these public visitations.

Thus, did Savannah show us what is possible when caring for one’s neighbors. What a concept.

One of these folks caught my eye — an angular Latino with a saturnine face and an attractive yet skeletal female (his wife perhaps). His quick, jerky movements gave him the appearance of a small, scuttling spider. From that I knew they were some of our small ward’s meth heads and the reason for many of our block’s first floor house windows being shuttered. Ours behind the four-foot-high, cast iron, gated fence along the sidewalk were not and remain so.

This place was one strange time piece I concluded. I searched for introductory studies online to no avail. Their history and construction would come in dribs and drabs until I met the ward’s unofficial historian – Ted Annis.

His story must await a later telling.

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