I grew up, luckily, as a sailor, with only a distant offshore relationship with land war and soldiering. As my DNA gifted preordained me to sinking in water, I learned how to swim at an early age.

That life skill proved very worthwhile when I first jumped in the darkwater pool that I came to know as Savannah’s nightlife.

Human’s taste systems are specialized for the niche we occupy in the environment. We are hunters and foragers of forests and their edges’ grassy plains, and our earliest forebears evolved a taste for important but scarce nutrients: salt and high-energy fats, flesh, sugars, grains and alcohols. That, in a nutshell, explains the widespread popularity of junk food after a long and heavy night out on the town. Been there, done that many times since first arriving here.

Savannah is amazing with its live oak canopied town squares and their hanging Spanish moss and its Colonial era houses. It’s brutally romantic, if Hollywood scenic film captures are to be believed. To me, it’s that, but it’s also full of many creatures some of which sleep as deeply and soundly as lions, and after all, lions are the main reason for us newbies not to sleep soundly.

So, patience is a necessary virtue for the newly arrived in Savannah, to tolerate the delay of watching, observing but not being noticed and then hunted by its lions. This implies a wary self-control and forbearance, as opposed to wanting what we want when we want it. It is more than just something to think about, it is binary survival choice. Like the Australian art gallery owner who was gunned down two plus blocks away from our house on his way home from a dinner in a four-star hotel restaurant that overlooked Forsyth Park a few months after we moved here. This slaying lion did his work in the presence of the gallery owner’s wife. He was a gang banger making his mark kill as a means of entering a bandana wearing East side gang.

Yet, the street this Land of Oz newbie bled out on is a lovely pastel dream of elegantly dappled street light, live oak shaded, tightly laid Victorian era brick — a legendary scene that rivals any dreamed up by Tennessee Williams.

Since then, we have come to know that occasional happy fire is still a thing here. You get used to it, and begin to accurately gage caliber, range and azimuth, and the arrival time of local police to investigate. Some neighbors have a thing where they go out the morning after to look for and collect shell casings in lanes out back of their homes. At least there’s no used hypodermic needle litter anymore.

Slow and steady as she goes helm control makes our transitions in this place enjoyable, safe, and full of surprises. We live in a donut as the white cream streak in the center of a sweet dark chocolate cake donut.

We don’t think we are and, hence, have never been told that we’re special by the natives. The absolute worst I have ever been treated, the worst things that have been done to me, the worst things that have been said about me, were by northern liberal elites and assorted anti-war protesters over the years, not by the people of Savannah, Georgia. They are polite and sweet as pecan pie.

We all look out for our neighbors — all of them regardless of life stations, financial conditions, education etc. We are quietly enthusiastic about this place and its people. Respect is given by being heartful, mindful and soulful in our actions no matter how small. We admire without desire and are indifferent to our differences.

Funny how we humans got our evolutionary start in the African continent’s savannahs, only to find ourselves washed up upon these shores and living out our later years in this Savannah.

The lions down here can spot someone working a room, faking honesty or fair dealing a mile away. Some just hunt for sport.

So, beware.

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