ON THE ROAD, FINALLY

We departed Port Wentworth, GA.  this morning after settling up with the shop. On the way out I noticed this new 2014 poster promoting all of Cummin’s ONAN generator’s made especially for the RV market.  It had been our routine generator overhaul that first brought us here four weeks ago.

I was quite amazed to discover that the coach the Cummin’s ad folks had decided to place on the top half of this poster as their signature example of a class A diesel powered by their brand was a 2006 Western Recreational vehicle WRV (out of business since 2009) 35 foot Alpine. Yes, this is the very coach we own. Except for the slight variation in rear driver side slide-out bedroom layout (note the window where our wardrobe is).

I rather think the Cummin’s people don’t know enough about coach styles to have caught this obvious to me mistake, but coaches have changed appearance, especially up front, quite a bit in the last 8 years.

And this one has a similar paint package as well!  All that’s missing is the makers WRV oval seal in the center of the front generator slide out. As I said, I was amazed. And so was Dewayne, the shop manager, when I pointed it out to him.

South; down the map; in the direction of the winter sun. But the weather here at our destination, Brunswick, Georgia, is only two degrees above than at Savannah. Well, we only drove 76 miles south.  We could certainly have driven farther.  The keys are only about 4-5 hours away.  But there are FORTS here!  And a few other things.

We were prepared to stay at Blythe Island UMC but learned from their former pastor that the lot would not hold us.  So we took the advice of the Sparks, John and Debi, who we met at ‘Camp Cummins’ and we are trying out a Home Depot. They close at night but are patrolled by police, so are very quiet.  We hear most Lowes are just as happy to have RVers stay with them.

After a great Chick-Fil-A lunch (we had to be good neighbors) we hung around the coach, read, watched a bit of a movie and then headed to ‘Historic Downtown Brunswick’.  I mean nothing disparaging by placing the title in quotes.  Brunswick’s first settler arrived here in 1738, so the appellation historic certainly applies. 

But EVERY town, darn near, which we have driven through, or by, has an historic downtown.  Sadly, this so often means run down but promising; a real fixer-upper, as the realtor would say about some homes she has for sale. And sadly Brunswick’s downtown, though newly paved and decorated about the common areas, is about 70% empty of tenants.

But, we didn’t let that diminish the joy of seeing fascinating architecture in the old Town Hall.  Gargoyles and well cut and laid marble made it a pleasure to contemplate and they’ve done a nice job keeping it up.

Once Brunswick was filled with almost as many pretty green squares as Savannah, and they call this townscaping in the ‘Oglethorpe Plan’ since this was his design for Savannah originally. We saw only one of the remaining parks in such nice condition, but what caught my eye was its Confederate Memorial.

Every town of any size in a former state of the Confederacy has its ‘War of Northern Aggression’ memorial, and almost all of them are exactly identical.  Slouch hatted casually dressed infantryman. Well, after Grant, Sheridan and Sherman came through it took decades to bring the economy back and statues were no doubt last on the community budget agendas. This one was placed in 1902. But it was not its age that made me notice it.  It was its statement.

You see, we have found and photographed many such monuments as we have traveled the south, both this year and in years past. In each case we have found subtle, guarded, and sometimes slightly pro-Rebel sentiments etched in stone but almost always the words imply only the bravery of the lost and maimed soldiers, not the rightness of their cause.  This one went farther.

Knowing what I do about the post Civil War South, the Reconstruction years and the long, long Jim Crow South I believe this 1902 monument said what every other town we’ve passed through so far wanted to say but were afraid to.  I think if my community had given our all in blood, sweat, treasure and tears and lost a war, and the peace, I also would feel this way.

I doubt there are 2 in 10 of our current southern American citizens who think about the loss of the Civil War as a personal issue today. But those 2 do exist, and it is necessary for me to be conscious of their continuing hurt, and beliefs.  Especially when I’m driving a Pennsylvania licensed big, slow, bus that keeps them from getting where they want to be!

Final stop was just for a photo-op at an old style Mickey-D’s.  I haven’t seen one with the seventies style golden arches since we visited Scranton, Pa. about 10 years ago. The style I first ever saw had the same arches but no sit down dining, just walk up.

Ah, the memories of me tooling Mona’s V-8 Plymouth Valiant off the Harrisburg route 22 strip into a screeching stop in front of those arches. “Say, two cheeseburgers, fries and cokes please.” No combo meals back then.

Tomorrow and Monday promises to be a bit warmer. We hope so.  We look forward to visiting some of these deep south ‘Golden Isles’ as the local tourist boards call them. And some forts.

-Ken