Charleston

Charleston is a treasure chest. Once you pull out the gold, you find some gems and shiny stones have filled the hole you scooped out with your hand. And it never seems to end. And you never have enough gold in your pockets. And you just keep coming back. Also, somehow the gold is served with hushpuppies.

I'll let you in on one of my secrets: Longitude Lane. It's down in the oldest part of the city where the homes have survived The Revolution, The Civil War, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Fires, and the (insert president you hated) administration. Just south of the corner of E. Bay and Tradd St., on the right, if you're walking towards the Battery, left if away, is a shaded alley — that's Longitude Lane. It's just across the street from one of the three surviving pieces of the original city walls built in 1711.

The lane is a cobblestoned street some historians think is a survivor of the original streets of the 18th-century colony. It's barely wide enough for a golf cart. Palm trees and live oaks are hovering over it, shading it from the South Carolina sun, and they seem thick enough to be a portal to another world. Both sides of the little street are hemmed in by Georgian and Adam-Style houses, some of which have been here almost as long as the lane itself.

It's the only place I can sit and imagine what that town might have been like when Blackbeard was holding it hostage. Maybe a young Anne Bonnie ran away from her father down to the taverns on Tradd St, where she'd eventually find her way to Nassau and a pirate crew. Or perhaps Stede Bonnett fled down this street, making his escape to the harbor, which was his first step towards the hangman's noose (legend has it, he was dressed as a woman).

I regret writing this. Now I miss Charleston even more. Also, I want hushpuppies.