A Grand Strand Visit to the Franklin G. Burroughs - Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum

Today I visited a gem of a little museum, the Franklin G. Burroughs - Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Walking in I began with John Baeder's Road Well Taken which was a delightful walk through the diners of yesteryear.  Through his "photorealistic paintings and prints of roadside diners" I recalled eating at the Miss Worchester in Massachusetts and several of the New Jersey diners featured in his work.



I didn't take any shots of his work (cause I hope you'll go see it) but attached to this exhibit space there was a darling little cafe-like room set-up like a little diner to have a glass of tea or buy a cookie.

Actually, I went to see the exhibit of Norman Rockwell's illustrations of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. 

[Okay I'll confess though it will change the way some people see me — I do not believe I have ever read either of these American classics. How this happened I know not.  I changed schools.  Perhaps I missed the assignment moving from one school to another.  I know. I know.  What an admission!  It's just shocking. How is this even possible?]

Although no photography of Rockwell's works was permitted, the exhibit featured several vignettes and interactive features that I could shoot — read and see for yourself ...

The vignette below was of the schoolroom and included a recreation of Rockwell's studio setting where he painted his self-portraits.  With mini-clipboards, black construction paper, and white crayons, visitors were asked to draw their own image and then hang on display ...

Here is mine and here is another self-portrait done by someone who is FAR more talented than I am!

                      

Another significant scene of this classic was Tom whitewashing the fence and all the loot he gathered in payment for others being allowed the privilege of painting the fence!

Besides John Baeder's diners and Norman Rockwell's Americana, there was a wonderful exhibit of Sandy Logan's abstract works and then I went upstairs to the charming second floor with its exhibit space featuring paintings of the local area by a local artist (I don't know why this place is called the Grand Strand...) 

 

and an absolutely wonderful art studio for kids.

I rounded out the visit by stopping in the gift shop which had very wonderful things, including notecards made by a local artist and museum employee with a beachy sense of humor.   But before I left, I was struck by the view from the second floor of this little house museum and one of the placards in the Rockwell exhibit.  It reminded me how important literature and the arts are and how they can be taken away if we are not careful. [See the "Fun Fact" below.]

 










As I headed for the car (my friend's car) I made one last stop to chalk in my remark on the exhibit outside...

 If I write it, will you read it?

An Auspicious Beginning

Guess somebody else had the same idea.

I got married late (33) after many failed mishaps with older men, married men, and numerous short-term flops — from bar encounters, blind dates and Club Med calamities.  At one point (when my Gramma asked me for the four thousandth time, “When you gonna get married hokeesie?”) I considered parading up and down Madison Avenue wearing a sandwich board sign with the message 

READY 

FOR 

  MARRIAGE   

No, I did not resort to that.  But it was the age of dating before cell phones, the Internet and texting.  At the time, the most advanced (and risqué) form of dating was placing a  personal ad in the back of

                                                                    Magazine

and though I remember writing and rewriting what I hoped would encapsulate me in 75 words or less, I know I never actually paid and placed an ad. Too chicken or too cheap.

So when I met my future partner — through a chance meeting with his sister on a plane to the middle of America (we were headed to St. Louis; for that story read here) — I was incredibly happy to have finally found someone I loved, laughed with, was a great fit sexually, and — to make it even better — who felt the same way about me.  

The early years were fun and challenging.  To begin with I had never lived with a guy and I wasn't planning to do so now.  To start our life together, we needed to find an apartment in Manhattan we could afford.  Given our work circumstances then, it was his job to scout out places, narrow down the options, and bring me to the ones fitting our requirements and budget — a real Everest of a challenge.  

The first option he scheduled an appointment for was a small one bedroom at 97^th and Fifth.  It was sweet and just a block from an entrance to Central Park, but at $1800 @ month — what was he thinking?? [This should have been my first indicator that finances weren't his forte.] 

The next was an apartment in the opposite direction, Chelsea on West 25^th, close to Ninth Avenue.  It had an Art Deco feel and a sunken living room but...it was dark inside, far from the subway, and $1500 @ month.  Yes, better, but still a no.

Then, a large loft-style place on East 14^th for $1200 @ month — he was getting better at this.  Open plan, light-filled, high-ceilinged BUT — you had to “buy” the kitchen the previous tenant had installed ($800 bucks!)and in the walls at floor-level there were these very large, dangerous looking grates for heat.  Horrifyingly I imagined our someday-child crawling in and being grilled alive on the spot.  This apartment?  No way.  

He was very discouraged.

Finally, an apartment he was convinced would meet ALL my expectations.  A four-story building with an apartment on each floor on a lovely tree-lined street (it was in fact the street he was already living on — East 89^th close to First Avenue).    I liked it.  It had charm.  It was quiet, it had light and the price was the best we’d encountered — just $1000 @ month!  Still — it was a fourth-floor walk-up.  I couldn't imagine hiking up and down those four flights of stairs with the groceries or the trash — let alone a stroller and a diaper bag and a baby one day.  I had to say no.

My soon-to-be husband was dejected at this rejection.  Frustrated from looking every day, convinced that nothing, nothing, NOTHING would please me, HE was ready to give up.  [Maybe this was his first indicator of what it would be like living with thinking-through-every-last-detail crazy me.] 

Things were at a stand-still and still, we had no apartment.  It was already April.  The wedding was in May.  The where-are-we-gonna-live clock was ticking.  I suggested that we walk building to building on the east side in the 20s and 30s in the neighborhood where I was living — bordering Gramercy Park.  I’d met a woman who managed a small brownstone on Lexington at 31^st and in my mind surely we could/would get an apartment in that building so we headed to the premises.   When we arrived on her stoop, the landlady sweetly said with a smile, “Nothing available” and shut the door in our dumbfounded faces.

I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I had pinned all my hopes on that  apartment.  We had no choice but to continue on. Door by door, building by building, we kept walking.   Up and down numbered side streets we zigzagged our way through “No” after “No” after “No.”  We walked between Second Avenue, Third Avenue, and Lexington, block after block after block.  We were tired and cranky and discouraged.  After walking forty blocks in two and a half hours with no success, we were just about back to where we started.  We were standing a block from where I was living in an 800 square-foot studio that I owned (or more accurately the bank owned) with a doorman, no natural light, and much too much stuff to ever clear enough space for another human being without my feeling displaced and resentful.  If we had to resort to living in MY studio we sure-as-shootin' were gonna be starting off this marriage on the WRONG foot.

Feet aching and hungry, we rounded the corner at Lexington and 24^th, placing us on my block in front of the shop for all things equestrian, H Kauffman & Sons with its yellow wooden carousel horse parked outside the doors.  Across the street was a building I’d always wondered about…brick with these enormous leaded glass windows six feet high by eight feet wide!  At the top of the maybe ten floors was a two-story penthouse with windows even more spectacular. 

“Let’s go in,” I said as I crossed the street.

“Not another one,” he groaned, “Aren’t you tired of all this?”

“Yes, but just this last one.”

Inside the vestibule looking at the buzzers I pressed the one labeled SUPER.

A fairly decrepit old man shuffled to the door and stuck his head out. “Yes?” he queried.

“Hello, we’re looking for an apartment and I’ve always admired this building.  I live around the corner at 330 Third and I was wondering, are there any apartments available for rent?  We’re getting married and we need a one-bedroom.”

He stared at me intently with his unshaven whiskered face.  He opened the door for us.  “Come in.”

We were ushered into a door just off the vestibule into a messy office with old desks and office furniture, a haphazard accumulation of things that were probably left over and abandoned by others. The super slowly made his way to the back of the long room, went through a door and came back with a white-haired elderly woman. 

“I’m Mrs. Booke. I own the building. What do you want?”

I repeated what I’d said at the door but added that I owned a studio around the corner, that we were getting married in three months, and that we were very reliable.

“We don’t have anything," she snapped and said suspiciously, "Who sent you here?”

“No one.  No one sent us.  I pass this building every day.   I love the windows and I’ve always wanted to see what it was like inside.  We’ve been out all day looking for an apartment and not finding anything.  I just wanted to stop and ask.”

“We have nothing available.” she stated very firmly.

“We’re very good tenants and would take excellent care of an apartment," I said making my case.  " We both work and expect to stay in the city for a long time.  You’d be getting really trustworthy tenants.” 

“There are no vacancies.” Mrs. Booke declared, but, I kept on trying to convince her.

After five minutes my exasperated fiancé was whispering insistently in my ear, “There are NO apartments. I’m really hungry and tired.  Let’s GO!  She already said ten times that nothing’s available!” I heard the tone in his voice and I felt his frustration with me.  He didn’t understand why I was still talking when her answer was clear.  But my persistent nature allowed me to shut out his annoyance, ignore his breath on my neck, and keep making the case that we were a wonderful couple for anyone to have under their roof.

He was more than ready to give up.

I was just beginning to dig in.  

Then after more of my talk about the need for a fresh start and the wedding date and the impracticality of a couple in a studio, Mrs. Booke begrudgingly offered, “I may have something.” 

Twenty minutes after first walking in that door, a chink! 

I rushed on with a tumble of words. “Mrs. Booke you’ll NEVER be sorry with tenants like us, so I HOPE you’ll show us whatever you have, because we’d be VERY interested in seeing it,” I said anticipating a possible triumph.  The wizened, old super who had been listening to this whole exchange was quietly smiling, scratching his stubble.   My partner was utterly dumfounded.  

“My tenant in 2R is moving out and the girls upstairs on seven wanted it, but perhaps Frank can show it to you.”

Compared to everything we’d seen it was huge.  Living room/dining room 12’ wide by 30’ long with nine-and-a-half-foot ceilings!    A doorway (no door) into an incredibly small kitchen with a compact four-burner oven, next to a big stainless steel sink, jammed next to a tiny 4’ high frig complete with a minuscule top freezer.  Not a single inch of counter space. Some metal cabinets above that would require a stool for me to reach the upper shelves.  A narrow rectangular chicken-wired window covered in pigeon poo that looked out into an alley.  No view but at least some natural light.   Everything was in arm’s reach. You could stand in that kitchen and turn around but that was all you could do.  

This is an updated, renovated, today-version of the apt
we had back then with its HUGE casement windows.  
Our place never looked THAT good.

A 1950s pink and gray tile bathroom — dated yes, but perfectly serviceable.

A decent bedroom with decent closets.  Best of all the living room and the bedroom had these ENORMOUS inset casement windows 6’ high by 8’ wide.  True, being on the second floor there was no view to speak of, but the buildings behind us were only three stories high so we would get southern light during the day.

My heart was pounding.  Back in the office Mrs. Booke was fiddling with her papers.  I was trying to suck in the torrent of words about to pour from my mouth begging her to let us have the place.  I dreaded the question that had to be asked.

“It’s perfect, perfect, perfect.  We love it.   I hope you’ll be willing to let us come start our married life here.  Can you — can you tell me the rent?”  In my mind I was already thinking, given what we'd seen, we would go as high as $1100 if we had to, because we HAD TO get this apartment.  

“Well, I’ll have to check on it and let you know because the previous tenant was here for a long time (22 years it turned out) but I think it’s going to be — she took a breath (ours was bated, waiting for the financial shoe to drop) — it should be around $600.”

SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS!   $587.42 cents to be exact, once all the paperwork was complete.  It was this great apartment, at an amazing rent, in the neighborhood I already knew and loved.  

In Manhattan?  This was a MIRACLE — and an incredibly auspicious beginning to our 29-year marriage. 

It Only Takes a Moment

For most people making a life change like mine, there's a plan.




I had no plan.




I only knew I couldn't move forward until I left my home, left my marriage.




Once I began to tell my friends, one I had known for 35 years (but hadn't seen in 15!) invited me to come stay in her home in exchange for part-time work in her shop.  It was an unexpected offer and one that intrigued me. Elena had an antique/consignment business — and I loved rearranging things and setting up displays, plus my decades of thrift-store shopping meant I had an abundance of things to sell.  It seemed very fortuitous and she lived just ten minutes from the ocean — a huge bonus for me.




The ocean is a place of refuge for me.  The smell of briny water, the echoey crash of the waves pounding in on the shore reverberating in one's ears, the intense heat of the sun baking your skin to a darker, more flattering color.  The ocean always made me feel good, made me feel better and that was exactly what I was looking for so, I accepted her invitation, packed the car with boxes of china, pottery, knickknacks, clothes to sell, and supplies from Trader Joe's — Thai Red Curry Sauce, Epicuro wines (and two-buck Chuck), sparkling pomegranate juice, vinegars, pasta, pesto sauce, pitted Kalamata olives — the works.

I drove out of town on my own with no plan other than to get to South Carolina.  I wasn't much looking forward to the four-hour ride but it was a Saturday and the middle of the day when there'd be the least traffic.  Unlike my usual self, I drove UNDER the speed limit the entire way.  I didn't even have my phone out because I didn't want to be distracted by calls or tempted to answer them.  I was being exceptionally careful.   

More than three hours in to the trip, I was on a small two-lane highway going 45 mph in a 55 zone.  I glanced down at my GPS to see how much further before I had to make a change in direction — saw twenty-two miles, looked back up and there — smack in front of me — was the back of a black pick-up truck.

SLAM!  Without time to even step on the brakes, I smashed in to this truck that seemed to be stopped in the road.  And then there was steam or smoke coming out of the hood, my car door was being opened, and a woman from I-don't-know-where was frantically urging me.

“Honey you gotta get out of this car NOW.  Can you move?  We gotta get you out honey.  EARL! Come help me GET HER OUTTA THE CAR!!”

“I can get out but I can’t get out without my phone, my laptop and my chargers,” I stupidly replied.

“Now honey you’re be gonna be okay but you gotta FORGET about those things and get outta this car.  EARL!!  C’mon now honey,”  she implored, hands waving, hair falling in her face.

Chest heaving I repeated in a strangely high-pitched voice, “I can’t leave without my phone and laptop!” I was starting to get hysterical as I saw the pieces of my car scattered over the highway, saw the crack in the windshield, saw the front of my Toyota bunched up against the passenger side of the car.

I knew the laptop and chargers were in my black bag stashed on the car floor right below the impact, so I dragged the heavy bag out but couldn’t find my phone.  The woman’s voice was still insisting I get out of the car.

 

Slowly it was sinking in.

I’d had an accident. 

My car was badly smashed.

I wasn’t going to be able to drive the rest of the way to Elena’s.

I couldn’t find my phone anyplace and then I realized it was still in my pocketbook.   So with the woman’s hand on my arm lifting and leading me out, I started to exit the car.

Another woman was bringing a folding chair from Clemmon's Seed, Feed and More to the edge of the road so I could sit down.  The ladies from the feed store were looking out for me until the ambulance could get there.  I never saw the truck I'd hit (it rolled off the road and into a telephone pole) or the guy in it who had slowed down to turn in to the feed store.  When I sat down I saw broken pieces of my car — the glass, plastic, and hubcaps littering the roadway — I began sobbing and crying out:

“OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, MY CAR, MY CAR!  LOOK AT MY CAR! IS THE OTHER GUY ALRIGHT? IS HE OKAY?”

EMS workers showed up, started looking me over and getting me into the ambulance while I kept repeating “OH MY GOD, IS THE OTHER GUY ALRIGHT?” as they kept taking my vitals and reassuring me everything was going to be alright.

“The other guy is refusing to go to the hospital so he’s walking on his own steam.  He’s gonna be fine and so are you but you should let us take you to get checked out.” And off we went to the local medical center.

Three hours later a PA saw me.  No broken bones, no injuries other than significant bruising across my chest (seat belt doing its job) and a painful knee.  Two more hours before I could be released but to where?

The officer who'd been on the scene came to give me the paperwork.  My ticket said I "failed to reduce speed to avoid a collision."

"Isn't there en-knee one you can call?" Officer Ransom asked in his thick Southern drawl.


"No, my husband is more than three hours away and he offered to come, but he can't leave his mom unattended and that would be six hours back and forth.  My friend is over an hour away and not available until later."

"Whay-ell, I cud drive you to the state border but that's as far as I kin go.  Maybe your fr-end cud meet you there?" he offered.

"No, it doesn't make any sense.  I'd just have to come back here Monday with a rental car to get all my stuff.  OH MY GOD, my stuff.  Where is my car?  Do you think it can be fixed?"

"Well m'am, I'll leave that to Mr. Babson to say, but I'd say it was pretty well wrecked.  We tried to move it off the highway but it just wouldn't move no way.  So we had to have it towed to the salvage yard.  Now, I'm off in an hour and I don't think you're getting out of this place before then seeing as nobody's seen you yet, so I'm on tomorrow at 7am and I'm gonna give you a number to call and they'll call me and then I'll call you and I can drive you over to Mr. Babson's if you like.  It ain't far and if he's willing, I can take you there so you can get some of your things outta your car."  I looked at this as a great kindness.

"Is there a place to stay around here?" I asked realizing that I'd have to find somewhere to stay for two nights as I wouldn't hear from the insurance adjuster until Monday and I'd found out that there wasn't any car rental place within 45 minutes that would be open before Monday.  The one place that was nearer had closed at noon.

Officer Ransom looked at me and said, "Well u're gonna have to go about ten miles from here where there's a Days Inn cause that's the nearest place to stay.  And yu're gonna have to take a cab there because there's no other way to get there.  But don't you worry, I'll come get'ya in the morning to get yur things.  You just call that number." and he and his beige Highway Patrol hat and uniform rose to leave.

I called the Days Inn.  I told the clerk I didn't have my Triple A card with me but I had Triple A.  He said he'd believe me and save me a room.  I told him I'd had an accident and didn't have a car.  He said to call Royal Cab and tell them my "situation." 

"What about a restaurant? Do you have one?"   I hadn't eaten in hours and whatever food I'd brought with me was in the car.

"No m'am. We do have a continental breakfast in the morning, but no restaurant on the premises."

"Anything within walking distance?"

"Just the funeral home next door," he replied.  I was certainly glad I wasn't going there.

I called Royal Cab and got the nicest woman.  Told her I needed to stop and get some food.

"Fast food?" she asked.

"Not fast food.  I need real food. Good food."

"Well we got Angelo's and that's Italian and pretty good.  Your driver can take you there and if you call in your order will then that would really help ya out.  Now usually we charge ya $22 for the trip and making one stop — but we'll just charge ya $15 seeing as you're having some troubles tonight."

When I got to my motel room all I wanted to do was get into my pajamas and crawl into bed.  But then I realized — I don't have any pajamas.  I don't have any clothes or my toothbrush or just about anything except my laptop, iPhone and chargers.

At least I had those.  And Netflix.

The dinner from Angelo's was delicious.  I took my painkillers and had a decent night's sleep. In the morning Officer Ransom picked me up and took me to Babson's where Mister Babson came out of his house and unlocked the yard so we could get to my car, pry open the door and get to my luggage.  One look at my car and I started crying all over again.  

Mr. Babson told me flat out there was no salvaging the car.  In a moment my best little 96 Toyota Corolla would be no more.

I tried to think what was the takeaway message from this calamity?   Was it true as many therapists would say "There are no accidents" ?  What was the universe trying to tell me? 

Whatever it was I didn't know.  But I knew that despite this pretty awful setback, I wasn't going back.  I wanted to keep moving forward. Car or no car.

On Sunday afternoon I got a call from the Days Inn manager Dave.  He was home but wondered if I'd gotten out to get any dinner.

"Oh no, I haven't been anywhere — I'm feeling pretty sore but don't worry — I saved half my dinner from the other night for tonight.  And I had yogurt and fruit from breakfast for lunch.  I'm okay Dave."

"Well if you like pizza, I'm gonna send you a pizza for dinner and that way you'll have something leftover for lunch."  And before I knew it there was a knock at my door and the delivery guy brought me a pizza, a dessert pizza, and a liter of soda. 

It was the nicest thing. 

It was again, the kindness of strangers.

On Monday when I took the rental car to get all my things out of my car, not one single thing was broken.  Not the china, not the wine, not the plates, not the pottery, not the knickknacks.  Not one single thing in the car or the trunk.  Very lucky.

I was lucky I wasn't hurt worse.  Lucky the airbags didn't deploy and break my nose.  Lucky not to be paralyzed. Lucky the other guy wasn't either.  Lucky to be alive.   

Because Nationwide took care of the claim and settled with the other driver, the ticket was dismissed, I didn't have to show up in court or pay any court fees or fines.

All in all I have to say — I was feeling unbelievably lucky.

Maybe, just maybe, that was the message.