6/10/2018

Weekly Update 6/10/2018

Since I read a very good book, Hero of the Empire, about Winston Churchill's service in the Boer War (and I’d actually read it for TLC book club, and really enjoyed it), and since the topic at the library book club this month was a biography of the readers choice, I went. I haven’t been there in quite a long time. But, hey, I wasn’t doing anything else, and I hoped that I might get some ideas for good reads (I did). The group was so large, and the books so interesting, it ran over and we were there with our discussions for an additional half hour. Maybe I’ll go back to this one again, who knows.

Tuesday the Lunch Bunch met at Belford’s at City Market. A member who had moved away was back in town for a visit, and it was very good to see Susan again. The lunch was good too.

The Georgia Historical Society unveiled a new marker in Chatham Square Thursday. It honors Louis Toomer, who established a bank in 1927 which is now known as the Carver State Bank, and is the oldest bank headquartered in the Savannah area.

I also went to a Savannah Bananas game this week. Baseball is boring, but the French Open tennis has also been quite boring this year, so I hardly noticed the difference between a sport I like and one I don’t care about. There were some exciting moments, like when the Bananas came from behind to take the lead in the fifth inning, but I left shortly after that. Apparently, it went to extra innings and the home team won in the 10^th.

Saturday was Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the US. The Jepson Center hosted an event which highlighted African American art, history and Gullah-Geechee culture through performances and family activities. Well, I don’t have family here, but Jane and I attended the performances. There was much history to learn, and most of it I was not taught a thousand years ago when I went to school, so it presented another wonderful opportunity for me to get more knowledge. Vaughnette Goode Walker and Jamal Toure, two of my favorite African American guides and story tellers in Savannah, were featured and told fascinating stories of the rejoicing and optimism that the enslaved populations in Savannah felt when emancipation was proclaimed in 1865. The Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters is a group of singers that sang songs that the slaves would have known, many with lyrics about freedom. I found it most interesting that one of the singers was introduced as being 92 years old, and blind, but she participated and enjoyed sharing the songs as much as the others. Amazing.