Downtown Charleston, brought to you by the Palmetto Council!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.For 2023 it was time at last to venture to the Carolinas, the only southern states we hadn’t yet visited, with a focus on the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Considering how many battlefields we’d toured over the preceding years, the home of Fort Sumter was an inevitable addition to our experiential collection…
Our early road trips were all about nonstop tourist-attraction marathons, flitting from one city to the next and seeing how many Roadside America recommendations and top-ranking TripAdvisor highlights we could pushpin on our mental bulletin boards. As we’ve gotten older, we’ve found value in visiting a place and simply being there for a while. We’re not the sort of shoppers who go full-on Blair Warner in large malls or rows of stores and come away carrying so many shopping bags that their cheap twine handles leave friction burns on our wrists, but we do have our particular acquisition interests.
In that spirit we set aside one day of our seven-day vacation solely for walking through the heart of downtown Charleston in general and the pulsating artery that is King Street. In a 21st-century America where small towns and mid-sized cities count themselves blessed if their functional downtown businesses outnumber their abandoned storefronts, there was a certain surprise throughout the first mile of our walk as the stores — a mix of upscale boutiques, mom-‘n’-pop shops, and cultural nodes — just kept going and going and going.
Our quiet hotel elevator ride in the morning accompanied by a happy, abandoned bottle of Clorox.
DAY FOUR: TUESDAY, June 27th.
We took the now-familiar Savannah Highway toward downtown, parked near a visitor center that used to be a train station called Camden Depot, and paused our sightseeing in favor of heading directly to breakfast. After hemming and hawing over whether or not we’d be moving the car later and whether or not to take bottled waters along for our initial walk, we opted to minimize our weight and left them behind. This stupid choice led to suffering later.
We found repast at Glazed Gourmet Doughnuts, a local staple for over a dozen years at the time of our visit.
Happy shop, happy donuts.
Sample temptations tantalized us at the counter.
Breakfast for two, which we’d soon spend the day walking off.
Clockwise from top left: sea salt butterscotch, vanilla bean glazed, sweet corn blueberry, and their “Black & White” powdered donut filled with Belgian dark chocolate. The sea salt butterscotch was our mutual favorite. If any employees noticed me accidentally cough and blow powdered sugar all over myself, they were kind enough not to point and laugh. We sat in for a few, relaxed to local radio overhead, and applauded the heroism of the young clerk who realized a customer had left their credit card behind, ran out the door after her, and succeeded in reuniting them a fair distance down the street.
(One of the drawbacks of waiting so long to write these travelogues is my little game of “Whatever Happened To…?” — in which I curiously peek at how the places we’ve been are doing in the present — sometimes takes me to sorrowful revelations. We were unaware their founder/owner had died in a car accident three months prior to our visit. I was equally unaware till this very day of writing that Glazed closed their doors for good in April 2024, citing the loss of her as a major contributing factor in the decision. “This sucks” is a severe understatement, but we hope those folks have persevered through their next chapters.)
Once fed, then we returned to the vicinity of the visitor center and poked around a bit.
The complex’s structures include one of six buildings that predate the Civil War and were part of the original Charleston-Hamburg Railroad.
Educational topics at the visitor center included the local 1952 case Briggs v. Elliott, one of five such cases that were combined into Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, KS.
Murals recommend the city beaches, a bit of a drive from downtown.
“Did we mention the water? GO TO IT.”
Charleston Music Hall is closed for renovations this month, but upcoming September shows include Kenny G, George Thorogood, and Howard Jones (on a tour that I heard Richard Blade plugging on SiriusXM the other day.)
The American Theater, where a scene from The Notebook was filmed. We were just talking about that the other day!
Not everything historic is maintained forever; at least one new facade was in the works, probably to the consternation of its existing ground-floor tenants.
Tours are offered of King Street, including one for investigating its alleys and other nooks ‘n’ crannies. We settled for the self-guided version without helpful narration.
St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, inc. 1840.
King Street kept going and going, as did its palmettos, and so did we.
“SUCK IT, STARBUCKS!” says Bubbie’s Cookies. I mentally noted that for later.
Another marquee for the collection: the Sottile Theater, owned by the College of Charleston.
“I’m the Son of sports and love! / The Jesus of Athletica..!”
Completing the marquee hat trick: the Riviera, another music venue. Shows coming later in 2025 include Chris Isaak, former Today host Hoda Kotb’s tour for her new book, and forgotten American Idol winner Taylor Hicks.
The farther south we walked, the independent businesses seemed to give way to trendier, higher-end nationwide chains. In Indianapolis terms, it was a bit like walking from Broad Ripple directly into Keystone Fashion Mall. Upon reaching Market Street we turned east and kept going, leaving the car and our water bottles farther behind.
The prettied-up grounds of The Charleston Place, a luxury hotel.
One end of Charleston City Market.
Charleston City Market was four blocks long, a bustling corridor of a bazaar populated with vendors of various arts, crafts, foods, and Christmas stuff. Wandering about without a booth of his own was a Gullah peddler selling “palmetto roses” (read: fronds folded into quasi-origami flowers). Ever cheery about sliding into the “ordinary tourist” role, Anne bought one despite City Market signs explicitly asking patrons not to. To this day Anne remains a fugitive from Charleston market law.
Despite a thorough search of the premises, Anne couldn’t find the sort of souvenirs Anne wanted. We doubled back and looked around the other nearby storefronts and found one she’d targeted in her own notes: a seemingly leprechaun-themed boutique called Sheila’s Shamrock.
Behind the front counter was a photo of Sheila, for any shoppers who thought she wasn’t real. Alas, our photo of her photo came out blurry.
Anne’s primary objective was their smashed penny machine out front. Longtime MCC readers know smashed pennies are her favorite kind of travel souvenir. She has books and books collecting the li’l flattened coins, which might go the way of the dodo once the American penny is phased out forever.
Till then, Anne shall keep on smashing.
Alas, another game of “Whatever Happened To…?” ends with a sad trombone: internet sources report Sheila’s Shamrock went out of business in or before February 2025. Local Yelp user Kim M. reports: “While this was a local business operating for over 35 years it was forced to close due to outside operators coming in and cutting prices to force locals out of business. Sad to see.” That sucks.
In happier memories: carriage rides! Probably not free. We didn’t investigate, though that shade sure looked inviting right about then.
A historical marker of sorts is a reminder of a bygone era.
Other businesses we passed but didn’t photograph included a boutique called Gallery 42, whose hostess foisted a free bar of soap on Anne but didn’t quite entice us to buy anything. After being a tad let down by the T-shirt offerings at Sheila’s Shamrock, Anne was much happier when we reached the French Quarter and found more suitably Charleston-forward options at another gift shop called Palmettoville, which proudly leaned into those ubiquitous flora, which I will never stop pointing out because we don’t have them here in Indy. To us palmettos are officially capital-E Exotic, whereas I chuckle at any out-of-towners who thinks maple trees are mind-blowing. We have maples on our property. I’d mail you one of them if I could — the sicklier one that clogs my gutters every autumn.
As it happens, Palmettoville was also on her list of area businesses harboring smashed penny machines.
Like Sheila’s, their penny machine was right out front.
Upon our arrival, a nuclear family of five who looked like they’d just stepped out of an impeccable JCPenney Portrait Studio summertime shoot were struggling to figure out the penny-smashing process, what with the coin slots and the gears and the giant crank and all. Ever the expert, Anne stepped up, showed them how it’s done, supervised while they created their own souvenirs, and probably saved their entire vacation from utter disaster.
HERO OF THE BEACH. Well, okay, HERO OF THE BEACH-ADJACENT.
To be continued!
* * * * *
[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete road trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts, or over on BlueSky if you want to track my faint signs of life between entries. Thanks for reading!]
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Our 2023 Road Trip #8: The Fort Sumter Tour and Non-Confederate Flag-Raising Program
The 33-star U.S. flag flies over Fort Sumter, just as it did before the Confederates barged in.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.For 2023 it was time at last to venture to the Carolinas, the only southern states we hadn’t yet visited, with a focus on the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Considering how many battlefields we’d toured over the preceding years, the home of Fort Sumter was an inevitable addition to our experiential collection…
…and here we were, one half-hour ferry ride later, at the star attraction atop our to-do list — the very place where the Civil War began, in the southeastern waters of Charleston Harbor in full view of the Atlantic Ocean. The Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the island in 1829, using 50,000+ tons of granite to create a new base atop a stable sandbar — a project conceived in the wake of the War of 1812, when British invaders unhelpfully exploited our naval vulnerabilities. Little did the ACE know future attacks would be coming from inside the country.
Not Fort Sumter, but Castle Pinckney on nearby Shute’s Folly, owned by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Public tours aren’t offered, but the flag is swapped out from time to time.
Admittedly our first look at Fort Sumter would’ve been cooler if they’d flown us overhead instead.
Sumter’s pier awaiting our arrival.
Fort Sumter slightly closer upon our disembarkation, with the flagpole empty for the moment.
The official welcome sign down by the breakwater, which was moved farther out from the fort walls in 2019.
(As of 2023 its historical parade ground was just four feet above sea level. Flooding becomes an issue with any confluence of high tides and heavy rainfalls. Fortunately this was a sunny day in the immediate vicinity; storm clouds to the southeast kept their distance during our visit and for the rest of the day.)
Birds frolicked on the adjacent sandbar. Hopefully that isn’t oil.
A diorama of Fort Sumter’s full design, had it ever been finished and left unharmed as planned, including barracks and hospital that do not exist today.
The main building inside, with exhibits, bathrooms, and gift shop.
(The men’s room was out of order at the time of our visit. The gift shop posted and strictly enforced a max capacity of 15 people — not necessarily because of the recent pandemic, though, as it was also awfully tiny. A much more spacious shop awaited us back on the mainland.)
Most of the pentagonal fort’s square footage is just grass, with all the special features along the walls.
Roughly the same vantage but facing the other way.
Same field as seen from the main building’s second story, facing toward the main entrance.
The requisite historical marker, erected in 1932.
The fort was named in honor of Brigadier General Thomas Sumter, who commanded the South Carolina militia during the Revolutionary War. As is taught in your finer American schools, the Civil War officially commenced when the first shots were fired at the First Battle of Fort Sumter in the wee hours of April 12, 1861. The takeover came three weeks after the infamous “cornerstone speech” given by Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, who outlined the CSA’s various grievances and other differences of opinions with the Union, in which he referred to slavery at least eleven times.
The rangers in charge of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park do not pretend otherwise. Upon our arrival they conducted the daily flag-raising program in which volunteering guests can assist in hoisting the 33-star flag up the pole to replace the losing side’s own. (They carefully noted this was a “program” and not a “ceremony”. Legal flag-care reasons, one presumes.) Their accompanying speech, though enlivened by the ranger’s own lighthearted remarks, unambiguously hammered on the blatant slavery aspect of South Carolina’s intentions.
The program commences.
Fellow tourists respectfully follow flag-handling directions.
The flag journeys upward, culminating in our lead photo.
After the program we were allowed an hour to wander the grounds and see what we could see before the ferry would take off. Sumter marks our fourth visit to an American fort (I think?) after previous road-trip stops at Fort Niagara, Fort McHenry, and Fort Ticonderoga. It’s the smallest of the four, yet arguably the most significant, except maybe to Francis Scott Key groupies.
Grass also covers a selection of higher areas around the perimeter.
Features inside the casemates (read: alcoves for cannons) included eleven 100-pounder rifled Parrott cannons that were installed after the Civil War.
One of the Parrott cannons. Note all the embrasures (read: holes in the wall for cannons to shoot through) were all sealed up, so we couldn’t look through them and pretend to target stuff.
One of the more decorative cannons higher up and away from the walls.
Sample deteriorating bricks, some 160+ years old and counting.
Among the few original pieces is the inland-facing Gorge Wall –what’s left, anyway, after so much early shelling before it was fortified with sandbags and cotton bales.
Artifacts and relics were exhibited inside the main structure and in the museum proper, back at the ferry dock.
U.S. Army regulation artillery hat.
Springfield 1842 .69 musket and ammo box.
Fuses and primers of the time, for explosives-history buffs out there.
Model of the USS Keokuk, an experimental Union warship sunk by the Confederates off nearby Morris Island on April 8, 1863.
Vintage flags on hand included another Stainless Banner (a.k.a. the Second National Flag of the Confederacy, as we saw earlier on arrival) and the 35-star American flag as of February 18, 1865.
Remnants of the Palmetto Guard Flag, the first flag raised when the Confederates took the fort. The better-known Star and Bars came later that same day.
Cotton! That critical Southern product, for us Yanks who don’t see much of the stuff unprocessed.
(As captains of the cotton industry, the South thought they wielded more sway over the federal government until the anti-slavery movement and subsequent laws necessarily upended their antiquated inhumanity. In 1860 America’s cotton earnings were $191,800.00, a good 57% of our total export revenue. Prices further escalated during the war due to scarcity — as of 1863 a 500-pound cotton bale could go for $953.00, which converts to over $24,000.00 in today’s bucks…dependent on the perpetuation of slavery for production. Somehow, hundreds of thousands of casualties later, they eventually learned to do without.)
To learn more about the Civil War, check out your local library or museum gift shop for such books as Jack the Cat That Went to War.
(No, I didn’t buy it, but some online reviewers who read it when they were kids hold it in regard. Apparently it’s the story of a cat who Forrest Gumps his way through life during the Confederate occupation of Fort Sumter and doesn’t judge his slave-owning owners. Readers reportedly do not have to endure scenes of Jack watching nightly slave-whippings with feline disdain while pondering in Garfield-esque thought bubbles, “Wow, sure glad I’m an adorable cat and not a Black person granted pretty much the same rights ’round these parts!” Rumors of a Jack the Cat/Solomon Northup crossover remain as yet unconfirmed by Bleeding Cool.)
To be continued!
* * * * *
[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete road trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts, or over on BlueSky if you want to track my faint signs of life between entries. Thanks for reading!]
Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …
Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)
