Spring Break '07

Let’s be honest. This Spring Break trip theme is not so much “plantation-hopping” as it is “Phoebe eats ribs across America”. Yum.

It turns out that plantations are not exactly the spice of life. They’re gorgeous, yes. But you would think that when touring a former plantation, the focus would be on the legacy of slavery that the place depended on, right? Wrong. We went to a plantation called Middleton Place yesterday and I swear to God, the only mention of slaves we heard was one sentence during the house tour where the guide was explaining that slaves could carry a slave tag when traveling to work on other plantations for a day where they could earn money to buy their freedom. Well, hot dog! Exploitation? Who said anything about exploitation?

As for the Union soldiers, those demons from hell burnt down the Middleton’s main house. You can tell that most of the Middleton Place Foundation volunteers think that the Union soldiers should be tarred and feathered for their crimes against humanity. Gosh darn it, the Middletons worked so hard on their acres and acres of beautiful gardens, for it all to be ruined in the name of war. Of course, here, they all seem to be forgetting that the point of the war (for some) was to end the free labor that the Middleton’s gardens and rice fields depended on. The Middletons, you can tell, are a fucking bright bunch too. They owned over 20 plantations and couldn’t even think of something to grow on this plantation until they got some slaves there and watched the slaves grow rice for themselves. So they decided, meh, let’s make that into a cash crop.

Plantation touring is overall a weird experience. If you are into learning about slave-owner family legacies I would highly recommend it, but if you’re looking for something more legit-feeling you might not be super pleased. Although, the baby animals (lambs, bunnies, ducklings, turtles, 6-foot long alligators, etc.) were adorable and made the experience pretty enjoyable by themselves. My dad was upset to hear that we didn’t take a turtle home from the plantation with us. He has this idea that we will get a turtle and then the zany one of our cats, Roo, can ride it about the house.

The ribs are wonderful. I love ribs. I haven’t eaten them for about a year, just because I never have the occasion, but I am making up for lost time this Spring Break. It is a tiny bit awkward when we go around the table and my mom orders shrimp, my sister orders soup, my dad orders salad and I go for the half-rack of babyback ribs, but worth it in the end. At the last place, even the cute southern waiter kid was laughing at me. He had the thickest drawling accent and my mom whispered conspiratorially “I think he’s from around here”. My sister, ever the princess of sarcasm, retorted “No mom, he actually bikes all the way to South Carolina everyday to wait on people.” We called her Stormy when she was a toddler. Just wait until she hits high school.

She’s kind of funny sometimes. I appreciate it, when she isn’t giving me a 30-minute backseat telethon on the joys of press-and-seal wrap in the car. I got that today, between Charleston and Lynchburg, and now I know how to make the pillow, the seat cover, and the noises.









“What does ‘dora’ mean? It’s at the end of so many girl’s names that it must mean something. You know, like *******…Nymphadora…”
-My sister. She was irate when we called her Turtledora for the rest of the day.