Charleston by means of Forty

I guess it was meant to be.

Three girls all born on the same day of three different months.

The 23rd.

All with Beth in our names. (Beth.  Gretchen Beth. Lacey Elizabeth.)

Attending the same small college in the hills of Kentucky.

Choosing to make a Big Deal of the year we passed the second decade of our lives led to making a big deal of the third decade we trucked right past and landed us right at the base of our fourth decade.

Forty brought us Asheville for Beth and for me ….. Charleston.

I’d never been before. Nor had they.

Here’s what we did:

Beth picked me up on her drive from Kentucky. We picked up Gretchen at the Charleston airport. We pulled into our condo and said, “Hey. That’s an alarming noise coming from under the back of your car.”

A broken rusty strut completely detached from its proper home was lodged against the back tire.

We pooled our cleverness and addressed the situation with Google, a tow truck, Triple A and a mechanic named Jimmy.

And then we hit the streets.

A carriage ride. Strolling the market. In and out of endless shops. Walking lovely city street after city street. The harbor. People watching. Water taxi ride. The USS Yorktown. Saying no thank you to every request to purchase a handmade sweet grass rose from a peddling minor.

And we ate.

Praline samples. Huevos Rancheros at Hominy Grill. Pecans in a paper cone at the Farmer’s Market. Pulled pork in a wrap topped with mashed potatoes and corn. Brick oven pizza. Burgers named after Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories and poems. Colossal desserts as delicious as they were giant at Kaminsky’s. Donuts that left me thinking about them two days later.

When the car was repaired we drove places.

Sullivan’s Island. Folly’s Beach. The Angel Oak Tree. America’s Only Tea Plantation.

We chatted with strangers.

We met a couple from Chicago enjoying their first trip to the south. A gentleman on the beach took our picture and we found out he and his wife were the first ever professional snowboarders. (Back when the sport was called snurfing. Look it up. It’s true. Mark Halseth was a pro.) And when we snapped a photo of a couple under the Angel Tree he seized the day, dropped to his knee and proposed to his girl while we snapped shot after shot in triplicate.

It was a good weekend to be a Beth.

I’ve loved those girls for a long time.

I loved the desserts. Snicker doodle cake. (On the house!)

I loved the beach. Sunrise. Sun. Rise. It was on my list.  It was so pretty.

I loved the history. Oldest established city in America. That’s something.

I loved not cooking. My burger at Poe’s Tavern was delicious.

I loved seeing new places. That tree. Over three hundred years old. If that tree could speak …

I loved learning. The tea plantation was fascinating. Cuttings from the top only. Never from a seed, only from a cutting.

And mostly, I loved my forty year old friend and my almost forty year old friend. And I loved being with them. A couple of decades doesn’t change that.