Savannah, Georgia is drop dead gorgeous, a visual stunner.
The people of Savannah are among this country's most unique. The movie, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" barely scratched the quirky surface of many residents who call this slice of heaven home.
The Frogcould blog ad nauseam about this city I have come to love. Perhaps, as a holiday gift to my readers, I will present a vignette or two this Christmas season, a written scrapbook depicting the colorful and genteel characters that cross my path during my escapes to that part of my Southern self I hide away as a hardened Floridian.
It is not the good, but the evil I address today, the underside of this dazzling city that causes one to pause and remember...
...Savannah ain't Disneyworld.
The attraction of Savannah is the laid back lifestyle of gentility and history that lives, breathes, and is exuded throughout the historic downtown. One can very easily forget that the exquisite historical district, laden with tourists, is actually the high crime area. Those visitors who keep at least one foot in reality while the other steps back to the days of Oglethorpe are usually okay.
Those who let down the old guard can suddenly find themselves a crime statistic. The residents often help out visitors seeking directions, waving toward certain areas of the city with a subtle, "There's nothing you need to see over there."
In other words, it ain't safe over thataway.
When three men murdered Savannah resident Jennifer Ross during a series of attacks early last Christmas Eve, a mere stone throw from the civic center and a Savannah College of Art and Design resident hall, I was initially surprised about a couple of things. One, the lack of presence of local law enforcement during the high holiday season and two, the disregard of these local young people to follow the advice of their elders.
"There's nothing you need to see over there."
Ross, a 19-year-old Mercer University sophomore, was shot in the back during a botched armed robbery near Orleans Square in the early hours of Dec. 24.
Jennifer was walking on the morning of Christmas Eve with three friends, across the Savannah square, which they had crossed countless times during their lives.
Mere hours previous, Jennifer had danced with her father at the Christmas Cotillion, a young woman's formal introduction to society.
Jennifer recovered long enough to speak with police before dying New Year's Day on the operating table to repair a ruptured artery at Memorial Health University Medical Center.
Michael Thorpe, 26, along with co-defendants Kevin Huckabee, 21, and Webster Wilson, 25-all convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison plus many, many additional years-had made plans to go out "on licks," or in search of people to rob.
Thorpe fired the fatal gunshot into Ross; Wilson slugged her friend, Brett Finley, on the head so hard the gun discharged; and that Huckabee stole and drove the gray Ford Taurus used by the assailants.
Thorpe also bragged about shooting Ross because she refused to give up her purse.
Savannah has announced plans to reform public safety procedures since Jennifer's death through installation of surveillance cameras in 22 public squares, including the one where Ross and her friends were attacked. (CNN, 12/18/2006)
Shimmering white lights glitz and glimmer the historic district during Southern Lights, Savannah's annual holiday celebration. The faint notes of Johnny Mercer's Moon River tickle the ear as horse carriages jingle bell through the city's squares, enchanting a visitor back to the days of Flannery O'Conner and Conrad Aiken.
The charm of the authentic South transforms gothic as an atmosphere of degeneration and decay lies somewhere just beyond this perfect picture.
Bill Ferris, a widely recognized leader in southern studies, states the American South 'is often shrouded in romance and myth, but its realities are as intriguing, as intricate, as its legends."
Sometimes those realities can be quite harsh.
Don't be caught with blinders on.