A Dog Party

The life and adventures of the Taubs, my daughter-in-law told us, would make a great coffee table book. David Taub takes his Harley to motorcycle rallies, but he is not a biker in the old sense (no pigtail, no tattoos, no loose women). He is the former mayor of Beaufort, and he is still on various civic boards around town. He used to be the proprietor of Morgan Island, in St. Helena Sound, nicknamed Monkey Island, the center for primate research, and he has thousands of slides of macaques, among other monkeys. He knew Richard Leakey and worked with Jane Goodall; his work is listed alongside monographs by Dian Fossey, and he knows most of the other luminaries of the primate world, since he wrote Primate Paternalism in the Eighties.

Pam Taub, well, she is perhaps the most colorful well-dressed woman in Beaufort, tall, vibrant, funny, bright, always a good time to be around, natural, unforced. You could say she lives for her dogs, Cavalier King Charles spaniels, but she has more of a life, and she lives it fully. The dogs are beloved and lovingly cared for: Harley (of course), Spangle (for Star-Spangled Banner, since patriotism is real and intense in the family), and Sunny (short for Davidson). Cavaliers are sweet and loving dogs (David calls my Cavalier, Keats, "sweet boy" in a Texas inflection), and their love is returned by David and Pam Taub.

A dog party might be outrageous in almost any other household, or a community less individualistic than is Beaufort’s. For the Taubs, it is perfectly natural to celebrate Spangle’s birthday along with that of his sister Roxy, and to invite dogs and their owners and their friends and their godparents from Hilton Head, Charleston, and even from New York, to their backyard in Beaufort. There is no embarrassment involved: the dogs deserve it, they love the toys and the treats, and they sit in the laps of the humans who cherish them, as needy and as loving as any co-dependent relative, and probably much less demanding. Neediness in dogs is much less demanding than greediness in humans.

Certainly, keeping these luxurious dogs is luxuriously expensive, but, according to the vet Mark Guilloud, who owns two Cavaliers, dogs are now like people: they are healthier, better fed, better nourished, better medicated; and they live longer lives with better quality in those lives. I don’t think Cavaliers are like SUVs, by which I mean useless and expensive status symbols. They are family adjuncts, and they are supposed to think of their human owners as "Mommy" and "Daddy." They are comfort dogs.

My dog, Keats, is a great chick magnet. He is fluffy, has those big bug eyes, and he moans and mumbles to himself only when taken for a walk. Women say "Aw, he’s talking to me," and come up in droves to talk back to Keats and be loved by him. I mean, Keats is really adorable: after I feed him, he comes up next to my chair, puts his paws up, and gives me a little burp of gratitude. If I reach down to hug him and ruffle both his ears at the same time, he gives little moans of pleasure and his eyes water and his nose gets wet; and if I scratch his butt, his tail wags even harder. He does all that with women, and they love to see and hear him do it. Keats affirms the need for love in the world.

At the dog party, the men and the women were happy with the dogs and each other, and utterly unembarrassed by having a party in which party favors and cake and treats were shared separately but equally between people and animals. Keats got a lolly-pup (carob and raisins, peanut butter, organic) and a chewy bone; we gave Spangle some patriotic tennis balls to chase; Keats got a doggie treat like beef jerky and the humans had M&Ms and piece of cake with a Cavalier head carved into the icing. The dogs were exhausted with running around all afternoon and they all slept well that night.

A Tabby Tomb

Rick Whiteman, who has lived in Beaufort since 1979 and now works as a restoration expert for tabby and brick, was trenching around a unique tabby tomb inside the walls of St. Helena this afternoon of June 9, 2008. Tabby is the oyster-shell cement used for foundations and walls of fortresses, houses, and tombs, probably since the Spaniards who came to the southeast of the North American continent in the 15th century figured out how to slake the oyster shells and use the lime and sand combination to make a cement not quite as long-lasting or as substantial as classical Roman cement (the stuff of aqueducts and triumphal arches).

Tabby seems to vary quite a bit in its holding power and stability. In 1800, it was the building material of choice, since bricks imported from Savannah were too expensive for Beaufortians to afford. This tomb, wherein lies William Eastwood Graham, one of the rectors of St. Helena, was constructed in 1800, probably at the direction of family members. A marble slab, now much cracked and mended, covers the tabby foundation, which was uniquely ornamented, originally, with pilasters covered with stucco, in a faux marble effect, as in Greek and Roman columns. According to the person who knows more about tabby than anyone else in the world, Colin Brooker, colors were sometimes bled into the stucco mixture to simulate the grain of marble.

The tomb is quite a find, since free-standing tabby tombs, especially decorated ones, are a real rarity. Colin Brooker explained, as I talked to him on June 9, that the remains of Rev. Graham were likely to have been interred below where a tabby slab was poured, the slab itself poured to the depth of almost a foot (for stability). Then forms were laid in the wet tabby and a solid (not hollow) memorial structure, looking like a grave box but too small to hold an adult body, was constructed above, again out of tabby but tabby poured within a carefully sculpted wood forme, constructed by at least a semi-skilled carpenter as a mold for the tomb. The tabby tomb simulator was decorated with pilasters, carefully stuccoed smoothly over the tabby, and then probably the pilasters and the sides of the tomb were decorated as faux marble. On top was laid a real marble slab, now so worn it appears to be sandstone, with the memorial message about William Graham carved into it.

Graham was obviously important to his parish. The height of the tomb indicates his standing and importance, and the classically-inspired pilasters, like the combination of Ionic and Corinthian capitals on the Secession House two blocks away, ties him with the glory of Greece and Rome. Graham had been rector for less than a year in 1777 and 1778, then he was asked to return to the parish in 1795, where he served until his death in 1800.

Tabby in its building sense was "A concrete formed of a mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones in equal proportions, which when dry becomes very hard" (OED noun, 6). The etymology of the name is uncertain, since it might be associated with the mixture of brindled colors of a tabby cat, or a district in Baghdad where certain fabric patterns emerged, but it is likely of Spanish or Moorish origin, a word transliterated from Arabic as "tabia" or "tapia." The historian Ibn Khaldun, in the 1300s, according to Colin Brooker, describes exactly how to make the aggregate, and Khaldun’s formula is essentially the same as that used in Beaufort.

Tabby structures are found in Beaufort, Savannah, on various barrier islands, and in St. Augustine, suggesting that the origin of the material was indeed maritime and Spanish. It is likely that the European settlers stole their oyster shells from native-American middens, shell-heaps and garbage heaps used by the native tribes, known as a source because Indian pottery often turns up as part of tabby. The Beaufort tabby, so far as I can see from personal examination, was usually composed mostly of oyster shells, possibly clay, and sand, with the oyster shells not crushed especially fine. In other words, it was a crude building material, meant to be hidden by a brick facade or stucco, which itself weathers off to expose the tabby and hence is not a permanent finish. It really is like rubble cement, in the sense that old pieces of brick or anything laying about might be added to the hidden mixture and made part of a wall.

Corner restored with a new tabby mixture

Talking Headstones

"I love you, a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck." (If you want to hear the music and words, by Frank Loesser from the 1950s musical Guys and Dolls, try http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/bushelpeck.htm.http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/bushelpeck.htm..) Those words are on the back of a headstone, where you don’t expect any text, on one gravestone in the sunny, walled-in rectangle next to St. Helena’s Episcopal Church. It is nice to laugh in a graveyard, or to think about a song you haven’t heard since childhood. There is some joy in this sunny graveyard, and no fear of death, that I can tell. For some reason, there are no oppressive moss-encrusted live-oaks–there are a few, but they aren’t overbearing–or weeping willows, sentimentally reminding us of fears or superstitions. Of course there is reverence and respect for the dear departed ancestors, and the church makes sure that the grass is mowed at least every other week, and the leaves blown, and the concrete walks edged, and mulch laid down around the shrubs and flower beds. The graves are not sunken, the stones are upright, and the graveyard is respectful.

James Edwin McTeer, "the High Sheriff of the Low Country," is buried there, having left behind all his tales of facing the Land’s End Light or having sometimes defeated the sometimes questionable forces of Dr. Buzzard through equal white magic, in court. "Dirt from a graveyard taken at midnight" is one of the ingredients a Root Doctor might put into a token or charm that casts a spell benefitting a client, according to Sheriff McTeer (High Sheriff of the Low Country [1970], p. 22). I didn’t notice that the dirt around the good sheriff’s grave had been disturbed, thank goodness.

A Mr. Pinckney is described as "a great raconteur," and a Mr. Bradbury simply as "a Virginia gentleman" on their respective gravestones. One local gentleman of means was "a hunter and a salt water fisherman, a respected employer, a loyal friend, a loving husband, a generous father, and an affectionate grandfather." Another "listened well and counseled wisely, with warmth, humor, and love." The memorializers chose their words carefully.

Children who died young are represented by small headstones, sometimes surrounded by several Tonka Toy trucks and cars, as if the child were still playing at the beach, and some of the adult graves are decorated not with the usual chrysanthemums or artificial roses but with seashells. Recent graves may be planted with euonymous or another pretty ground-cover. I saw a camelia laid on the grave of a beloved grandfather. Some families seem to have planted a special tree like a cypress at the bequest of the deceased or of his or her relatives. There are no weeping willows in the St. Helena annex cemetary. Some sets of graves are in regimented rows, some apart from all the others, like row houses in Charleston or like a suburb near a city. Some graves distinguish themselves or their occupants by the marble slab’s being raised over a brick base, and some proclaim their importance with a headstone that sprawls over twenty or thirty feet, with arms to embrace a large or self-important family. Some of the gravestones are quiet or understated, on purpose. The body language of some gravestones says "New" or "Pure," and some says "Prematurely Aged," or "Distressed," or "Antiqued." Since this is not an ancient cemetery like the one around St. Helena’s Church, the stones start with birth dates in the 1870s, though some are from recognizably older Beaufort families, like the DeTrevilles, who have been here since the eighteenth century. Other families that appear often in Larry Rowland’s magisterial history of Beaufort County include the Pinckneys, the VonHartens, the Rhetts, the Verdiers, and the Trasks. Tombstones all seem to be of marble or granite, but I guess that has always been true. I was told that marble holds up better than granite in Beaufort humidity, but I had better not say that without authority.

My favorite memorial is so well-written it makes you wish for the return of the dead, and it happens to have been written by a gentleman I know, about the wife of a friend of mine:

"Bright, intelligent, and wonderfully educated, talented in music and literature, she was a lady of exquisite taste, grace, elegance, and fervor for life. A faithful and loving wife, a caring a nurturing mother, a loyal and devoted friend, she brought joy into the lives of everyone she knew.
Graceful, poised, and determined, she pursued life with candor, frankness, and a keen, enduring sense of good humor. She lived in happiness and died peacefully." Without a memorial cliché in them, those words are one of the most beautiful, thoughtful commentaries on a the life of a good human being I have ever read.

I have been talking to the great horned owl who lives in St. Helena’s Church steeple. He (or she, since I am not sure which sex does the territorial noise) starts calling soon after dusk–two louder whos and a series of fainter whos in a row. It is a noise I can imitate, tone for tone, rhythm for rhythm, so I try to engage the St. Helena owl in a conversation, and sometimes he seems to be answering me. Perhaps we are squabbling about territory.
I am assuming that this great horned owl roosts in the bell tower because the highest architectural point in town is an excellent lookout post. From it you can see if the French are coming, or the Yemasees, or the rats. There are no branches to get in the way of a line of sight to a delicious small mammal or rodent among the gravestones. During the day, an osprey sometimes perches on the cross on top the steeple, to look for fish. I have seen two ospreys sharing the two sides of the cross, demonstrating universal brotherhood.

The great horned owl swoops silently, I read, and I can back that up because I haven’t heard any of the Beaufort owls swooping, nor am I as knowledgeable as a National Geographic photographer about exactly when they might decide to swoop.

It is good, I think, that we have predators in the air at night, to catch and eat some of the rats that live in the Historic District. Owls are so intelligent-looking that they were associated with the goddess Minerva, who herself was born out of the brain of Jupiter, supposed to be a smart cookie himself, because he was the king of the gods. The great horned owl, despite his intelligence, cannot turn his head all the way around his body, like some owls, but he is said to attack animals as large as a possum or a porcupine (how, I don’t know, or from which end). He is indeed a noble-looking bird, but the only time we humans are likely to see a great horned owl is after it is stuffed.

The ecumenical orange tabby cat, whose name I do not yet know but who lives between the front walkway of St. Helena’s and the parish house of First Presbyterian and can be petted or fed by either denomination, had better not go out in the early evening, but perhaps both the owl and the pussycat live under some sort of divine injunction against the killing of church animals.

The noise of the great horned owl is in the air at night, in town. I haven’t heard a screech owl, which doesn’t screech but warbles in an eerie way, as if his cry were designed to make a human feel lonely, or a barn owl, who does screech in a very frightening way, sounding like a banshee, if you are near to it. Whip-poor-wills live in Beaufort County, but not around the town. I think they require space around them, and they are country birds. They can wake you up at night, they are so loud, if they roost in the eaves of your house.

There are great horned owls in at least three or four locations in downtown Beaufort. If you walk the town at night, you will hear them proclaiming their territory from street to street. Beaufort is an owl town at night, as well as a rat town and a palmetto bug town.

The great horned owl seems to go to sleep, or stop whoing, late at night or early in the morning, because he isn’t around at dawn, when the larky, chirpy, tweety, and raspy wren and crow types get up and tell you that you too should be getting out of bed, you sleepy head, to begin to carry out the duties of the day. Then the ecumenical pussycat can come to the sidewalks of either of the two churches and get his pets from the passersby.

This will be a blog about where I live: Beaufort, SC. In the eight years I have lived here, I have tried to re-acquaint myself with the customs and the morality of living in the South and living with Southern U.S. history. This is a very old port town, first settled by Europeans in the sixteenth century; thus we have sections of the town known as "Spanish Point" or "Frenchtown." Because the old sections of town have evolved more than they have been treated as a concept, the town is beautiful on a human scale, and it is famous for its live oak vistas, framed by Spanish moss, looking out on the water.

I have thought quite a bit about the remnants and the present existence of segregation and racism; about the kind of sexism that treats women as ornamental; about homophobia that damages the potential conversation between gay and straight. But I am also interested in the polite society of educated and gracious people on the one hand, and the dispossessed and alienated underprivileged society on the other. In fact, I am interested in everything about this little town, including its changing demographics as it absorbed more and wealthier people in from Ohio, Wisconsin, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Washington State, or Arizonia.