Hello from Room 108 at the Thunderbird Inn, located in downtown Savannah, Georgia. This is the first morning in the last two weeks where I’ve walked outside and it hasn’t felt like an oppressive oven of heat and humidity. With recent daily heat indexes hovering around 110 degrees down here, it’s quite refreshing to step out the door for coffee and not be hit with a frying pan of air.
As we speak, I’m on my way back to Haywood County from my girlfriend’s humble abode in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. It was decided yesterday to caravan up here for the evening before parting ways. Grab a meal on the riverfront of “The Hostess City of the South.” Walk the cobblestone streets underneath the Spanish moss draped over the centuries-old live oak trees.
Cruising up Interstate 95 North to I-16 East from Jax Beach. The endless flow of tractor-trailers and vehicles up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Sizzling pavement and vast marshland. Rest areas and truck stops. Searching for a place of lodging for the night, I came across the Thunderbird Inn. A slew of memories immediately flooded my field of vision. It had been 19 years since I last stayed at the Thunderbird, when I was a senior in college (2007) in Connecticut on my way to Tybee Island, Georgia, for spring break.
Pulling up to the Thunderbird and getting out of our vehicles, I pointed to a lone room on the second floor corner of the building, the doorway and balcony hovering over a bustling West Oglethorpe Avenue. “That’s the room where me and my two best friends from college stayed two decades ago on spring break,” I said to Rebecca. “Oh, yeah? What was that trip like?” she replied.
March 2007. Two months before college graduation. One day, I was sitting on the couch in the living room of the crappy house myself and four other students at Quinnipiac University rented (that was way overpriced for the shabbiness of the aged structure). At that moment, my mom called me. She and my dad were soon heading to Tybee Island for their annual trip below the Mason-Dixon Line to escape the depths of another North Country winter.
Amid our conversation, she asked what I was doing for spring break. I said I had no plans, that my buddies (Brett and Dan) and I were stuck in Connecticut while seemingly everyone else on campus was either embarking on a ski trip to the Rocky Mountains or jetsetting to somewhere in the Caribbean. “Well, why don’t the three of you drive down to Tybee? We have some extra space in the rental house. Sit on the beach for a few days and get some sun,” she suggested.
Sold. I turned to Brett and Dan and floated the idea. They jumped on it. Two days later, we packed up Dan’s two-door Oldsmobile Alero and hopped onto I-95 South. A somewhat cramped driving situation, but this was better than nothing, better than sitting around the shabby house and waiting for our final exams to appear on the horizon right before our entry into young adulthood.
With school in the rearview mirror, it was a mad dash through New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, onward to Virginia and the greater Southeast. First time I’d laid eyes on Philadelphia since I’d dated my college sweetheart (who was from there) a couple years prior. First time I’d ever laid eyes on Baltimore and Washington, D.C., in general, the latter city provoking us to pull over in the middle of the night and wander around the National Mall, checking out the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.
The rest of the following week was a blur of white sand beaches, fried seafood and late-night shenanigans underneath the glowing buzz of the neon lights of the dive bars within the Tybee city limits. We were young and everything seemed possible on that road trip. Maybe we’d have an epiphany as to a clear image of our future once we were handed that diploma in the coming weeks. Maybe it would finally all come into focus. Maybe, just maybe, we’d even find love.
Of course, none of those things happened. Mostly we kept striking out with the local girls. They wanted nothing to do with “damn yankees.” No bountiful visions of the future, either. Lots of cheap beer was consumed, though. Lots of laughter and eternal inside jokes now crystallized in memory. The love and the vision would come years later, as is often the case for those seeking truth and connection along the haphazard road of life.
On the way back to Connecticut, the three of us swung through Savannah to check out the nightlife. With little to no funds left in our collective coffers, we tracked down the Thunderbird and booked an inexpensive room with two queen beds. Room 201 above Oglethorpe. Drop our bags and a quick change of clothes. Spray of cologne for good measure. Meader down to River Street. A pint of Guinness at the Irish pub. Cold domestic at some sticky floor dive down some alleyway. More lost cause conversation with cute girls. No matter, we were alive and curious in the world, we were “doing the thing,” you know?
And I still have pictures of that spring break trip. I hadn’t seen my friends in over a decade, at least not until last night when I scrolled through my Facebook and found the images to show Rebecca. The moments are a little hazy in hindsight, but there we were, 22 years old with nothing but time and fate in our hands. Brett is married with three young daughters and living in Australia. Dan is also happily married with a five-year-old and has called New York home for a spell. We keep in touch, although that has become more sporadic as the years go on.
Waiting for our dinner table at Vic’s On The River, Rebecca and I grabbed a drink at the bar. She wanted to hear more details of that road trip and who exactly I was at that juncture of my existence. And so, I divulged to her my whereabouts, both geographically and emotionally, some 20 years ago.
It also sparked an urge to text Dan and see how he was doing. It had been two years since I last reached out. “You alive? How goes it?” the message said. A few minutes later, he replied, “Can confirm I’m alive.” After a few back and forth messages about our respective lives, I told him, “We should reconnect soon. Miss you, my dude. I mean that.” He concurred. I look forward to that.
Walking back to the Thunderbird, Rebecca and I ducked into a random spot for a nightcap. The sign outside said “Abe’s On Lincoln.” Turns out it’s a tiny basement bar with a focus on President Lincoln, with thousands of drawings of good ole Abe from customers posted over every square inch of the place. We both marveled at the scene before us, and at our whirlwind lives unfolding in real time, together. Cheers, my dear.
Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.