Magic Days

Park fence in Ridgeway, SC.

Five years ago today, my friend Winnie and I took off on a 2,500 mile road trip through the south looking for Paris. We stayed off the interstate and fell in love with the good old US of A as a result. It still stands up as one of the more memorable experiences I've had in my life (worth blogging about, anyway). http://parisusa.blogspot.com/ 

As it happens, my memory of Paris, USA was jogged the other day, when I spent five hours with Danielle in a town called Ridgeway. We drove to the postcard-stamp-sized hamlet on a rural, two-lane highway. It's just a few minutes from the capital city where we live, but short as the drive was, we felt a hundred miles from home. It also seemed like going back in time as we strolled the historic downtown (which is only a block long). I've since learned that Ridgeway was settled by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in 1799 along the "ridge way" of the newly proposed railroad.

Danielle and I spent two full hours in the Cotton Yard Market, browsing antiques and collectibles. I don't normally spend two hours on my feet looking at infinite numbers of unrelated, tiny objects that I didn't know I wanted or needed, but there was something deliciously, lazily dreamlike about it, so I just went with it.

Handwritten receipt.

While we made our purchases, the clerk asked where we were from and then acted like we'd traveled some distance. She took her time telling us about the town. We listened like foreigners trying to comprehend a rare dialect as she mentioned the All-American events every first Friday of summer ("hot dogs and free apple pie in the park"), the shop that's "just like New Your City" across the street, and where to get a tasty bite of lunch. She had time to tell us all of these things as she meticulously wrote each item in a receipt book. She had a system. She tore off the price tag, copied the complete description of the item by hand, figured the discount with a calculator, then wrote the price paid onto both the tag and the receipt book. Only after she wrote up my seven purchases in this manner did I notice each tag was a different color. They looked like a mini-rainbow arrayed on the glass countertop between us.

Danielle and I, having set aside the entire afternoon for meandering, loved every minute as the minutes ticked on by. The couple behind us was not so amused. Exasperated, they were, and as they roughly pushed open the door to exit, the woman fumed, "We don't have time for this, we have somewhere to be." My friend and I looked at each other, then at the clerk. I said something like, "Well, they don't have the right attitude for a place like this." The clerk shrugged and said, "They'll be back. They shop here all the time."

We went for lunch at the recommended deli/tea room. It's the only place in town to eat, and I drank rhubarb cream tea and we enjoyed a similarly lengthy chat with the deli's proprietor. Then we walked around and witnessed the mating of what might have been hundreds of grasshoppers in the front yard of one of the historic homes. Lastly, we visited the New York City-esque shop and its neighbor, where a woman sold Avon products and her own crocheted creations.  She had a Princess Kate bride doll on display and hastened to tell us it wasn't for sale. "You can get your own on the web, though. Five easy installments."

There's a kind of magic to days like these, and it needs a special alchemy. The ingredients must include: a very small, particular place; that place's unique residents; hot, steamy weather; plenty of free time; the sweetest of sweet tea; and just the right person to share it with.