What Are You Going To Remember?

My college gang of friends used to have a challenge saying we used with each other when we wanted to encourage a friend to do something fun, rather than what they probably should be doing. “What are you going to remember?” I would taunt a friend who I wanted to go on a road trip with me. 
It was certainly true as I look back all these years later. I remember well the “tinsal” (our slang for tinsel) we draped around ourselves for a Christmas party. Do I remember taking finals that semester, no. In fact I can’t even remember what classes I took.
The things in life that are most memorable are not the everyday, but the specials days, especially trips. Today was the second day of playing in this basketball tournament for Carter here in Charleston. For the most part we are going to forget the basketball playing, but the time we got to spend as a family seeing new things and meeting interesting people is “what we are going to remember.”
This afternoon after all the bball was over and the showers were taken Russ, Carter and I ventured back to historic Charleston to walk the streets looking at the gorgeous houses and learning the history. While Russ was searching for parking Carter and I walked through a three hundred year old cemetery until we were told it was closing. I did not know cemeteries ever closed.
Since we were still waiting for Russ we crossed the street where Carter struck up a conversation with a lovely Gullah woman selling her Sweetgrass baskets. If you are unfamiliar with the coiled baskets you might be surprised at how costly the oldest African crafts brought by West African slaves to South Carolina are.
Laurie Bonneau introduced herself to Carter and answered her many questions about making Sweetgrass baskets. In an age of the same mass produced crap that is sold all over the world it was delightful to see something so distinctively tied to this place.  

  
Laurie showed Carter exactly which strands in the basket were grass, bullrush, pine needles or Palmetto fronds. Suddenly that high price for the small basket was understandable. She showed her a piece made by an unnamed relative she might be married to and how it was not quite as fine as one she had made. After all she had been making baskets since she was seven, she should be good at it.  
Laurie had one show stopper of a basket that she took off the fence to let Carter see that had a $5,000 price tag. “How long did it take for you to make this?” Carter asked. The answer of four months makes that $5,000 seem small. Sadly we did not buy any baskets today, but Laurie could not have been nicer.
Russ eventually appeared and we bid our basket teacher goodbye and went off in search of the most beautiful house in Charleston. We certainly did not come to a conclusion because at almost every corner we turned we saw a new favorite house. We did agree that we really liked the houses in the alleys as opposed to the ones on the big important streets because of the privacy the alleys seemed to have.

 
Towards the end of our walking tour we window shopped at a gallery we all agreed was a favorite, a place to commission a portrait of your dog or horse, or just buy a painting of some random cute dog. The perfect art.
I am fairly certain that Carter will always remember learning about Gullah Sweetgrass baskets from Laurie and not the score of her basketball game, which I have already forgotten.