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195a63d
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Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.
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John Berendt |
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If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, "What's your business?" In Macon they ask, "Where do you go to church?" In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is "What would you like to drink?"
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John Berendt |
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4096c51
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Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
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John Berendt |
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ddc7990
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Loneliness is not being alone, It's loving others to no avail.
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John Berendt |
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By morning she was dead. She had not died of starvation or committed suicide by any conventional means. She had simply willed herself to die, and being a strong-willed woman, she had succeeded. She had missed dying on her birthday by two days.
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John Berendt |
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She was a marvel. She did exactly as she pleased all her life, God bless her.
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John Berendt |
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044dc96
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Someone once wrote that musicians are touched on the shoulder by God, and I think it's true. You can make other people happy with music, but you can make yourself happy too. Because of my music, I have never known loneliness and never been depressed.
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John Berendt |
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d080e38
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But I never think about dead people. Looking at these old graves makes me think how generation after generation of the same family are all gathered together. And that makes me think about how life goes on, but not about dying. I never think about dying.
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John Berendt |
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974b1e6
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For me, Savannah's resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possib..
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John Berendt |
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Never spend any of your hard-earned money on clothes and accessories. You need to get yourself a mayyin to buy all that for you.
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John Berendt |
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4b65b3f
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Black magic never stops. What goes from you comes to you. Once you start this shit, you gotta keep it up. Just like the utility bill. Just like the grocery store. Or they kill you. You got to keep it up. Two, five, ten, twenty years.
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John Berendt |
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8e783da
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If there's a single trait common to all Savannahians, it's their love of money and their unwillingness to spend it.
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John Berendt |
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4a10b2d
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The South is one big drag show, honey [...].
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John Berendt |
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cf9a4aa
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We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, 'What's your business?' In Macon they ask, 'Where do you go to church?' In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is 'What would you like to drink?
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John Berendt |
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7034dde
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Sometimes I just can't face going through with breakfast.
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John Berendt |
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Quoting Miss Harty:] "People come here from all over the country and fall in love with Savannah. Then they move here and pretty soon they're telling us how much more lively and prosperous Savannah could be if we only knew what we had and how to take advantage of it. I call these people 'Gucci carpetbaggers."
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individuality
change
savannah
georgia
fashions
separateness
prosperity
society
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John Berendt |
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021da9e
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There being no direct route to Savannah from Charleston, I followed a zigzagging course that took me through the tidal flatlands of the South Carolina low country. As I approached Savannah, the road narrowed to a two-lane blacktop shaded by tall trees. There was an occasional produce stand by the side of the road and a few cottages set into the foliage, but nothing resembling urban sprawl. The voice on the radio informed me that I had enter..
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John Berendt |
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Don't you feel cut off?" I asked. "Cut off from what?" she replied. "No, on the whole I'd say we rather enjoy our separateness." --
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John Berendt |
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932dd73
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Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,' he wrote. 'Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
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John Berendt |
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4cb8cc6
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the doorbell rang again, and there was Mrs. Onassis and her friend Maurice
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John Berendt |
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c25ccda
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That you are a worldly adult,' she said. 'You have spent your whole life letting go of the innocent dreams that made your childhood so warm and hopeful and full of certainty. Dream by dream you let them go. We all do it, to shield ourselves from disappointment. It's easy to shed them. Not so easy to get them back.
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John Berendt |
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because it's my job. It's how I make my living. And I'll tell you somethin' else: It's damn hard work bein' a girl full
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John Berendt |
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e03a543
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The tides surged through the marsh and each wave that hit the beach came light-struck and broad-shouldered, with all the raw power the moon could bestow.
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tides
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John Berendt |
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2e1c269
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Jim Williams's guilt or innocence is no longer the issue," he said. "Spencer Lawton's incompetence is the issue."
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John Berendt |
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more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.
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John Berendt |
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e7c2b66
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If you did not like the show, honey, my name is Nancy Reagan and go fuck yourself." Chablis"
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John Berendt |
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rum-drinking pirates, strong-willed women, courtly manners, eccentric behavior, gentle words, and lovely music.
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John Berendt |
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20d6ca1
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Dr. Irving Stone of the Institute for Forensic Sciences in Dallas. He's the guy who analyzed the clothing worn by President Kennedy and Governor Connally for the congressional committee that reexamined the Kennedy assassination.
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John Berendt |
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fe189c8
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Savannah was invariably gracious to strangers, but it was immune to their charms. It wanted nothing so much as to be left alone. Time
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John Berendt |
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4f42b93
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Whitney had carefully kept the cotton gin under wraps while he applied for a patent, but he made a tactical error when he allowed women to have a look at it,
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John Berendt |
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75742cd
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How do you do that?" I asked. "What do witches eat?" "Witches loves pork meat," she said. "They loves rice and potatoes. They loves black-eyed peas and cornbread. Lima beans, too, and collard greens and cabbage, all cooked in pork fat. Witches is old folks, most of them. They don't care none for low-cal. You pile that food on a paper plate, stick a plastic fork in it, and set it down by the side of a tree. And that feeds the witches." The"
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John Berendt |
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saying, I originally left the door unlocked as a matter of convenience. But pretty soon I realized that whenever the doorbell did ring, it was someone I didn't know. So the bell became a signal that a stranger was at the door. I've learned never to answer it myself when that happens, because it's likely to be a deputy sheriff wanting to serve me with some kind of paper, and of course I don't need to be home for that.
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John Berendt |
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According to the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, more than 8 percent of Savannah's adults were "known alcoholics,"
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John Berendt |
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8916e73
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We're not at all like the rest of Georgia. We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, 'What's your business?' In Macon they ask, 'Where do you go to church?' In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is 'What would you like to drink?
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John Berendt |
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65bb5b7
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lay loooo-yah! A-layyyy-loo yah!" He had abandoned his tenor and was singing in a wavering falsetto." --
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John Berendt |
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4b607fb
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Chigarid. The man who
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John Berendt |
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a2b5621
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It's like the control insects at the Laboratory. Di d I ever tell you about them? Well, we keep a lot of insect colonies in big glass jars out there. Some of them have been breeding for twenty-five years. That's a thousand generations. All they know about life is what goes on inside their Jar. They haven't been exposed to pesticides or pollution, so they haven't developed immunities or evolved in any way. They stay the same, generation afte..
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John Berendt |
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e5111f5
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He was a nice fellow," Williams says. "He could be charming. He had his girlfriend, I had mine. But to me, sex is just a natural thing. We'd had sex a few times. Didn't bother me. Didn't bother him. I had my girlfriend, and he had his. It was just an occasional, natural thing that happened." The expressions on the jurors' faces suggest they do not find this arrangement natural at all."
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sexuality
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John Berendt |
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812c33a
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faked
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John Berendt |
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01f61e0
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What was your name before that?" I asked. "Frank," she said."
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John Berendt |