I walked admiringly around the monument of the waving girl posted along the Savannah riverbank. The talent of the artist was evident, and it was easy to imagine her mortal likeness running out to the river’s edge. Depicted waving her towel enthusiastically to greet the ships, her dress billowed in the breeze as her dog stood loyally at her side. This was her claim to fame… it is why she’s immortalized in bronze… she simply ran along the bank waving her towel in greeting as the ships went by. Was it the size of the ships that traversed this part of the river that spurred her excitement? Or was she really trying to flag them down in hopes that they’d take her away with them to ports unknown, a place that, in her mind’s eye, would be more exciting than here. After dark, she’d exchange the towel for a lantern. I’d call that persistence. Perhaps she just wanted to attract a man…any man! As the story goes, one day she met a sailor and fell in love; his promise to return to her was never fulfilled. She never married; forever waiting for her true love’s return… dying years later of a broken heart. And here she was… preserved after death, waving at ships and still waiting for what would never be. A shrine to romance or stupidity, I’m not sure.
Growing up further north, I can recall children stopped playing when a tractor trailer was approaching, and ran to the side of the road pumping their fists in the air until the driver responded with a tug on his air horn. Yet, no one felt the need to commission a statue to record their actions. More likely they were yanked back away from the roadside and scolded by their parents for safety’s sake.
I have to wonder… where were the waving girl’s parents? Did they not tell her that attracting strange men sailing by could be dangerous? At the very least they could have warned her that some men may be inclined to take advantage of a willing young girl, easily infatuated by the lure of a sailors stories, Especially when they were only passing through, and leaving town unlikely to ever be seen again. And is this not the south? What about all the books and movies that depict southern women as anything but free spirits running in wild abandon, greeting any man who sails past them? Is it possible the locals knowingly romanticized the story of a flirtatious young girl, who inadvertently fell in love while looking for a way out? Perhaps it is why Ray Charles sings of being unable to get peace of mind in Georgia. And, think of the lyrics of that song (what little there are). Could he not come up with anything worth singing about? How did it become so famous? It makes me wonder if folks here are simplistic or just plain simple.
All things aside, this second trip to Georgia in as many months contrasts with the one previous, in that I would kill for the breeze depicted in the statue standing before me. It is hot. And although the faces and demeanor of those around me are joyous in the heat now radiating from the sun, rather than the bitter cold and ice that was the weather last time I ventured south of the Border, I was beginning to second guess my choice to vacation in the Florida Keys. Georgia is almost half way, and I am feeling a little like Lucifer must have felt as he progressed from the heavenly climate that composed his comfort zone, and was plummeting into hell. Right now, I am guessing I’m somewhere around purgatory!
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