CHARLESTON IS SMALLER THAN I THOUGHT, BUT YOU'RE GETTING EVEN LESS (Cheri)

So we were surprised to learn that the population of Charleston is only about 150,000.  I had expected it to be roughly the size of San Francisco, which has a bit more than 800,000 residents.  What I am sharing is a reflection of losing pictures from my phone, however, rather than a lack of subject matter!

Starting with the most (?) important part . . . the ice cream stop!  I particularly liked the signs at the right of the front:

Most of the pictures that I lost were architecture, which to me is a big loss.  This was the first that I took, and a really fine example:

These were within a block of each other.  Buxton Books is a very nice independent store which I will definitely return to.  Among other emphases, it has a good selection of books addressing Black issues.

Charleston is of course very old, and these plaques show just how old:

The interior of the building that these next pictures belong to seemed to be a fairly mundane take-out shop, but the owner or proprietor must be a fascinating soul.  The ceiling of a large part of the building was covered with license plates, and they traveled down the walls, behind these plaques:

I don't know if I'm just dense, but I couldn't find a connection between this cafe and the bicycle above its sign.

Maybe a carryover from a prior business?  We see a lot of that here in the South.

Addendum (3/10/24):  We will certainly get back to Charleston, and I could talk about this then, but it's always possible that the show won't be available when that happens.

Vivian Howard talked about the history of growing rice around Charleston on her PBS show "Somewhere South."  I was particularly interested in this because first, I grew up in Northern California's rice-growing region, and second, the South Carolina rice industry was another reason why the State clung so strongly to slavery.

The PBS Food channel is available through various outlets, including Amazon Freevee and The Roku Channel.