One of the great things about my year at the Eastman House in Rochester was the fact that we took a number of multi-day field trips to various labs, museums, and conferences, including the Fifth Orphan Film Symposium, in Columbia, South Carolina, in March 2006. And one of the great things about the Orphans event is the time spent hanging out with friends, like my classmates Pat and Doug. Now, a night at Art Bar may not compare to getting lost in a military base during a torrential downpour as George and I did on my first visit to South Carolina, but it was close.

My first time in South Carolina was in 1997, after a long day driving in from the Outer Banks, getting lost in the aforementioned storm in Camp Lejeune Marine Base, passing through the gaudy extravagance that was Myrtle Beach, and staying at a Howard Johnson’s somewhere outside downtown Charleston. It was our first motel of the trip, on day six, and it was very welcome. We took a cab into town, had dinner at a jazz club, and enjoyed a night of great music. The next morning, we wandered around the city for most of the day, taking in all of the beautiful architecture and various historic districts. No Fort Sumter, no U.S.S. Yorktown, though, which will have to wait until the next trip.

I returned to South Carolina in 2006, and enjoyed Columbia, but most of the time I was there was spent watching films and listening to papers and presentations, so I didn’t have much time to look around, though I did take in the Confederate Relic Room and took a few pictures around town.