Seer suckered

v., to wear a thin, comfortable, all-cotton fabric at a socially inappropriate occasion; in the South especially, it is traditional for men to wear seersucker during the hottest months of the summer, usually from Memorial Day to Labor Day; any seersucker garment worn after September 1 is typically considered inelegant or gauche.

Example:

Though not quite fall, the sun had unofficially set on summer. Gone were the incandescent late-afternoon strolls in Forsyth Park; the swelter of August’s moist, stifling midday heat a mere memory. Yet, there they strolled, a cadre of young Savannahians, clad in the uniform of the summer, seer suckered by the specter of a season gone by.

Submit your own Savannah slang to editor@thesouthmag.com. For more inventive words and phrases, visit writer David Gignilliat’s official Quixotica blog at

www.quixoticawords.blogspot.com

If you thought racing yachts was strictly the province of Fortune 500 CEOs, the salty dogs at the Sun City Model Yacht Club would beg to differ.

Yes, model yachts—miniature versions of the real thing.

The Sun City Model Yacht Club started nearly 13 years ago in the Sun City community, an upscale 55-and-over retirement community in nearby Bluffton. The group sails two types of boats: an East Coast 12 Meter (5 feet long by 6 feet high, weighing 26 pounds) and a Soling One Meter (1 foot long by 4 feet high, weighing 10 pounds).

The club has 32 members and sails four days a week on Lake Somerset, competing in spring, summer and fall series. In addition, the club hosts two regattas.

But the Sun City sailors aren’t alone. The American Model Yachting Association boasts thousands of members around the country and even has its own AMYA Hall of Fame.

The boats themselves are radio-controlled and cost anywhere from $1300 for a build-it-yourself model to $2500 for a professionally built one. One hand controls the rudder while the other controls the sails. “You’ve got to marry the two perfectly or you’re not going to get the optimum speed,” advises Fran DiTommaso, who retired to Sun City from upstate New York. “It’s all in the thumbs,” he says emphatically.

Most of the club’s members are Sun City residents, with a few active members sailing well into their eighties. “It’s the kind of activity where you can do it for many, many years during retirement,” DiTommaso says.

Like many of the club’s members, DiTommaso used to sail the real thing, though he concedes he prefers sailing models. “No, I gave up big boats,” he says with a laugh. “It was just too much trouble keeping a boat, keeping it maintained, finding crew and then [sailing on] bad days,” says the club’s EC-12 champion for four years running. “With models, it’s pretty easy. If you look out the window and see it raining, you just don’t go.”

Interested in model yachting? Visit www.modelyacht.org for tips on how to get started.

See it Live

Wanna see the sailors in action? The Sun City Model Yacht Club hosts its signature event, the Sun City Regatta, on September 19–20. For more information, e-mail frandito@sc.rr.com

Teeter-toddler
/”tē-tər-’täd-lər/

n., A child who sits on a parent’s shoulders, usually a father’s, in order to better view an event occurring on adult eye level, such as Fourth of July fireworks on River Street.

Example:
As the first firework cascaded over the Savannah River and into the distant night sky, I could see an army of parents begin to mobilize. One by one, fathers lifted their little ones onto their shoulders for the best view of the pyrotechnics. From the wide-eyed smile of every teeter-toddler there, it was clear that the thrilling perspective from their elevated perch outdid the views of any box seat imaginable.

Submit your own Savannah slang to editor@thesouthmag.com. For more inventive words and phrases, visit writer David Gignilliat’s official Quixotica blog at www.quixoticawords.blogspot.com

A lifelong Savannahian, Ernest Frazier served 14 years in the Army before taking over the front lines of Chatham County’s hallowed halls of justice. As a primary deputy (referred to as a bailiff in other circles) in the court of the Honorable John E. Morse Jr., Frazier has helped to command and ensure a safe environment for the court’s civil and criminal proceedings for the last 11 years.

The South magazine spoke with Frazier recently about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding life on the right side of the law.

The South magazine: How does your workday begin?

Ernest Frazier: The typical day for me begins at about 7 a.m. I want to make sure I have all the court documents, that I have a way to ensure that every inmate is in court once his name is called. With the personnel that’s assigned with me, I’ll search the courtroom for contraband. And I’ll go to the judge’s chambers for any additional instructions. Then I’ll open court for the judge, his staff and everyone in that courtroom.

TSM: How do you view your role within the judiciary?

EF: I play an important role in the community, giving the people of Chatham County and the judges a sense of safety. Providing the security for the judges and the citizens, that’s a very rewarding thing for me. I believe that I’m truly serving a purpose in the community.

TSM: What’s the most difficult courtroom situation you‘ve encountered?

EF: Once one of the guys came into court, and he basically had a razor blade in his mouth. Once he’d determined [what] the outcome of his case was going to be, he was going to use the razor blade. I discovered the razor blade myself and removed it from his mouth.

TSM: Any humorous or lighthearted stories?

EF: There’s a defendant that came to court for trial. After the jury’s guilty verdict, the defendant put the Bible in his hand and said, ‘God said, let’s get naked. Yeahhh-uhh.’ And he disrobed himself and exposed himself to the jury.

TSM: In open court?

EF: In open court, yes.

TSM: Oh, boy. What happened next?

EF: I had to subdue him and escort him out of the courtroom and into one of the secure lockup areas.

Stock car racing and the South boast a subtle harmony not unlike biscuits and gravy. Both pairs are greasy and potentially hazardous to one’s health, yet utterly satisfying.

The sport’s origins in the Savannah area date back to the birth of the Oglethorpe Speedway, a half-mile dirt track that opened in Pooler in 1951. Many of racing’s seminal figures—Dale Earnhardt, Johnny Parsons and Lee Petty—cut their teeth on the D-shaped clay oval, just 15 minutes from downtown Savannah.

Every Friday evening from April to October, motor sports enthusiasts still congregate at the Pooler track for stock car and go-kart races. Narrating the action for the 2009 season is the team of Big Red Womack, a former Oglethorpe driver, and Jim Weaver, a veteran racing announcer.

The South took a pit stop with the pair to learn a little more about loudspeakers, short tracks and the beauty of four left turns.

The South magazine: How do you enhance the action on the track?
Jim Weaver: Before [the race], I’ll try to go down in the pits and visit with as many drivers as I can to get any insight into how their day is going, their week, or life—anything they’d like to get across to their audience. I’ve always believed that the people who are buying the tickets and sitting up there, aside from seeing the cars on the track, they’d like to know about the drivers and what they’re involved in.

TSM: It must be a huge rush to announce a race.
Big Red Womack: I still get very, very excited following the races. It’s not the same kind of adrenaline rush you get driving a car, because that’s in a [league] by itself. But announcing is the next best thing to driving a car.

TSM: What does this sport mean to the fabric of the South?
JW: Stock car racing was born in the South, grew up in the South, and originally, there were no paved tracks. Everything was a dirt track. If you’re a driver and someday have dreams of driving on the big asphalts, this is where it all starts. You’re seeing tomorrow’s drivers today racing on the dirt.

TSM: How do you handle it when tempers flare between drivers on the track?
BRW: I raced for 20 years. I know what’s going on inside that cockpit. If two drivers start running into each other, I know what each of them are thinking. You can’t tell me you’re not pissed off at the other driver. I know better. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. But, as an announcer, you can’t say they’re flippin’ the bird or shakin’ their fists at each other. So I’ll try to make a joke out of it, like, “What they’re doing right there is one of them is inviting the other over for Sunday dinner.” H

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone that speaks more fluently—or frequently—on Savannah’s storied history than Bob Register. As a tour guide with Old Savannah Tours for the last 15 years, he leads over 750 tours annually and has shaped the experiences of literally thousands of visitors with his genteel manners, erudite delivery and homespun Hostess City charm.

The South recently jumped on the trolley with the 65-year-old, fourth-generation Savannhian for a chat about being an ambassador for the city and having more Georgia on his mind than Ray Charles.

The South magazine: Does this job come naturally to you?

Bob Register: I’ve always been a salesman. So what I’m doing now is I’m selling Savannah. I’m still a salesman. My product has just changed.

TSM: How long did it take you to develop your style and approach on the tours?

BR: Oh, about 65 years! And it’s still a work in progress. I work at this every day, and I mean that literally.

TSM: You’re quite a student of Savannah’s history, aren’t you?

BR: When I was young, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it because downtown was [just] a lot of old stuff. But as I got older, I developed a real insatiable thirst for knowledge about the city. That led ultimately into me becoming a tour guide.     > TSM: Savannah is a quirky place. Any strange experiences on your trolley to report?

BR: I had a lady ask me about three years ago—and this woman was in her mid-60s—she told me that she’d come to Savannah to go to Paula Deen’s restaurant. [She explained that] she’s a big fan, and she had a facelift before coming just in case she met Paula Deen.

TSM: What do you want to leave the tourists with?

BR: They’re not going to remember every last thing you’ve told them, but what they are going to remember is how they feel about their experience in Savannah and how they feel about the people. And I think the impression that I make upon these people and the way I present the city is going to determine their impression of the entire community. It gives me a great sense of pride and satisfaction to be part of these people’s lives O

Yet, according to the Savannah Adventure Club (SAC) life doesn’t have to be so mundane. A cadre of 20-, 30- and 40-something Savannahians who (according to the group’s website) “just want to get out there, have some fun, and make some friends,” the SAC invites locals to ambitiously explore the lay of the land in the Lowcountry.

The SAC began in August 2005 as the brainchild of founder Orlin Reynolds. Growing up in the mountains of Tennessee, Reynolds learned to appreciate the rewards of an active lifestyle. Earlier in his 20s, he had participated in an adventure club in the Los Angeles area, but such a group did not exist when he first landed in Savannah nearly four years ago.

“I’d met several outdoor-minded people in the area, but it was [always] one person here does something, one person there doing something else,” says Reynolds, a self-titled entrepreneur with a background in art and graphic design. “There was no type of organization to bring everybody together.” So, like any intrepid adventurer faced with a challenge, he stepped up to meet it and created the SAC.

The first event was a lightly advertised hike at Skidaway Island State Park. Since then, the group has grown exponentially, with a weekly e-mail newsletter reaching over 400 members and with more than 220 social networking profiles set up on the group’s new website.

Currently, the SAC hosts year-round coed sand volleyball events on Tybee Island each week. Local adventures, which are usually planned in advance, include activities such as kayaking to the Cockspur Lighthouse, hiking through Fort McAllister or mountain biking through the trail at Tom Tripplett Park. Skiing, skydiving and rafting outings have taken the group as far away as central Florida and to the mountains of North Carolina.

“You’ll hear people say, ‘I want to do something’ or ‘I want to do this’ or ‘I want to do that,’ but a lot of times they won’t do it. They say it, but [individually] they don’t have the motivation to do it,” Reynolds explains. “They need that catalyst to get them out there. And that’s what I want the club to be, that catalyst that gets them into motion.”

According to Reynolds, many of the club’s recent members are new to Savannah and looking for potential social and athletic outlets to fill up their free time. “The message I get from a lot of people is, ‘I’ve just moved to town. I’m looking to meet people,’” he says. “We give people the opportunity to meet new people, make new friends, to find other outdoor people with similar interests.”

No matter the motivation bringing people to the SAC, Reynolds takes pride in being able to provide a forum where people can grow.

“Just the fact that if I can help someone make new friends, help their lives and help them live better and feel better about themselves and get out of their comfort zone, that gives me a special feeling,” he says. “I’m very grateful that I can do that for somebody.”

Get Involved!

Who: Savannah Adventure Club

What: Regular outings and events including kayaking, hiking, skiing, camping and beach volleyball

Cost: Free membership, but some plannned outings may incur costs

Contact: Visit www.savannahadventureclub.com, or e-mail newsletter@savannahadventureclub.com to sign up for an e-mail newsletter. The Savannah Adventure Club offers locals a chance to get out and get wild.