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In the late 1960's I lived in Savannah while my dad commanded the small Air Force radar facility there, next to Hunter Field. I lived right on the corner of Bull Street and East 48th. Bull Street was at the time the demarcation line between blacks and whites: one side of Bull Street was the start of the black community and the other side all white. The poverty in the black community was just appalling. I remember riding the bus going downtown along Barnard Street and seeing house after house where the floors were of beaten earth, with no window panes. I spent most of my time learning to play blues, soul, and Jimi Hendrix (my idol) with lots of young black kids who came over to to my house's attic to jam with this goofy white kid. The young people were fairly tolerant and there wasn't a whole lot of racial tension, even though Martin Luther King was assassinated while I was there. There were some extremely racist older white folks, however.
Savannah is okay in the winter time. I remember a little frost on the ground but not too many truly cold days. The summers, however, are something else. Savannah is VERY HOT AND HUMID !!! It sits on the Savannah river, just a few miles from the ocean. Between Savannah and the ocean are many, many square miles of swampland. In effect, Savannah is almost surrounded by water. The air was so humid that I developed a kind of respiratory problem where my lungs would fill with moisture and I would sometimes begin choking and I lost consciousness a couple of times. The heat in that condition of humidity is unbearable. I think that, hard as it might seem, that Las Vegas is actually a more comfortable place to spend the summer.
Another problem with Savannah that I remember all too well was the odor. In the 1960's there was a gigantic paper mill just up river. Most of the time, you wouldn't smell it. But a few days each month, depending on the wind, you would smell a heavy sickly sweet smell in the air that would drive you nuts. I hope it isn't like that anymore.
In the late 60's while I lived there, Savannah was a moderate-sized town of about 100,000. The old part of town, with its many historic buildings, lined up around one old-time square after another was very colorful. The Spanish Moss grew very thick on all the many trees in the town (Savannah was absolutely covered with trees everywhere - I don't know about now). I think that Savannah was one of the major entry ports of the slave trade. I remember the old slave market along the river docks, which was an unfortunate part of history, but something every American should know and come face-to-face with.
I don't know the modern Savannah, but I have to say that based on my experience of my youth, on balance, it wasn't a bad place to live, if you can survive about 3 months in summer and if there is no longer a problem with the smell.
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