Odd Days: Savannah, give me sordid, please!

I was in Savannah last week. That city has history! And when I learned that it is the most haunted city in America, I conjured ghosts of tortured slaves, mutilated rebels, maybe Johnny Mercer's grandfather. But no. Savannah earned the title in somewhat less interesting fashion...it applied for it.

You see, before publication of the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (the true story of a sordid murder that takes place in Savannah), Savannah had a mere 4 million visitors a year. The year the book came out, 10 million tourists descended on the city. The numbers declined as the years passed and Savannah needed a gimmick to lure people back in. So the city won the haunted title by reporting more unexplained parapsychological (is that a word??) events than any other city in the competition.

So now there are more ghost tours than residents. But my friend and I love kitsch, so we signed up for a tour of Bonaventure Cemetery. As we were driving to the graveyard, I commented on the declining number of tour companies going to Bonaventure (two apparently went out of business while I was on the phone with them).

Our refined southern belle of a tour leader explained that other tour leaders chased away customers by revealing too many sordid details about too many unpleasant events, thereby turning people off. "One fella" she huffed "actually stood next to Johnny Mercer's grave and rattled off all of his extra marital affairs! Can you imagine? Nobody wants to hear that kind of trash."

And I'm thinking, "They don't?"

Later, in the cemetery, we pass a statue of a runner poised over a grave. "Who's that?" I asked.

"Oh, she's a marathon runner who committed suicide."

"Oh my! What's her story?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I refuse to learn the sordid stuff."

And I'm thinking, "ACK! I want the sordid stuff! Give me my money back!"

As we were returning to our hotel, I tried one last time, "So what do *you* think? Did Jim Williams kill his lover Billy Hanson?"

"Let me tell you this," she said, "Jim Williams did a lot for this town!"

And that was the end of *that* conversation.