At first light Charleston's Lowcountry is a heart of a lover, throbbing with expectation. The rising sun, a morning first kiss, gives hope for all that is to come. Early risers are seldom disappointed. Long before the city awakens a parade begins in the marshes, estuaries and rivers. Creeks teem with fish. Marsh critters forage. Birds feed at water's edge.

Little three year old Dann waited on the verandah glider looking out toward marsh and river. Old oaks, their leaves yellow diamonds, sparkled in early sunlight. Their branches, bent to water's edge, shadowed banks of marsh, sand and pluff mud. A mirror polished river was cracked by a fish jumping, by a sea turtle and porpoise rising for air. Fiddler crabs scurried about sand and mud, scavenging for a low tide meal. At water's edge an otter with her pup shared a fish. An egret stabbed a minnow. A blue heron held a guardian's eye.

Dann's grandfather arrived from his workshop. He carried a tiny pail and a miniature three legged milking stool he'd made for Dann. The two, hand in hand, headed for the barn. Now both together could milk the cow. Later they would harvest vegetables. They crabbed, fished and netted shrimp. It was a wondrous childhood. It was in harmony with nature. It was filled with beauty, purpose and love.

When the world war ended, Dann's parents returned to collect their little boy. He was shuttled north by a very different family into a very different world. He returned to the plantation every summer. When he was eight his grandfather died. Eventually that which had become his retreat from chaos was sold. It was the end of his world. It was the beginning of the rest of his life.

The morning sun pried at Dann's eyes. It was time again, another day in Charleston. Just like yesterday, just like all the days before, probably like all the days ahead, and that was okay. Dann Clark was back, back in the Lowcountry. The place where he has once found contentment, a place where once he had been loved.

As young adult in the military he had traveled the world. Never found a place that could compare. And yet, when he resigned his commission Dann settled far away from New York City where he had been raised; where his bourbon infused father still lived. He lived equally distant from Charleston where his divorced, controlling mother, the matriarchal head of a three hundred year old founding family, had returned. In fact, living in the Pacific Northwest Clark could not have gotten any further from his two origins without treading water.

Twenty years passed before he quit it all to seek the tranquility that he had once known and rediscovered each time he'd visited Charleston. He returned to his southern heritage. He saw his mother to a comfortable end. And why not? Regardless of where he was raised, regardless of the traumas of his youth, he had been reared a southern gentleman. They were supposed to be an honorable lot.

For seven years after his mother's death he had remained alone, living a quiet life. He continued to struggle with the wounds his tumultuous childhood. The chaos and shame of those times in the north had followed him as he grew. They grew too. He was content being alone, no social scene for Dann. He'd had had his share of bad "female" experiences; enough so as not to bother trying. He purchased and renovated an 18th Century kitchen house that later had been transformed into a carriage house. He walked the old streets. He attempted unsuccessfully to fish the tributaries he had so effectively done in his youth. He managed his investment portfolio by day. He read at night. He'd found a restless peace at fifty-five.

* * *

Dann's morning started as so many others. He returned from another failed fishing expedition; no "Spot Tail" for supper. Then it was off for the results of his recent four day physical. Leaving two hours before the appointment he wandered again the ancient streets. Here, among the old, the cherished, he found a comfort.

Charleston is American's visit and vacation destination. It is no wonder. A town of old homes, old streets and worshipped traditions, she draws her visitors like her shrimp boats draw gulls as deckhands cast small fish when returning from a day's trawl. She throws to the curious interloper, bits of history mixed with lore and seasoned with a myth of former southern grandeur. Her romantic past is offered in commercial glimpses of plantation life, in the homes of her early residents, and in tales, the likes of Scarlet and Rhett, Porgy and Bess.

Dann chuckled to himself as he listened to a guide. More fiction than fact? More fact than fiction? What's the difference? I's a storybook town.

There's a magnetic curiosity about this once, delinquent, secessionist child of a young nation. The magnetism is greater today than ever before as people more and more wander, longing for and seeking roots.

Dann hustled past the tourists. He nodded to the guide. He continued his umpteenth exploration of this oldest section of the lower peninsula.

Five homes later he came upon the next tour group. He slowed to listen. The guide stopped, turned and faced his charges.

"Charleston is little changed from when she was the nation's naughty girl. In many ways she's still a eighteenth century town. Following the Civil War her banishment and destitution left her ignored for over fifty years. She emerged for a brief moment to sample the twentieth century's first great war only to again become a backwater outcaste. She might have remained forgotten except for two men of power.

"Bernard Baruch, the great financier and philanthropist, had come from Camden, South Carolina. From his offices on New York's Wall Street Baruch invited industry's captains to fowling and fishing expeditions. These were followed by grand, southern parties at Hobcaw Plantation, his country estate. Following his lead, and not to be outdone, other captains, men like Whitney, DuPont, Guggenheim and Hutton purchased similar estates. The worthless rice plantations became the rich's tony toys. For the Lowcountry a new acceptance had begun. At the center of this coastal plane was Charleston, a cultural silver service just waiting to be polished."

This guy's good. Dann thought. Who's the other? Dann stopped. The guide continued.

"When President Kennedy adjourned to the White House swimming pool after lunch, his standing orders were to be interrupted by no one; no politician, no cabinet member, no family member, nobody! Nobody that is, except Mendel Rivers."

Ha, Dann mused, recalling with fondness Mr. Rivers and Dann's grandfather hunting and fishing at Marsh Bluff. He smiled inside with the recollection. The guide continued.

"The great Lowcountry statesman wielded tremendous power, equally in congress and within the executive branch. It is said that he was the tail that wagged all politics. Mendel made it his career ambition to insure that nobody ever ignored Charleston again. As his power as head of the Armed Services Committee grew, so did the knowledge that Charleston existed. The machinery of war steamed into her harbor, glided onto her runways, bivouacked in her forests. By the end of the Vietnam era the Lowcountry had had untold billions of military dollars pass through her coffers and millions of uniformed personnel wander her streets. Charleston was again known. Many years later and still fondly remembered, these former soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines long to revisit the 'best years of their...