Last night I had the honor of staying with most welcoming host, Ann Philips. After a Chinese dinner with some friends from the lecture series, I headed to the plantation home. It was a most delightful evening at the elegant Rosewild House:The Simpson Plantation Home. I showed a picture of an historic home in my slides, but was soon told the particular house I showed was a modern 1890's home, and this Simpson Plantation Home dated back to the 1850's; pre-civil war.

The home smelled of sweet gardenias picked from behind the house, and the evening was one of those rare cool, dry evenings that will allow you to sit outside. I did not even arrive at the house until about 10:30 at night, and truly settle in until 11. It was pretty late, but I sat outside for about 20 minutes, enjoying the gardenias, reading, and nursing a little swift that Mrs. Phillips and I had rescued from inside the house. I fell asleep on the back porch with the swift in my hands. When I awoke I knew I needed to head inside. "Swift" did not want to leave my warm hands, but I couldn't bring him with me. I grabbed a cardboard box from my car, put a layer of pine straw on the bottom, and placed swift in the box. No matter how much I encouraged him, he wouldn't fly and wouldn't leave my hands. After some gentle coaxing I got him into the box.

This morning Swift had gone. I placed him back into the box from which he had climbed, and left feeling somewhat sad.

Have to head to Dallas now...need more coffee.