Sergay has come with me to Edisto in this day of cold temperatures and rain. Early in the morning, we are alone on the beach and find 20 welk shells, 3 lettered olives (the State Shell of SC), many Atlantic Cockles, a big sand dollar, a dried up Starfish and numerous strange objects which may be fossils.
After breakfast, we take the Spanish Mount Trail through the Maritime Forest to the Environmental Center and show our finds to Ashby Gale, the interpreter. Most of these are bricks from the settlement at Eddingsville, the remains of which are now out in the ocean. Our two shark teeth are only shells. He offers to meet us at 5:00 pm on the beach and teach us about fossils. We are so fortunate.
Traveling back through the parking lot of the boat ramp, a friendly gate keeper approaches us carrying a poodle in her arms. "This is Mr. Chance", she says. She tells us that he got his name because she got him by "chance" after several owners could not deal with him. "You, see, he has only half a brain, the right side is dead. He flings himself around and knocks himself out running into things". He is ten years old.
Sergay and I walk to the Indian Mound, which is a midden (trash heap) of shells, pottery and other artifacts. It may have had ceremonial or ritual aspects as well. There is a wooden platform in front of the layers of shells on the edge of the marsh. On the floor of the platform is a broken piece of Native American pottery.
It is unlawful to take things from the mound itself. (We take the pottery shard to Ashby who puts it in the Environmental Museum.)
On our trek back through the forest, Sergay's right foot begins to hurt. He is wearing a pair of my shoes since getting his own wet at the beach. He says that he wishes human beings had wings and could fly or that we could be like monkeys and swing from the trees. Somehow we make it back and meet John and James at the cabin.
We all meet Ashby at the beach at 5:00 pm. He tells us that the fossils here are from the Mesoic Era (reptiles) and the Pleistocene Epoch (early humans). "You look for something black and shiney and something that you cannot break". Among us, we find Parrot Fish head plates, an ancient bone, the spines of
Sting Rays.
Ashby shows us a collection of fossils in the trunk of his car which includes shark teeth and a mastodon tooth, found on this beach.
James also finds shells and then runs the beach as fast as the wind with his father who is also a runner, behind him, until they are out of sight.
These are the quotations written on the walls of the Environmental Center:
"The care of the rivers is not a question of the rivers, but of the human heart" Tanaka Shozo
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it attached to the rest of the world" John Muir
"We simply need that wild country available to us even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in." Wallace Stegner
"Come forth to the light of things. Let nature be your teacher." Willliam Wordsworth
It is a bright and springlike day on Sunday as we head home, down Hwy 17 and then West on Hwy 64, we see the first Red Buds reaching out from the woods. The Red Buds are Sergay's trees as they are in bloom, purple and pink on his birthday, the Ides of March. He was born in Vladavostok. Hanah and Patrick brought him home when he was 10 months old . The next September, his sister, Liza was born. "Segay was a gift and Liza was a miracle", they said.
As we drive North/West, we cross the black rivers and streams of the low country, then the green rivers of the midlands and finally the orange iron mud colored rivers of the upstate and piedmont.
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