I slept in my little tent where looking up I could see the sliver of a moon through the tops of tall pine trees.
The woods and lake were breathing their musical notes in and out in a lullaby. Once, I heard a commotion among water fowls, but near dawn, there was a silence, warm, full of promise and comforting.
Yesterday evening I took the Beaver Pond Nature Trail which shoots off the camping area for one and a half miles. It is a white sand, pine needle covered trail through pines and oaks full of the unworldly black butterflies with blue markings (known as Limenitis Arthemis Astyana) drifting towards my outstretched hands and away. Suddenly, almost without warning I came upon the pond of high grasses and cat tails, alive with dozens of Great White Herons, wading, perching, bursting and careening through the air, as startled as I was to be an uninvited guest at their roosting and fishing place. Unaware, I had stumbled through that invisible barrier into another world inhabited by other beings. With reverence, I stepped as quietly as I knew how around the loop and back through the butterfly woods.
This morning at 5:00 am, I awoke to the strong aroma of coffee brewing, the orange flame of a camp fire not far away. I made tea and sipped it watching the dawn come. Showered and dressed I walked down to Lake Norton where the day before I had seen mallards and an anhinga with its wings wide spread on a little island. A young girl told me that she thought it was a fake bird. This morning, I could see many many white dots of herons far down the lake. Yellow blooms of lilies float on the dark black waters.
It was time to leave and I took another course home, first down hwy 57 to the crossroad of "Fork" where I spotted a huge fat snake curled on the side of the road, perhaps a copperhead or even a rattle snake, I did not stop to check it out but turned unto Hwy 41 to Marion. I have noticed that in Dillon and Marlboro counties, the garbage cans are Susan B. Koman pink.
In Marion, there were hand wavers up already, sitting in lawn chairs passing the time, greeting strangers driving by as well as friends passing. Here there is poverty, houses grown over with bushes, side walks fringed with tall grasses. It reminds me of how my town was growing up, how I remember walking barefoot on those grassy sidewalks in the silent summer heat. I turned onto Hwy 76 for Florence, past billboards for "Yams, Real Greens, Blackeye Peas, Boiled P-nuts and Beer on Sunday", soul food, but the food of the European Americans as well as the African Americans, who have shared much.
I stopped at a BP station which had a snack and breakfast-lunch bar with tables, a pool room with 2 pool tables and three, yes three, Ladies' Restrooms. This gas station has a porch with rocking chairs.
In Florence, there is prosperity, the Francis Marion College now listed in USA News and World Report as a best American College. There is McLeod Regional Hospital.
I cross under I-95 and head for Darlington. Now the land is softly rolling. Unbeknownst to me, today is the day of the Southern 500 at the Darlington Motor Speedway. I am driving behind the Joe Gibbs Racing Van.
Banners proclaim "Welcome Race Car Fans". I drive right past the speedway where thousands of those fans, dressed for the sunny day are parked and tail gating; one young couple is walking 6 hunting dogs on the side walk. People are hawking parking places, flags, mugs, hats, you name it, it is here. There is a festive spirit for the race which has not started yet.
My last stop toward McBee (pronounced Mackby with the emphasis on Mack) is the McLeod Farms Store. Huge Mrs. Huff's orange and pink Lantana along the side of the building, rocking chairs on the porch. Inside are peaches in season, vegetables, an ice cream parlor and peach cider, apple cider, corn relish, peach butter, apple butter, canned peaches, pickled peaches, peach almond bread, apple almond bread, peach cobbler with and without ice cream, anything your heart desires in the manner of peaches. I buy some fresh peaches.
Now a back road, we came this way on the driving to the beach when I was a child. We would stop, I suppose just here to buy peaches at a peach stand. At home, my mother would buy a bushel of peaches from Springs' stand and would be horrified when my father's mother (from Pennsylvania by way of Ireland) would stew the peaches. Somehow, our family could put away a bushel of ripe peaches in cobblers, pies and sliced on vanilla ice cream, made into homemade ice cream and on corn flakes with milk.
I notice that in McBee, the name on the water tower is Alligator Water. There are other businesses with the name alligator.
I am tired now of driving and hardly notice the yards with suspended gourd bird houses for purple martins,
motorcycles in the driveways, campers in the backyards, rockers on the porches, Chinaberry trees in the yards. I pass Papa John's Christmas Tree Farm, the brick house which looks uninhabited, the grass cut, the broken back yard cyclone fence which belonged to my mother's sister, Trude (married to Papa John). And there on the left is the place where my mother's old homeplace had once been before it burned, now just a small cottage where someone else lives. There had once been a sandy drive in the back where we played hop scotch, a privet hedge separating the barnyard of chickens, pigs, hunting dogs, smokehouse and giant walnut trees that had been cut down and hauled away by a crook who scammed my grandmother out of them.
In the Upstate, along the road, sweet gum, poplars and pecan trees have their first yellow leaves.
By late afternoon, I am back home again, feeding the cat and the dog and unloading the car. My glimpse into the other world of the Great White Herons is behind me, but will stay with me always.
No comments:
Post a Comment