Lived on an island with a poet, boat driver, later to be local-hero rock and roller.
We are all still alive, but the Island has been colonized by nonnatives, stripped of indigenous population, reduced to pavement, too upscale to stomach. The Golden Rose Park is gone. The quercus virginiana cut down to make way for a massively widened SC State Route 278.
My neighbor Allison quotes Bill McDonough a lot. Bill McD says:
“It is time for designs that are creative, abundant, prosperous and intelligent from the start.”
There is something about fragile ecosystems that attracts developers with precepts contrary to McDonough’s. Open land is easy, money is an irresistible solvent, and the natives aren’t organized.
In 1970 there were simpler houses, fewer people, and lots of shrimp in the Low Country. In 2003 we’ve stopped trapping turtles with the shrimp.
Help save what’s left of the unreconstructed Low Country—consider joining the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League.
Read all the Conroy books while you are at it, excellent books.