Few TV series have captured my attention more than the History Channel's "Life After People". For those of you that have all but given up on TV broadcasting as a method to while away your evenings, let me provide a brief synopsis. The series provides us mortal humans with a futuristic glance at how our world would look like should all of us simply disappear, except that is, for animal life. Intellectuals from the scientific field as well as engineering, botany and geology gathered around their respective computers and with the help of the History Channels computer graphic gurus show our respective worlds simply deteriorate right before our very eyes.
Now any other time I would simply watch because I felt like being a couch potato and dismiss the whole lot as passing fantasy. But as the critters and foliage of the world inhabited what humans had savored for themselves, it struck within me a weird sort of sensitive chord. A walk outside during one of the commercial breaks brought my unique world into simplistic view....a world that had changed dramatically and drastically in the last twelve months. Due to what I have often called Daufuskie Island's version of "The Perfect Storm", "Daufuskie Island Clubs demise and a living version of the USA's "Great Depression", I found myself peering out at at the entire front nine of the Bloody Point Golf Course without a soul in sight. Once bustling with well heeled humans chasing around and hitting a little white ball with a stick, all that remained was nature in its purist and most basic form....and yes, the ravages of only one years time were surely taking their toll.
At first blush, my natural instinct was to feel seriously disturbed and sorry for what is literally and figuratively my back yard. I have walked Bloody Points fairways when they were at their "pinnacle'", when "caddies only" were the rule of the day and where the sign of a lowly weed making its presence known was treated with disgust. But after spending the last few months strolling alone amidst towering lob-lolly pines and ancient live oak trees and listening to the winds softly whisper to me through their boughs I knew they were at peace. The land revered by the Yemassee Indians had been given, by the selfishness of humans, a second chance, a unique short reprieve...if you will...to return to what it was. Nature without human intervention was gloriously returning. Thousands upon thousands of white ibis, wood storks and pied billed grebes make the lagoon along the sixth fairway their rookery. Ponds with their silky black waters cleared of chemicals spring to life with glorious bright green algaes and tall brown topped cattails. Birds of every persuasion sing their melodies and the symbol of America glides and circles gracefully as if to oversee and approve.
But unlike the History Channel, the compositions on film will not prevail. Soon, and with the Heavens ultimate approval, Bloody Point will once again return to what its position in the earth's grand cycle should be, a truly wonderful and unique golf course. Mortal humans will traverse the fairways and putt its manicured greens. But make no mistake, in the vastness of time, Bloody Point will once again with the blessings of the Yemassee's return to "Life After People".
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