Jekyll Island has been my mother's favorite retreat for years. I promised her shortly after my father died that the two of us would go there to spend a restful time looking at the Atlantic wash the shores like lacework my grandmother crocheted to make doilies she placed on the backs of chairs and sofas.
Jekyll Island, being beautiful, has drawn the attention of developers, those for whom greed turns everything desirable into nothing more than a commodity. The island is being bull-dozed and transformed into rows of condominiums. The Republican legislature gave the developers their blessing, until they heard the outrage from their constituents. So-called progress has been slowed, but development is a juggernaut, sure to win in the end if enough people don't stand in its way, refusing to be moved.
My mother and I stayed at one of the first motels built years ago on the island, The Buccaneer, as it was then called. We had a second floor balcony from which to watch the clouds move, the palm trees sway, the Atlantic swell. The fishing boats floated on the horizon. At night we could see their lights far out at the edge of the world.
No matter what happens to the island, the clouds will continue their journey across the sky, the wind will blow as fiercely as always, whe surf will thunder onto the sand. As for us, who knows? Will we have the endurance to keep fighting for the places we love?
6 comments:
Kaye...a very thoughtful yet sad post.The New Yorkers did the same thing here that the Charlestons did at Flat Rock. I am the worst to travel and fall in love with these places yet I long to see them remain quaint and de-touristed!Progress in some ways is a curse to that which we love.
oh my. Not Jekyll too. I hope it doesn't end up looking like another Hilton Head, which at one time was the most pristine, beautiful spot imaginable. Now it just, to me, resembles any other golf resort that just happens to be on the water.
This is a soapbox I could stand on for hours and hours.
and take up way more room talking about than one of these little comment boxes will allow (which you should be thankful for! lol!).
Suffice to say I find it heartbreaking.
Beautiful words and pictures, Kay. I hate the development of these beaches -- how much better if the beaches were a No-Build zone. No more insurance and government aid for houses destroyed in hurricanes and no more 'beach renourishment' where man tries to combat the natural processes of nature at work. We'd see fewer McMansions and more modest beach shacks then.
I seem to have gotten up on Kaye B.'s soap box. Getting down now. Kthxby.
Kay, This post brought back memories of the 1980s and 90s when I used to spend vacation time with Doris. I know every inch of Jekyll Island. I know the keep out path beside the Buccaneer where I used to cut through to the beach. Your photos are beautiful. I am trying to block out thoughts of bulldozers.
I don't know how to go about saving these places; it's like the process of human discovery does them in, but when I think of the campgrounds and 4-H center, the public beaches that would no longer be "public," so that the rich could own it all and charge taxpayers when their mansions get swept away by hurricanes, then I think somehow we could with enough energy at least slow it all down.
More later---a speech by Janisse Ray, a link to it. Author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhoo.
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