Photo of the Day: (Dead) Alligator Jaws, Sea Pines Forest Preserve, Hilton Head, SC

This image was taken two years ago, when I was visiting the marvelous Sea Pines Forest Preserve, in Hilton Head, SC. My fingers, however, were gripping the camera, not the remains of the rather menacing alligator shown here.The fingers you see here belong to a close relative of mine who will probably get a chuckle out of this picture!

Photo of the Day: ‘The Voice of the Sea’—Hilton Head, SC

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” —Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

I’m not sure what Kate Chopin had in mind exactly, but this is how “the voice of the sea” felt like to me when I photographed the beach by Hilton Head, S.C., while on vacation two years ago.

Quote of the Day (Rachel Carson, on Where to Find ‘The Story of the Earth’)

“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” —Environmental Rachel Carson (1907-1964), “Our Ever-Changing Shore,” in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, edited by Linda Lear (1998)

This picture was taken nearly two years ago, when I was on vacation in Hilton Head, SC. (The bicycle rider in the distance may well be me, as a matter of fact.) Tonight, as I pondered the awful damage that Hurricane Matthew is ready to inflict going up from Florida through the Carolinas, I’m hoping that this special spot I grew to love will somehow be spared the worst of this storm.

Photo of the Day: The Sky as a ‘Miraculous Achievement’ in Hilton Head

I snapped this image late in the day while on vacation, in November 2014, in Hilton Head, S.C. Looking at the photo now, it brings to mind these lines from Lewis Thomas’ 1974 bestseller, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher:

“It is hard to feel affection for something as totally impersonal as the atmosphere, and yet there it is, as much a part and product of life as wine or bread. Taken all in all, this sky is a miraculous achievement. It works, and for what it is designed to accomplish it is as infallible as anything in nature."

A glorious sky is not to be taken for granted, any more than life itself should be.

Photo of the Day: Lovely Lakeside, Sea Pines Forest Preserve, SC

In November 2014, when I visited South Carolina for the second time, I understood even more intensely why so many love the state. It’s not just the graceful antebellum homes of Charleston, but the sheer natural beauty you find on Hilton Head’s Sea Pines Forest Preserve, where I took this photo.

All of that, though, fills me with even more dismay about what’s going on in the state this week. As I write this, Donald Trump is still enjoying a sizable lead in the Republican primary this Saturday. The success of this profane, secular, Vietnam-avoiding New Yorker, in an area that famously values manners and the military, is nothing short of astonishing.

The Republican establishment and the media have commented often on the potential long-term damage that the Trump candidacy may inflict on the party. Less noted and more saddening, I think, is the baleful impact that Trumpeters may have on the Palmetto State. 

Consider, for instance, these statistics from the firm Public Policy Polling on the beliefs of Trump supporters:

*70% think the Confederate flag should still be flying over the State Capital; 

*38% of Trump voters say they wish the South had won the Civil War vs. 24% who are glad the North won and 38% who aren't sure; 

* 80% of Trump voters in South Carolina support his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States;

* 31% of his supporters would also ban homosexuals from entering the United States;

* 32% of Trump voters in the state still like the policy of Japanese internment during World War II, just slightly below the 33% who oppose it and 35% who have no opinion one way or another.

If Trump wins a resounding victory in South Carolina, he may build up unstoppable momentum toward the GOP nomination for President. His shock troops, as reflected in the above statistics, seem hell-bent on making the state a byword for bigotry and retrograde racism. I’m not sure that that is a reputation I’d want for a state that loves tourists like myself. 

We visitors have to decide if South Carolina’s natural beauty is sufficient compensation for its attitudinal ugliness. Don’t count on it.