Wow! can't believe it's been over a year since I last posted. I had just started back to work at Gulfstream when I created "The Daufuskian" back in April of '08 and the months have raced by at warp speed! Older is definately faster - Oh well onward and upward so they say, so lets go "up the hill".
As we approached the dock, the three giant, ancient oaks, stood as monsterous sentries guarding the old house that was not much to look at, but a priceless treasure to us.
In later years, we would use the "big dock" to get ashore, but at present (a long time ago, now) the tide is low, there's no floating dock or ramp and the dock is several feet above the water i.e. inaccessible. So, Pop the steers the over-loaded batteau past the dock, makes a sharp right turn and runs the boat up onto the bank next to the dock. We're on the upstream/north side of the dock because there are oyster shells here and only a thin layer of soupy mud (as opposed to the other side which has a thick coat of dark, thick, sticky - and sometimes delightful - mud). Pop jumps out of the boat* and pulls it up as far as he can to make it as easy as possible or my mother (Ma) and me to get out as well as to unload.
*Pop must have had his boots on - the big, black rubber boots with a red toe and top strip - because I don't remember him getting his feet wet.
What a wonderful sight; what a marvelous feeling - WE HAVE ARRIVED! We're here! We're on Daufuskie, that wonderful, little (but not insignificant) "Island Named Daufuskie" (the title of Ma's second book; Stirrin' The Pots on Daufuskie was her first and I highly recommend reading/owning both).
Mother and I picked our way, step by careful step, up the muddy, flotsam-covered bank and onto the path that would take us up the hill to the old house. The bank was a real obstacle course because of the racks of dead marsh grass and limbs and the timbers that Pop had pulled from the river and secured to the bank in an attempt to stem the ever-threatening erosion that was constantly eating its way toward the old house.
Once we cleared the obstacle course of the bank, we would continue our journey up the hill. We called it going up the hill, because, well, the path we used went up at a rather gentle grade past the old, wooden, story and a half house, curved around the warped little shed skewed by age (both gone now) and on to the pavillion. It was our very own golden sand path to paradise, not that different from the yellow brick road to Oz, and to us, just as memorable.
- - As I write this, memories - sweet and luscious bits of the past - are flooding into my mind like a tsunami of Hershey's Kisses. And I'm lovin' it! But, it's getting late (though technically still early) and I'm getting tired so you'll have to wait for the next installment that I'll call "The Old House". Ta-Ta for now - -
