I wonder what's going on with the Okefenokee Swamp now? Once in awhile I'll remember it from my youth, with fear and trembling. It was a scary, murky place, with moss dripping over black, oozing mysteries. The boats that took you on the tours sunk deep, deep into the water. You dare not let your fingers dangle. There were glossy eyes peeping out from the depths. Nobody believes me now, but there were skulls way on up in the trees. My Daddy said the Indians put them there to scare away white people. It worked for awhile. My sister screamed when she saw them. I bit my tongue when I saw a thick, long snake glide into the water not a foot from our boat. The air was hot, thick, full of mosquitoes. There were alligators everywhere. I thought for sure we were about to die.
They don't let you get so close to the water anymore. The boats don't sink down, the pathways are higher, they took the skulls out of there. The people who civilized anything from south Georgia on down must have been either superhuman or crazy. I cannot imagine the determination it must have taken to carve a world out of those impossible places. Now the coastlines are the preferred landing for the gentrified. We are far, far from the rattlesnake's warning and the bayou shack. But on lone, quiet Southern nights, when everyone's gone to bed and the sleepless ones find their way outside, there still runs a shiver down the spine. We are not as far away from the wilderness as we might imagine. And that's probably true, no matter where you are.
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