Nature’s beauty still can be found in midst of development

A few days ago, some of my fellow long-time residents of Murrells Inlet and I were having an enjoyable time reminiscing about how our village used to be.

Subjects came up like when the “bypass” was a two-lane road with no stoplights. Or when it was commonplace to hear bobwhite quail calling all day long, right in the middle of the old residential district – or whippoorwills and owls at night – and tree frogs so loud they would drown out the sound of any band playing at Tommy Chandler’s Galley.

But in the wintertime it was so quiet. There was no Marshwalk or late night bands. Mixing in with the sounds of the wild birds was the gentle sound of surf off in the distance and the steady groan of the one mile buoy.

Peaceful. Even romantic in a way.

On still nights, you could almost hear ground fog meandering through the tree branches. Before dawn, you most certainly could hear the drone of propellers underwater as the fishing boats made their way to the open ocean.

Some of those sounds can still occasionally be heard. But it is more likely that the clamor of traffic on the bypass will drown most of that out. Our village has changed profoundly since I arrived here in 1967.

There used to be only a few hundred of us. Now there are many thousands, with more on the way. If there is a stand of beautiful woods anywhere between the river and the coast, it is sure to be clear cut and developed – if it hasn’t been already.

Any real estate on a major highway is now covered with strip malls, shopping centers and parking lots. Even the swampy areas out on S.C. 707 are not immune. They just fill them in and put up another Dollar Store or shopping complex. As the song says: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Yesterday, I noticed an article in the Post and Courier that documented some new resolutions adopted by Mount Pleasant’s Town Council, which seek to address the need to preserve the few green spaces that remain. We old folks remember a not too distant time when Mt. Pleasant was almost identical to Murrells Inlet. But proximity to Charleston pushed “development” along a lot faster than here.

Last night I stopped on the way home to gas up at one of the dozens of convenience stores which now inhabit our village. I was thinking to myself how good it would be to have a Murrells Inlet Town Council that might be a bit more proactive in protecting our green spaces.

As I pumped my gas I looked up to see a redheaded woodpecker (a bird that used to be everywhere in our village) poaching on the moths and other insects flying around the halogen lights above.

And I found just a wee bit of beauty to justify the adaption and change which has occurred.

The writer lives in Murrells Inlet.

This story was originally published December 3, 2016 at 4:35 PM with the headline "Nature’s beauty still can be found in midst of development."