civilization
on a saturday morning
the roar, the power

I live in what is called the low country of South Carolina.

It is north of the Coastal Empire of south Georgia and the Hostess City of Savannah.

The low country.

So called because it is so low.

As I write, I am about 10 feet above sea level and I am on the 2nd floor.

It is low.

It is also nicknamed the slow country.

The nickname fits for many reasons.

I am not saying we are in the back woods.

I am saying you get here once you get to the back woods.

I am not saying it is Podunk.

I am saying that to get here, you turn left, once you get to Podunk.

The low country has a lot going for it, not the least of which is its solitude.

Its peace and quiet.

At least until this morning when the peace and quiet was wiped out by the roar of civilization.

At least that part of civilization that recognizes the gas powered backpack leaf blower as a part of civilization.

I live in a little apartment complex.

There is no lawn to mow.

There is no yard work.

Still, for reasons known but to those people who make those type of decisions, the parking lot was dirty or something, and the entire complex needed to be blow dried.

Understand the grass has not started growing yet.

There was no grass to be mowed in the little places where grass can grow around here.

As a matter of fact, I don’t think there were any lawn mowers in action this morning.

No sir.

It was this small army of noise terrorists armed with these backpack leaf blowers blow drying every inch of sidewalk and parking lot.

At 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning.

It sounded like a whole bunch of chain saws had been turned loose in the woods behind us and with development of the area the way it has been that would not have surprised me.

But no, it was just the parking lot cleaning force.

It was the Holland, Michigan street cleaners on steroids.

Up and down the sidewalks.

Under and around all the cars.

The sounds of the leaf blowers changing in pitch as they were waved around.

It was so odd as I couldn’t see that it had much effect.

It has been pollen season down here in the low country.

A pollen season with pollen so thick you can see it, taste it and feel it piling up in your nose.

But it rained all day yesterday.

All the pollen has been washed away by the rain.

I guess that was it.

The sidewalk and the parking lot need to be blow dried.

Ah that roar of civilization.

Well …

It wasn’t snow blowers.

South Carolina
very beautiful but
woo intensely weird

From the article, Alex Murdaugh shines a true light on privilege in the US by Emma Brockes.

That this story unfolds in the south, cradle of the good-old-boy network of near-oligarchical governance, is no coincidence.

I happened to be in South Carolina last week and it’s very beautiful, but woo, to an outsider, it’s intensely weird.

White tour guides lead white tour groups around downtown Charleston, cheerfully pointing out where enslaved people were sold, before pulling up at the gift shop.

Plantation houses, mindful of how times have changed, invite visitors to consider a single slave dwelling on their properties, while advertising the grounds as the “most beautiful gardens in America”.

Use of the passive voice – these houses are “witness to history”, according to the marketing bumf, which is certainly one way of putting it – is rampant.

’bout all I can say is … Boy, HOWDY!