When I was younger my family lived at Parris Island, South Carolina. Its in the area of the Palmetto State that’s known as the “low country”. Its low in the sense that it is covered with the marshes of the coastal tidal rivers. Islands large and small dot the landscape and at high tides are surrounded by the brackish water. The area is rich in teeming aquatic life. The banks of the rivers are marsh and sulfur rich mud. Marshes grasses and snails and tiny “fiddler” crabs fill the marsh area along with many other creatures. On my river, the area between the flowing water and these marshes were lined with empty oyster shells. These shell banks were wide and deep. If you dug down there were just more shells. All were bleached white by the South Carolina sun. Today, when I look at those rivers on Google Earth I see the same brackish water and the banks still have some white borders but it’s hard to tell if they are the shell banks that I recall.
At this time in my youth these shell banks were my goal. I wondered what treasures might lie there among the bleached oyster shells. But between me and those banks lay a hundred yards of marsh mud. The mud would support a fiddler crab, but if I set my foot on it I would sink up to my knees in the soft “pluff mud.” At the same time I was rewarded for my effort with the stench of rotten eggs/sulfur from small air pockets formed beneath the surface of the mud from the processes involved in the decay of organic matter. It was a truly distinctive odor.
Neither my dog or I liked the smell, but we were drawn to the marsh and the distant river bank. We had tried to slog our way out but it was exhausting for both of us. With each step I would have to full my foot free of the sticky, smelly mud only to sink back up to my knee with the next step. My dog would be up to his chest with all four legs stuck in the mud, but together we gamily slogged on. But we were not to make it. I had to lift my dog out of the mud and together get back to the solid land beyond the marsh grasses. I clearly remember the reception we got at home when we arrived dirty and smelling of the mud. We had to clean up in the back yard with the hose.
There had to be a better way. After much thought I came up with a plan using boards that I could find washed up in the marsh. Using several boards, I could build a walk-way that I could move with me out over the mud to the white shoreline beside the river. It required that I move the boards with me. I would place the first board and walking along it place the second board at the end. Then I would stand on the second board and pick up the board I have just left. I would carry that board to the end of the second board I was walking on and place it into position. I repeated this process over and over. It took me half an hour to cross 100 yards of sucking mud and reach the shell banks next to the river.
My dog would walk on the planks as well -sometimes. A couple of time he jumped into the mud to investigate something, and I had to pull him out. This was no mean feat as he was a full-grown pointer, and I was just in my twelfth year.
I was difficult work, including a few slips of my own. But we made it. 1
We stepped out onto the shell bed. The shells shifted and crunched with each step. We had made it to the river. The brown swiftly flowing water was only a few feet away. As I walked towards it, the shells would shift and slid into the muddy water.
I stood and gazed out across the river and savored my success. Then I sat on the shell bed and looked out across the broad river. My dog sat down next to me.
To Be Continued in a follow-on article, “The Road Back.”
1-Years later I would read Larry Niven’s science fiction stories and his Tales of Known Space, which included a planet of this name. I would recall my walk across the Mud.