I rocked the cooler on my shoulder. “When you come to realize the purpose of the trip, you might call it a religious experience at that. I come over here to visit the Chambers family. The menfolk are crabbers and have been for generations. And Miss Darcey, the mother of the clan, makes, hands down, the finest stuffed crabs on the face of the planet—perhaps in the entire universe. Plus, I wanted you to meet the family. The Chambers are Geechees, and maybe you know what a special people they are. If not, you soon will.”

Patricia gave me a quizzical look before saying, “You move in a lot of circles, don’t you? I know of the Geechees, but can’t say I know any of them.”

“Well, let me give you a short tutorial, if I may. The Geechees, or Gullahs, as they are also known, are descended from slaves who were brought to the barrier islands and coastal areas of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida, directly from West Africa. When the plantation owners, and other whites, fled the islands during the Civil War, the people continued their lives as they had always done before—farming, fishing, and making their handicrafts. Here, due to the isolation of the region, they were able to retain a great deal of their West African culture, and through the mixing of English and several African languages developed a dialect all their own,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” she replied.

What I didn’t say was that I find the Geechees to be a gracious and very wise people, similar in many ways to the folks I have known, worked with, and lived among along the coastal areas of West Africa. Sadly, they are increasingly under assault by the land developers who covet these once-remote islands. Even Daufuskie, which has no land connection to the mainland, now has a golf development occupying a huge swath of the Atlantic side of the island.

I can only shake my head at what is being lost and ask myself: Are there not enough golf courses and gated mansions in this country already that we don’t have to rape the last of our pristine places? And are we not content until we have cut down every ancient tree, paved over every piece of sacred ground, and put up a new mall, so we can wander around in a materialistic stupor, buying things we don’t need and enriching the already stupendously wealthy?