Like a friend, the May River is there

Over my years of writing articles and for anyone that’s read them, I’m sure you’ve read of the many childhood memories I have of the May River and still, today, the connection with the river that forms a bond with me.

Being born and raised just a hop, skip and jump from Stoney Creek, the May River holds a special place in my heart.

A portion of the May River, before meandering on upstream to Palmetto Bluff, narrows down to creek size and flows under the Stoney Creek bridge on S.C. Highway 46 five mile west of Bluffton. It ends in the marshes on the edge of our property, right behind where a lofty oak tree house that our grandchildren played in stands silhouetted against the setting sun with moss laden branches.

But the May River held meaning for me long before fiddler crabs were spotted crawling in the mud flats and marsh grasses on our property. At the young age of 14, I became a Christian and was baptized in the May River at All Joy beach by the Rev. Lester Cook, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bluffton. And three years later, this same minister read my husband and I our wedding vows.

All Joy beach was a great place to hang out for teens after church on Sundays, diving off the end of the dock into the deep cool, salty waters of the May River. It was also the place where I first learned to water ski, along with quite a few other “first-time-up-on-skis” teenagers.

Many years later, then the mother of three boys, a miraculous moment occurred when taking them down to All Joy for a day’s outing of picnic lunch and swimming. When making a stroke in swimming, my wedding ring went sailing in the air from my finger, going “kerplunk” into the water, Lord knows where.

The next day, armed with rakes and young ’uns having a sharp vision, we set out to examine the area of mud, on low tide, approximately where the ring had gotten lost. After an hour of what looked like a lost cause, a lady, curious as to what we were doing, walked down from her rented cottage to ask.

When told, she went into searching also and shortly thereafter says, “Is this what you’re looking for?” holding my wedding ring up for all to see. Saints preserve!

Most people would consider themselves as having put down roots for sure if they’d lived in the same place, near the Stoney Creek, all their life like I have.

To me, my roots feel almost like tentacles, especially since I was raised off of anything edible that came from the May River: oysters, shrimp, crabs, fish and especially mullet. Mullet was easily caught in a net, readily available, and plentiful. Oh, I have cleaned and prepared for cooking my share of mullet!

My daddy, Jesse Simmons, made his own nets to catch shrimp and mullet out of cotton and nylon twine, unlike the monofilament cast nets used today. He was always knitting on a net, either for himself or for someone who wanted to buy one, as “net-knitting” was an art in those days.

An old cedar tree still stands on the bank of Stoney Creek that my siblings and I used to climb and dive off of into the creek during summertime. I think now, though, I might have second thoughts of doing that with the number of large alligators that seemingly love to hang out in that area.

A little way off from the main stream was a spot we called the “little river” because at high tide water was only four feet deep. That made it the perfect spot for “just learning how to swim” young ’uns, especially when Daddy would turn a small bateau over in the water so we could climb atop it, jump in and come up under it where we could breathe and talk to each other in the open space.

Growing up on the river was fun for me in my youth, raising our sons on it in their youth and then our grandchildren. You can’t beat standing with bare feet with mud oozing between your toes when trying to catch a crab while holding a hand line with a weighted sinker and baited with a chicken neck. Patience is the name of the game here, laced with anticipation, but patience always paid off and we ended up with a pot full of boiled crabs. Yum!

Oyster beds along the creek mostly house smaller oyster, a calling card for raccoons on low tide in search of food. But further down the river in deeper waters, the banks have larger oysters fit for picking and roasting.

The saltwater marshes have an odor all their own and once you smell it and get the mud between your toes you’ll be hooked for life on our rivers filled with aquatic life, sea gulls squawking, egrets and other shorebirds perching on tree branches along the banks with hanging moss swaying in the breeze.

“A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still.” — Thoughts of Aidan Chambers.

This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 5:30 AM.