Coronavirus pandemic a good time to remember: ‘It’s not nice to Fool Mother Nature’

Do you feel it?

After over a month of isolation and social distancing, most everyone I know is anxious, antsy and in some cases in a darn right foul mood. I get it because I am in the same boat.

I’m pretty much at home every day with my wife, Karen, doing yard work and long overdue house repairs, but when I do get out I notice more and more cars out on the roads and in the rare event that I have to don my mask, gloves and spray myself down with Lysol to get something at Lowe’s or Home Depot, it shocks me to see so many without any protection on at all. I can’t get out of there fast enough.

This unique period got me thinking about just how powerful nature is.

She holds all the cards and after researching other like times in human history, I concluded that she has always had the high hand. Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and pandemics are tools she can unleash at any given moment.

Realizing this, I tried to think of one thing right here in the Lowcountry that proves my point.

It didn’t take me long to come up with the case of the mysterious disappearance of saltwater catfish.

If you are relatively new to the area, understand that saltwater catfish were a dime a dozen for those of us growing up here. If you fished at all you would most certainly catch a bunch of catfish.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was in the early ‘90s when they started to disappear. I’ll bet it has been over a decade since I have caught one single saltwater catfish, or even heard of someone catching one. In the blink of nature’s eye, whoosh, they were gone.

I hate being a downer because, overall, I am a positive person.

But in my eyes at least, humans are doing a dismal job caring for this planet we live on. Rain forests being destroyed at a frantic pace, global warming, plastics and pharmaceuticals being dumped in our water at a staggering rate, clear-cutting massive chunks of land, pollutants and carbon emissions spewing into our air 24/7 ... the list goes on and on.

If you were Mother Nature and were being treated so miserably, what would you do? I won’t answer that for her but it comes as no surprise to me personally that she might be, mildly put, peeved.

Another bit of research revealed to me that far deadlier pathogens are lying dormant not far under the surface of our planet. They may have been there for millions of years and, if we keep digging, one day they are going to see the light of day again.

The human body is a marvel fighting off most organisms, but to build up an immunity, it takes time.

Just last year I mentioned to my wife that since it seemed pathogens were becoming resistant to the massive array of antibiotics we all rely on way too often, a pandemic was bound to happen. It used to be we let our bodies fight off things like the common cold, but nowadays we all rush to the doctor for things like Z-Paks instead of taking a handful of days off from work while our body fights off whatever ails us.

I didn’t mean to spout doom and gloom, just observations and, most importantly, that whether we like it or not, nature is totally in control.

I think if we can accept that fact and do a better job caring for our caregiver, things like what has us all holding our breath right now may be held somewhat at bay.

Remember those old TV commercials for Chiffon margarine in the early ‘70s, with the slogan, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”? Personally, I prefer real butter, but this pandemic should resurrect that slogan because it is oh so true.