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Mary Alice Monroe
Isle of Palms resident
"Like so many in the Charleston area, I watched with mouth-open awe the steady progress of the Ravenel Bridge. I can't think of any other time when I've witnessed such a visible symbol of the change occurring in our landscape. I write about landscape and I offer a scene from my novel, Sweetgrass," says Mary Alice Monroe. In "Sweetgrass," a character returns home to the Lowcountry he thought would never change:
Morgan drove aimlessly all afternoon. He drove north up Highway 17 to Bulls Bay, passing lines of blue sewer pipes being laid and bulldozers that lay still, like great beasts in the field, waiting to devour still more sections of precious wetlands. He cruised through his old haunts in the Old Village and then Shem Creek, where he saw college kids and young executives carouse at the bars that littered the docks beside the few remaining shrimp boats. Finally he crossed the old, rusted Grace Bridge that spanned the Cooper River toward Charleston.
The sun was just lowering, setting the sky afire over the water. Against this backdrop, he felt a thrill of awe at seeing the progress of the new bridge being built practically on top of the two older ones. The enormous steel structure seemed to grow at an amazing pace, faster and higher toward the clouds, like the fabled Jack's beanstalk.
And like Jack in the fairy tale, he felt certain the structure would change the lives of all Charlestonians forever.
The enormity of the new diamond shaped bridge dwarfed the delicate truss bridge he'd come to love over his lifetime. So many milestones were marked by crossing that narrow two-lane bridge to and from the coast and the city. It was difficult to imagine the Charleston horizon without it.
He sighed, confused with the warring emotions that always came when he tried to reconcile the fast pace of change along the southern coastline. His parents and their friends were like the old Grace Bridge, he thought, looking dispassionately out the window. They spanned the same years, they were old and rusty, and they were part of a Lowcountry that was fast disappearing.
He reached the high point of the old bridge and looked out over the Cooper River. The port was overflowing with containers piled high, waiting to be loaded onto the enormous ships that would carry goods across the ocean. All healthy signs of growth, expansion and progress. Beneath the bridge, the waters teemed.
He remembered the submarines that used to slide under this bridge back during the Cold War. Some of those babies were nuclear subs with enough warheads to ignite Armageddon.
You could bet that put Charleston high on the enemy list for bombing, he thought. Of course, it was all hush-hush. They weren't supposed to know they were even here. His brother used to tease him when a sub rolled under them as they drove over this bridge. It was damn scary for a young kid to see. Those things were enormous and they slunk under the bridge like deadly monster sharks.
Isle of Palms resident Mary Alice Monroe is
the New York Times best-selling author of
"Skyward," "The Beach House" and the newly released, "Sweetgrass."
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