My first summer in South Carolina we stayed in my Grandmother's beach house on Sullivan's Island near Charleston. Our family had just moved from Levitown, New York where small, lawned yards defined the landscape of suburbia. I had spent my first five years in that Long Island neighborhood, but now our new Charleston home was being built on the Wando River. To finish our new house would take three months, the summer, my first summer in the south.

For my brother, sister, and me, it was a fantastic summer in the sun where the wide green marshes and great sandy beach filled the long days. We ran free and barefoot. We bellywalked the pluffmud horizontally climbing across the undulating flats. I loved to float head just above the water through narrow, tidal creeks searching the long sheaves of spartina grass for heron nests, fiddler colonies, grazing periwinkles, and other unbelievable things.

The salty air, the lapping waves on the long gray beach, the late afternoon sun highlighting the marsh in bold relief are the imprints of that summer. I would run in the extending tip of the in-coming tide settling my stride into a rhythm. The cadence of the sounds of my feet fell in tune with the sound of my breathing, the beat of my heart, and the rolling of the surf. It somehow gave me the sensation of being a seagull on the wing, flying just above the waves, feeling the updraft on my chest, the sheen of light bright in my eye, and the spray of sea mist across my body.

Mother did not share in these delights. That summer was a difficult time for her. She was pregnant, living among her mother-in-law's things with three young children. Our grandmother was a stern and unforgiving woman. What we kids remember most was the prickly, affectionless kisses we would get at greetings and leavings. She shaved her white mustache only occasionally and when she kissed us she never pursed her lips. Instead she would bang our faces with her flat, stiff mouth in an awkward pecking motion. We didn't give her much of a second thought. For Mother, many successive thoughts were given to grandmother.

The house where we temporarily lived was filled with things the mother-in-law had collected over time. Each had special meaning. The kitchen was complete, the bedclothes all carefully stacked in the linen closet, the knick-knacks positioned just so. With an active household of children, this was a formula for trouble. During our short summer stay, several occasions for trouble presented themselves.

One such time was when my polio vaccine was due. I was to go to first grade in the fall and had to be up-to-date with my immunizations. The anticipation was wretched for me. I cried all night contemplating the torturous prick neverminding that I regularly cut up, bruised, and scrapped myself on stickers, thorny vines, and oyster shells.

Dr. Otis Pickett received my sad, little self in his examining room filled with tall cabinets and high racks of everything mediciney. He had the needle at the ready in his shirt pocket. I was too small to defeat the opposing forces and was on the edge of panic. He put his face close to mine and smiled warmly. He did a flyby shot with a prick, plunge, pull away all in one, deft sweep of his hand. I didn't know if I had even been hit. He was my hero.

What happened later I did not attribute to Dr. Pickett although it was precipitated by my reaction to the vaccine. I came down with a fever and felt poorly. I was so pathetic that my mother put me in her bed out of the way of the fractious carrying-on of the household. What she didn't know was that Stevie, my brother, was plotting revenge from perceived past evil deeds I had performed. He saw my weakened condition as opportunity. He snuck into the sickroom, stood at the side of the bed, and stared at me. What to do? I was dozing and nonchalant, feeling beyond reach in the large poster bed my parents slept in.

Steve spied a kleenex box half full. He took one out and dropped it at the point by the bed where my arm would have let it drop had I used one and carelessly flung it to the floor. Not enough. He dropped another. Too much fun! He did them all, one by one around the bed. I had fallen into a light sleep and knew nothing until my mother came into the room.

My senses perked up. Something was amiss. Before she thought about it, my mother turned me over and wopped my fevered behind. It was soon discovered that Stevie was the perpetrator. Mom was very upset with the wrongful punishment. Stevie got an enthusiastic double dose with the paddle board, a handy device that hung on the wall in the kitchen.

Now, something had to be done to undo my mis-spanking. Later that night, my father decreed that I was to be issued a credit. Next time I needed to be spanked, I could use my credit to be spared the punishment.

What a circumstance! I had never imagined a situation such as this:
actually contemplating some bad behavior for which I would not be punished. This precious opportunity could not be wasted on just some regular mischief. I sat in the porch swing several days later contemplation heavy on my mind, when it came to me. Right then, I rose up, walked down the broad stairs to the front yard, took the path to the backside of the island, and waded out past the spartina grass to the creek bed.

Perfect, it was low tide. Between me and the water's edge was the broad expanse of porous, undulating, black pluffmud. This viscous substance was composed of the final decomposing residue of everything once living in the marsh. It was the thick, oil-like gooy precursor to petroleum deposits that had a familiar foul smell.

I held my arms straight out from my body and fell face first into the coastal vat. I wiggled around and coated myself thoroughly creating a ragged mud angel. I rose from this work, turned, and retraced my steps. Up the front steps, I made my way. Each step purposeful. Pluffmud dropped off and mushed on the stair. One could not just let this stuff dry and then sweep it away. Its oily adherence wouldn't allow that. No, one had to let the weather slowly bake and wash it away. I had seen pluffmud tracings on many an island dwelling.

I marched straight up the center of the stair, across the porch, into the house, down the center hall rug. Into the bathroom at the end of the hall I went and wiped the back of my black hand on the guest towels hanging there. I didn't get any further before my mother had me. From the look on her face, I thought she was going to toss me out the second story window, but I could see she begrudgingly dismissed the idea. Instead, I was hauled out to the yard, stripped, and harshly hosed down all the while vainly trying to cash in my credit. Well, some things are just too good to be true. I screamed bloody murder when she whipped me, but later when I was alone under my bedcovers I smiled. Stevie would pay.

Yvonne Michel
College of Nursing