Forbidden

Forbidden

Friday’s rain gave way to a hard freeze Saturday morning. Cars were glazed over with a thick, crusty coating. The frozen grass melted as the sun erased the shadows. One thing came to my mind. Golf.

Countryside Golf Course closed on March 1, and I never had the opportunity to say good-bye properly. Today was my day. Together with my two brothers, I ventured onto the forbidden course and documented my last round. Eventually, I'll have the video we shot from that last round here on this blog.

As my brothers and I walked the course, we stepped back into time and relived memories from our youth. From the time I was merely seven years old, Countryside/Arrowood was a part of my life. Lazy summer days were spent walking around my very own playground. I grew to know every square inch. Though I would never develop the talent for golf that my brothers or father displayed, I could walk that course blind. Every trap. Every bush. Every tree. Every meadowlark’s nest in the tall grass on #12. Its beauty was what I measured every other course I visited against.

As I walked today, I found little to cherish. The course looked sad and pillaged. Left to decay. Yet despite it all, the plum tree on the third hole is in bloom.

John McCutcheon recorded a song he called “Elvaton” on his album “How Can I Keep From Singing?” back in the early 70’s. That song has always resonated with me. It’s about a small town in South Carolina that was flooded to make way for the production of nuclear fuel. For a long time, I never could find any reference to the town of Elvaton being taken over by the government. However, I recently uncovered this song with exactly the same lyrics. As you will see, the name of the town is Ellenton, South Carolina. It was a town of 6,000 quiet souls before their government came and destroyed their lives.

What happened to Ellenton reminds me, to a smaller degree, of what’s happened to my Countryside.

Death of Ellenton

Where the broad Savannah flows along to meet the mighty sea,

There stood a peaceful village that meant all the world to me.

The home of happy people--I knew each and every one,

My kin folk and all the friends I loved---the town was Ellenton.

But the military came one day and filled our hearts with woe.

"We'll study war right here," they said, "The little town must go."

Then they came with trucks and dynamite. The din and dust rose high.

I stood and gazed in silence as I watched my hometown die.

They brought bulldozers by the score where children used to play,

Pushed over all the trees we loved, and scraped the flowers away.

Now the homes are gone--the schoolhouse too--the sweat and toil of years,

And with them all the joys and hopes of past and future years.

The little church was hauled away. The fields are brown and bare,

And in their place a mighty plant. They build the H-bomb there.

Now the smoke hangs o'er the valley like the mist before my eyes,

Has been there ever since the day I sa

Oh, the friends we know and love, we'll meet upon some other shore,

For Ellenton--fair Ellenton is gone forever more.