I had that gut-wrenching feeling you get when someone drops shockingly bad news on you. I have spent 40 years hunting, hiking and botanizing on Naked Knob and Horse Mountain. I have enough stories to tell about that area to fill a chapter in a book. These are my woods, and now they will never be the same — at least not in my lifetime.

A few weeks later, I was talking with Ken Forester, the site manager for Jocassee Gorges, and I asked him if he had seen the hurricane damage on Naked Knob and Horse Mountain. He pulled out his cell phone and showed me before-and-after satellite photos of that exact area.

He then scrolled to a satellite view of Long Ridge, the prominent ridge on Pinnacle Mountain that most people know as “the petroglyph site,” because of the ancient Indian rock carvings that archaeologist Tommy Charles and I discovered there many years ago. The aerial photos showed the same thing, big timber laid down in one direction. He then showed photos of a place near Bootleg Mountain on Lake Jocassee, and a couple more. They all depicted the same story — widespread devastation from straight-line winds in the range of 60 mph or more.

One of the real-world impacts of this is that all that heavy fuel will be on the ground for a decade or more. Having served for years on the mountain firefighting team, I can tell you that if we have a wildfire in that area, it’s going to be a hot fire and it will burn for weeks, if not longer. There is simply no way a crew could put in a handline among that jumbled up mess in order to cut off the fire, and it would be slow going to get a bulldozer in there.

More Hurricane Helene news

The loss of all those mature oak trees will also mean significantly fewer acorns for bears, deer and squirrels. White oak trees, for example, don’t start producing acorns until they are 20 years old, so the deficit is going to be with us for quite a while.

Table Rock Mountain was also heavily impacted, along with the Table Rock watershed and Caesars Head areas, which also suffered from the relentless gale force straight-line winds of Hurricane Helene.

Most hikers have already discovered that their favorite hiking trails are either still closed or have recently been opened back up. With hundreds of miles of hiking trails in rugged, heavily impacted terrain, the work is slow and exhausting. Some trails will need to be rebuilt because of landslides. A pat on the back to all those volunteers who are out there working every day to get our extensive network of hiking trails restored.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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I was 4 or 5 years old, and for some reason I had convinced myself that the real Santa Claus was going to be in the Greenville Poinsettia Christmas Parade. I desperately wanted to go see Santa — or “Sandy Claus,” as I called him — but my parents would be working and could not take me.

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Imagine that you had only tasted vanilla ice cream and Baskin & Robbins comes along offering 64 flavors, opening up a whole new sensory experience. It was sort of like that. I was so enamored with our Magnavox color TV, a true technological marvel, that I started calling it the “Magic Box.” 

When you have only experienced television broadcasting in black and white, the transition to color is a profound, life-changing event. Ours was the first color TV in the Slater Mill village and people would come over on Sunday nights after church to watch the “World of Color.” There were only a few programs broadcast in color at the time, but one of the most popular was “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” 

Every “World of Color” episode began with a screen that featured the somewhat-dark background image of a castle, and then a little winged pixie named Tinkerbell would appear and, with a sweeping stroke of her wand, splashes of color filled the screen. It was our first taste of the magic of Walt Disney.  

TV dinners also became popular during that time period because no one wanted to miss even a moment of Disney’s weekly extravaganza and other popular programming. We nibbled on Salisbury steak, peas and carrots, along with a glop of something they called “mashed potatoes” – all the while transfixed on luscious, vivid, full-color images of magnificent waterfalls, the Grand Canyon, hummingbirds sipping nectar from orchids, and bison roaming on the plains. There were also color cartoons and sometimes stories like Davy Crocket. 

One of the most popular westerns of that era, “Bonanza,” was also broadcast in color, but we had only seen it on our black-and-white TV. Once we saw our favorite, best-dressed, faux “cowboys” in natural flesh tones and in a full-color context, we felt like we personally knew the Cartwright brothers, Hoss, Little Joe and Adam, along with silver-haired patriarch Ben. We felt right at home at the Ponderosa.

“Gunsmoke” also eventually made the transition to color. The show was popular even when it was black and white, but with the advent of color, virtually everything took on new meaning. We realized for the first time that Miss Kitty had flaming red hair and a mole – called a “beauty mark” in those days – on her cheek. 

I suppose that little “beauty mark” had always been there, but that’s the thing about seeing something in color versus black and white. Full color draws attention to detail, and adds depth to the image, bringing things in focus that you had never noticed before. I’m glad we’re naturally imbued with color vision. The world would be pretty boring in black and white.

Over time, more and more programs were broadcast in color, but nothing will ever take away from the experience of seeing it for the first time. Nothing will ever erase the magic in the Magic Box.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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Every generation looks through rose-colored glasses when reflecting on the time period in which they grew up, but when I watch old home movies of our Thanksgiving dinners in the ’50s and ’60s, it really does seem that it was simpler: more relaxed; more unconditionally loving; more grateful; and a more civil period in our country’s history than it is today.

We didn’t know it then, but we were Baby Boomers, the children of the Greatest Generation who had fought a world war to preserve the freedoms of liberty. In return for their sacrifice, they wanted nothing more than a better life for themselves and their children.

When I watch those vintage home movies, I see images of my mother in the kitchen wearing her apron dusted in flour, juggling pots and pans, baking, broiling and boiling 10 things at one time. I see my smiling aunts, uncles and cousins, who had come from all around the country, hugging one another, laughing at corny jokes, and beaming with love for those around them – just glad to be there.

I see my frail, 84-year-old grandfather, whom I loved dearly, honored to be sitting at the head of our bountiful Thanksgiving table. Grandpa was an immigrant to this country, coming from England as an orphan in 1917. 

He had run the canteen at the Slater mill, but was also a lay preacher, a writer of poems and a faith healer. I used to curl up next to him on the wide flat arm of his sofa chair. He would tell me stories of having grown up near Nottingham Forest, where Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. He told me stories of Jesus and the cross, of the Good Samaritan, and the Sermon on the Mount. I cried for days when he died. 

These large-crowd communal Thanksgiving celebrations continued until my aunts and uncles, one by one, succumbed to the ravages of old age. By the time I was in my 40s, we were down to my parents, my sister Dorothy and her husband, my brother David and his wife and their two children, and me and my wife, Jane. 

Because most of my mother’s Thanksgiving recipes were scaled for a crowd, she continued to cook huge dinners, which produced lots of leftovers. My father came up with the perfect solution. He would save the compartmented aluminum trays from TV dinners and fill them with turkey and dressing and the trimmings to freeze for later use. 

My parents are gone now, but Jane knows how much a meal of turkey and dressing means to me. She still cooks a traditional Thanksgiving dinner every year, and freezes at least a half-dozen meals to thaw and heat throughout the year. With every bite, for one brief moment in time, those sweet memories come flooding back, filling me with comfort and joy. 

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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This kind of nonsense would have died out long ago except for the fact that in 1948, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History decided that for fun, he would go out and find a bunch of woolly bears and see if the color bands were indeed predictive of the winter weather. The story ran in the New York Herald Times and was picked up by the national press — and the rest is history.

As my fifth-grade teacher used to say, “Let’s put on our thinking caps.” With our “thinking caps” firmly in place, let’s look at the facts of the case. The myth implies that somewhere in the teeny tiny brain of the woolly bear caterpillar is the ability to see into the future and accurately predict climatic events that even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with its super-computer modeling based on global climatic patterns, can offer only a “best guess” long-term forecast for the coming winter.

Furthermore, why would woolly bears even care how severe the coming winter is going to be? Woolly bears are among a number of caterpillars, insects and spiders that make glycerol, an organic antifreeze compound that allows them to literally freeze in winter and emerge unscathed in the spring.

In fact, research has shown that the relative length of the black and brown bands in the bristles of the woolly bear is more a function of the age of the caterpillar and the quality if its diet than the particulars of the coming winter.

As for me, I’m going with NOAA and its Climate Prediction Center. They say that La Nina will develop later this fall, resulting in warmer and drier conditions for the Southeast this winter. La Nina is a pool of cooler-than-normal water in the Pacific that affects weather patterns throughout North America.

There is one wrench in the works, and it is becoming a regular feature in our winter-weather pattern. The polar vortex is a powerful mass of extremely cold air swirling around the Arctic Circle. It is typically held in a tight circular pattern, but in recent years it has periodically slowed down and released plumes of arctic air that get caught up in the jet stream, which brings the frigid air down our way.

An intriguing possibility is that one of those slugs of arctic air coincides with a moisture-laden low-pressure system, resulting in an epic snow or ice event, breaking a two-year snow drought for the Southeast.

Sometimes even NOAA gets it wrong, so you’re welcome to consult the woolly bear caterpillar if you like. It won’t be that long before men in top hats will be dragging a hibernating groundhog out of his den to glean the bewildered creature’s weather forecast for the coming spring.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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Ballooning in spiders is an extremely effective method of getting from one place to another, and Joros have perfected the art.

Baby Joro spiders, born in the spring, are naturally attuned to wind speed, updraft and humidity. When conditions are just right, they climb to some elevated launch pad and spray drag lines of silk from their little spinnerets. These long drag lines catch the vernal breezes, sending them off into the wild blue yonder. Sometimes it may only be a few dozen yards, but when there is sufficient thermal updraft, they can ascend all the way into the jet stream and drift a hundred miles or more.

Joros are remarkably prolific. I recently took a short four-wheeler trip on our property and encountered no less than a dozen Joro webs in 30 minutes. I was surprised with a face-full of the silk from one web that I did not see coming. I can tell you that it is quite sticky and very effective at catching insects.

Examine a Joro web and you will find numerous insect carcasses neatly wrapped in golden strands of silk. You may also notice a small nondescript spider in some remote corner of the web. Those are the males, just waiting in the wings for the time when they get the call to contribute to the next generation.

The gold-colored silk of Joro webs is only apparent when the sun is at just the right angle; otherwise, they are nearly invisible from a distance.

Female Joro spiders are frightfully big, boldly colored and supported by wickedly long black legs. Frankly, they’re kind of scary looking — somewhat like those giant Halloween spooky spider decorations dangling from front porches this time of year.

While they look scary, Joros are actually pretty timid and will sometimes run and hide if you stand too close to the web. They rarely bite unless threatened, and if they do the wound is not serious and easily remedied in the same way you would treat other insect bites and stings.

The real question about the relatively recent arrival of Joros is whether they will displace our native spiders. Time will tell, but one thing is certain — when they occupy an area, they quickly multiply and fill it to the max.

One fundamental principle of ecology is that when an animal is first introduced into a new habitat, it will rapidly expand beyond the carrying limits of the habitat. The population will then crash, but over time will recover and re-establish itself at a level more in balance with the resources of the habitat.

Meanwhile, don’t get spooked. Joros are now firmly entrenched in the Upcountry of South Carolina and are here to stay.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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My wife Jane and I live at Table Rock in the high-impact zone near where the remnant eye of the storm passed. We watched trees whip around wildly, bending and swaying in 60-plus mph gale force winds. We saw the little creek in front of our house grow from a small, spring-fed stream into a raging torrent. We listened anxiously in the dark of night as pine trees snapped and stately oaks were uprooted in the surrounding woods. 

When water began seeping into the ground floor of the house, we scrambled to hook up our wet-dry shop-vac. After two hours of vacuuming and mopping, the rain finally stopped and the water ceased flowing. 

Thankfully, we survived the storm unscathed, but several trips to get groceries and generator gas revealed the widespread damage all around us. Our first trip out required weaving through a maze of downed trees and tangled power lines. In Pickens, we were greeted with the heart-breaking sight of crushed houses and automobiles, along with flooded homes and businesses — so sad. Things can be rebuilt, but the tragic loss of life is forever. 

 Here are some tips on how to mitigate the damage and disruption that comes with natural disasters; whether it’s a hurricane or snow and ice. 

Step one is to make a plan. We typically get plenty of warning when some catastrophic weather event is on the way.  When the warnings go out, start implementing your plan. That plan should include making sure you have plenty of cash on hand. When the power and the internet go out, ATMs don’t work and many stores and gas stations accept only cash.

Get a generator. Yes, they’re expensive, but it’s one of the best investments we’ve ever made. A generator can mean the difference between being out of touch with the world and eating cold beanie weenies in the dark, and having hot meals while watching TV or browsing the internet. Also, consider getting one of the widely available one-burner camp stoves that run on a small bottle of butane, along with several of those popular LED “pop-up” lanterns. They’re both great. 

Thanks to our generator, we had hot coffee minutes after waking up, along with a nice hot breakfast. We had shrimp pileau from the freezer for supper one night, and mahi-mahi, microwave-baked potatoes, a fresh garden salad and a glass of wine the next evening – hardly survival food. 

Finally, a shout-out to all those who worked 24/7 under dangerous conditions to get the power restored, and to those who literally risked their lives on numerous water rescue missions. And a heart-felt pat on the back to all those who bestowed countless acts of kindness on friends, neighbors and strangers alike. Some seek to divide us, but a disaster like Helene reminds us that we are one people, and we are all in this together. 

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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I’ll give you the same advice that the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources endorses, and the same recommendation I have given to my wife, Jane: Hit the deer. Some of the most serious injuries related to deer-vehicle collisions result from drivers swerving to avoid the deer and end up hitting a tree or some other unmovable object. That never ends well.

The best strategy is to train yourself to be vigilant for deer crossing the road, especially in October and November, the breeding season. During that critical period, Jane and I play a little game. Who will be the first to spot a deer? Jane takes one side of road, and I scan the other. After dark, we look for blue eyes. Deer have a reflective layer of receptors in their eyes (the tapetum lucidum (tah-PEE-dum lew-CID-um) that greatly increases their night vision and causes their eyes to appear blue in the bright light of car headlights.

Whitetail deer are crepuscular, which means they are most active at dusk and dawn. So, be especially on alert during those peak hours. There are typically two scenarios for deer-vehicle collisions: one or more deer come running out of the woods and the timing is such that a collision is unavoidable, or the deer are in the road some distance ahead of you and you have time to take evasive action.

In the first scenario, you’re destined to hit the deer, but do not slam on the brakes, which can send you into a skid, making the situation worse. Pump the brakes to slow down.

In the second scenario, (especially at night), it’s important to understand what is going on. In the dark, the deer’s eyes are fully dilated, and vehicle headlights literally blind them. That’s what accounts for the proverbial “deer in the headlights” effect. The deer’s natural reaction is to freeze in place. Honking the horn or flashing your lights may help, but the key is to slow down without locking down your brakes. Also, be aware there may be other deer still in the woods about to cross the road.

A friend of mine once asked me, “How do they get the deer to cross the road where those “deer crossing” signs are? The correct answer is that those deer-crossing signs are located at certain points along rural roads, because that stretch of road has a history of deer-vehicle collisions. Pay attention to those signs, they are there for your benefit.

With more people living in rural housing developments, the number of deer-vehicle collisions is on the rise, despite the fact that the deer population in South Carolina is in decline. In an average year, there are between 2,500-3,000 deer-vehicle collisions. Last year that number spiked to 6,000. Stay alert and don’t become a part of that statistic.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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I tend to forget planting greens every year, because in late summer I’m not in the mindset of planting anything in the garden. But neither one of us can bear the thought of going through the fall and winter without garden fresh turnip greens, curly mustard, kale, rape and broadleaf mustard, known collectively as “greens.”

One morning, even though the thermometer was climbing toward 90 and the humidity was oppressive, I trudged down the driveway pushing the heavy tiller toward the garden. I plant in beds, so I tilled up a 15-foot section, raked it smooth, sprinkled some 10-10-10, and broadcast the tiny seeds. I always rake the bed lightly again and then tamp it down a bit with the backside of the rake. Now, we just pray for rain.

The reason I go to all this trouble is the image in my mind’s eye of going down to the garden in December, when it’s so cold my fingers feel numb as I pick a “mess” of greens for supper, enough to fill a paper grocery bag.

Let me tell you something: If your only experience with greens is those insipid unseasoned turnip greens in a can or maybe on a food hot bar, you won’t believe how good greens that were growing in the garden an hour before they ended up in a pot on the stove can be.

Here’s how to cook them right. Rinse the greens in salted water to wash off any dirt or bugs. Grab bunches of the greens and roll them up like a cigar. Cut the rolls crosswise several times. Put the greens in a big, covered pot of about 4 cups of boiling water.

The only sin worse than not seasoning greens is over-seasoning greens. It’s easy to add so much salt or smoked meat that you overwhelm the unique, wholesome taste of the garden-fresh greens. Boil with a teaspoon of salt and a heaping teaspoon of bacon grease or a small piece of smoked ham hock. Maintain a steady boil, adding water or salt as needed, until the greens are tender. Good greens ought to have a little bite to them. They always get better after the first frost. One taste of good greens and you just know this is what we are supposed to be eating.

While I’m tending to the greens and making real cornbread (no sugar or flour) cooked in a cast-iron frying pan, Jane will be fixing some black-eyed peas and mashed potatoes. We round out the meal with a few thick slices of pork roast.

We serve the greens along with some of the pot-licker in a bowl. The cornbread is for sopping up. Now that’s a meal to savor, and one that makes all the hot, sweaty work in the garden worthwhile.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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Let’s say that you are environmentally conscious, and you have lots of flowers and a vegetable garden. All is humming along famously in your backyard oasis until your next-door neighbor hires a private contractor to spray for mosquitoes. In short order, the honeybees, ladybugs, butterflies, lighting bugs and a whole host of other insects disappear from your yard. What do you do?

The problem is that most private pesticide contractors and municipalities typically use the pesticide pyrethrin in a fog of water vapor. They do this at night or in very early morning to kill both flying mosquitoes and those resting on vegetation. That fog tends to drift around with the slightest breeze, so it cannot be contained to just one yard.

Pyrethrin is the pesticide of choice because it is a natural chemical extracted from chrysanthemum flowers, and the EPA has judged it to be relatively safe for humans. The crux of the problem is that pyrethrin and other pyrethroids are broad-spectrum pesticides, meaning they kill virtually every species of insect that comes in contact with them. They will also kill the fish in your fishpond or in an adjacent stream.

There are no villains in this story. Mosquitoes are aggravating and can transmit a number of pretty nasty diseases. Private pest control contractors and municipalities provide a valuable service, and they do it well. But there are other, more environmentally friendly, “green” options for dealing with mosquitoes. Some pest control contractors also offer more targeted, less-invasive strategies.

If you prefer doing it yourself, think the three D’s of mosquito control — drain, dress and defend. Start by eliminating mosquito breeding sites. Walk around your yard and empty or remove anything that contains standing water — kiddie pools, old tires, gutters, buckets and flowerpot trays, for example. Use mosquito dunk tablets in fishponds and bird baths. When working in the yard, dress in light colors and wear long sleeves and pants. You can safely treat your clothes with cheap, easy to use insect repellents such as DEET, pyrethrin products or picaridin.

For garden parties and other outdoor gatherings, citronella candles and tiki torches can help, but have limited effectiveness unless you are right next to the flame. There are other things that are both effective and provide better coverage.

Hang a bat house. Bats are mosquito-killing machines, devouring thousands of mosquitoes in one night. Check out the mosquito “bucket of doom” on the internet. By all accounts, it’s an effective, easy and inexpensive alternative.

Hold your outdoor gatherings in a screened-in porch or use one a pop-up screened canopy. Thermacells are great, but they use allethrin, a synthetic form of pyrethrin. The dispersal area, however, is much less than the fog method.

Mosquitoes are weak flyers and an electric fan, even on low speed, is amazingly effective at dispersing both the carbon dioxide in your breath, which the mosquitoes use to find you, and physically blowing the little bloodsucking buggers away.

Talk with your neighbors about these environmentally sensitive methods for dealing with mosquitoes. Maybe they won’t be so quick to go for the nuclear option.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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From my senior year in high school to each of my three years at Clemson University, I worked during the summers at the Slater Mill. Working in a textile mill was like no other job I had ever had.

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The sardine survey was actually a black bear study conducted by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources back in the 1990s. I always called it the “sardine survey” because the protocol called for hanging a partially opened can of sardines every half mile for 10 miles in the Jocassee Gorges.

Those of us who participated in the study would go back five days later and see how many of the cans had been “hit” by bears. If you did that over time, as we did, it gave the DNR an indication of up or down trends in the bear population. I actually did two 10-mile transects, from Sassafras to Pinnacle mountains, every year for more than a decade. 

If you get on a four-wheeler and head out in the wilds of the Jocassee Gorges, things are going to happen. 

There was a time when I took my friend, now-retired game warden Mack “Hound Dawg” Erwin, along with me. We had made our way to the top of Roundtop Mountain and I got off the four-wheeler to go check a sardine can I had hung on the edge of an old weedy logging deck. I walked up to the tree, and at the last moment, looked down at the base of the tree where a huge rattlesnake was coiled up tight and ready to strike. I was standing 18 inches away. He had me dead to rights. 

The “fight or flight” instinct kicked in and I jumped backwards about two feet, but still within striking distance. Surprisingly, he did not strike.

I yelled to Hound Dawg, “Get me a stick and come look at this big rattlesnake.” I took the stick and raked the four-foot-long timber rattler away from the tree to get a better look. He had an impressive set of 19 rattles, but the thing that caught my attention was his cloudy blue eyes, indicating that he was in the process of shedding his skin and nearly blind. That’s almost certainly the thing that saved me.

Then there was the time when I was by myself down in Camp Adger. I smelled smoke and jumped off the four-wheeler. The battery had shorted out and flames were shooting out from under the seat. Fortunately, the road in Camp Adger is mostly sand. I jerked the seat off and dumped a couple of handfuls of sand on the fire, which quickly snuffed it out. Well, “there I was,” as they say. I had no cell phone to call for help, so I had to walk back home – about three miles on a hot, muggy August day.

A black bear will knock you down to get to a sardine. They absolutely love them. Helpful hint: Never take sardines on a hiking or camping trip. Also, bears have no finesse. You should see how they open a sardine can. They crunch it up like it was a Little Debbie “Nutty Bar,” puncturing the can with tooth holes to the point that it looks like somebody used it for target practice.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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During the darkest, most desperate days of the American Revolution in South Carolina, it was 38-year-old Gen. Nathanael Greene from Rhode Island who turned what appeared to be a lost cause into a miraculous victory.

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Much of the country was recently under siege by a historic heat dome that stretched from Maine to Mexico. More than 100 million people were under dire warnings of excessive heat for two weeks. We were on the periphery of that heat disaster, but our time will come. Last year was the hottest year on record. This summer is headed in that direction. Extreme heat kills more people each year than floods, tornadoes or hurricanes. 

The reason we are so susceptible to extreme heat is the fact that we are endowed with only two internal mechanisms for dealing with heat. We have the ability to sweat and to blush. 

In situations involving high humidity, sweating has limited benefit. That old, worn-out expression, “It’s not so much the heat, as it is the humidity,” is actually true. When the relative humidity is 80% or above and the temperature is in the high 90s or above, everyone should be alert for the signs of heat stress.

Blushing is our innate ability to divert blood to the skin in order to aid in cooling the body, which has less effect when the ambient temperature approaches our internal body temperature. 

The best strategy for dealing with extreme heat is avoidance. Stay hydrated and inside air conditioned buildings as much as possible during midday hours. 

The normal progression is: heat stress, then heat exhaustion, and ultimately the dreaded, often deadly, heat stroke.

The symptoms of heat stroke are insidious. One indication that you are in serious danger is confusion and disorientation, which means you may not have the thinking skills required to do what you need to do to avoid things going critical. The trick is to cool off before you reach that stage. 

The very young, the very old, and those without air conditioning are especially at risk for extreme heat events. Anyone with preexisting health conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure or obesity – as well as those on certain medications such as diuretics, blood pressure and psychiatric meds – need to be especially vigilant to not get overheated. 

Most heat-related deaths occur inside a home without air conditioning. Check on vulnerable neighbors during extreme heat events.

I will confess that I am no fan of summer. It wouldn’t bother me if they just did away with summer and filled in the gap with more spring and fall. But that’s just me. Some folks seem to enjoy jogging at high noon, playing pickle ball in sweltering heat, or climbing Table Rock in August. That’s fine if you’re healthy and fit. Stay hydrated, and take frequent breaks, and you’ll probably be just fine.

The best policy is what my daddy used to say: “Act like you got a lick of sense.” 

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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It was Christmas Eve in 1968. That evening my family was in the den huddled around our console-model Magnavox color TV. The Christmas tree lights gave the room a festive, multicolored glow. But for me and my younger brother, it was the brightly colored, neatly wrapped gifts spreading out from under the tree that held our attention. 

We were watching some Christmas-themed variety show when the network broke in for a breaking news alert. The story was that the astronauts of Apollo 8 were orbiting the moon. Then something happened that would affect the way all mankind would view the planet Earth from that point forward. 

In an instant, a transformative moment in time, we were all fixed on a full-color image of the Earth being broadcast live from the spacecraft, just miles from the moon. It was a stunning sight. I don’t recall anyone in my family saying anything, but we were all aware that we were looking at something no human being had ever seen. That photo was NASA’s Christmas gift to all God’s children.  

The planet seemed so small, and so desperately lonely – like a blue gemstone suspended in an eerie backdrop of a pure black void. It appeared so fragile, like one of the round glass ornaments on the Christmas tree. The main thing was, it was finite. We had always thought of the earth as infinite, so large that our natural resources could easily absorb our pollutants and would last forever. Clearly, that was a false assumption.

Fifty years later, retired astronaut Bill Anders reflected on the event, “We set out to explore the moon, but instead we discovered the Earth.” 

Margaret Mead, the always-insightful cultural anthropologist of the time, wrote, “It was not until we saw the picture of the Earth, from the moon, that we realized how small and helpless this planet is – something that we must hold in our arms and care for.”

This novel image of our fragile, finite planet was a splash of rocket fuel poured onto the flickering fires of the environmental movement of the 1960s. We collectively realized that we could no longer afford to pollute our precious planet.

The first Earth Day was held in 1970. Twenty million Americans attended those inaugural Earth Day activities. The EPA was established, and the federal Clean Air Act was passed that same year. The Clean Water Act followed in 1972.  

In the decades that followed, from the individual states to Washington, D.C., the talk was all about finding ways to limit the pollutants pouring from our smokestacks and spewing from the tail pipes of our cars and trucks. We started treating wastewater to newly developed standards, before discharging it into our rivers, lakes and streams.

The watchword all across the country was, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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