It’s pretty obvious that I’m not from here. I was born below the Mason Dixon Line, but raised in the North. If my lack of discernable Southern accent isn’t enough of a clue, I still swat at sand gnats. Swatting at the gnats is a dead giveaway. For the life of me I can’t figure out how people manage it, but I’ve been eaten alive while standing next to a native who is as calm and collected as a librarian taking a nap. It must be a mindfulness thing, as if they pretend the gnats don’t bite it might make us transplants go crazy and leave.
Many in these parts joke that the bugs are the price we pay for living in paradise, which makes me wonder if Adam and Eve had to worry about bites and stings in the Garden. After all, a couple of strategically placed fig leaves won’t offer much protection against our critters. I have learned that even when this island was more Edenic, as in scarcely populated, bugs were still an issue. Incidentally, you can also tell a native by the telltale flush that colors their face upon reading that last sentence about the island being scarcely populated. You may even hear their heart palpitating.
I recently read some letters Aaron Burr wrote while he was hiding out on St. Simons after winning his duel with Alexander Hamilton. Two hundred years ago, when you didn’t need two score to count the families on St. Simons, life was a lot tougher. The island was swampy and not necessarily a fun place to live. Burr quickly learned what the natives back then no doubt knew well. Writing to his wife he admitted that he discovered some species that did well on St. Simons: “…we were convinced that insects can subsist on this island. Moschetoes, flies, and cockroaches abounded.”
Funny, he didn’t mention the gnats. I wonder if they were brought in later to help keep the population down. Whether it’s the price we pay for living here or a part of a grand conspiracy to control the population, we have to share this island with bugs of all sorts of size, description, and disposition. As I sit here writing this, I am scratching at the red bumps from a foolish summer evening spent out of doors without bug spray or the protection of my beloved screen porch. A rookie move, to be sure.
In reality, there are some actual differences between natives and all the rest of us. For the record, a native is someone who has always been here, and ideally, has generations of history on the island. For instance, another indication that I’m not from here is that none of my ancestors are buried in the Christ Church Cemetery. I might be able to work around that omission if Eugenia Price had written about someone in my family tree, but I come up empty there too. On second thought, that wouldn’t have helped anyway: Price helped make St. Simons Island famous for a generation of Southerners. Boosting tourism is strike one against her. And she too was an outsider. That’s strike two. I may call myself a local because I live here, but even if I manage to stay here for the rest of my life, I won’t be able to “be from here,” by some measures.
One more way to tell if someone is a native or a transplant is by paying attention to who complains about the heat. By and large natives don’t say much about the heat. It’s kind of like not swatting gnats. The lack of visible sweat from some natives is amazing. Clearly they have genetically adapted to the heat and humidity. I can come close on this one. I don’t complain about the heat; coming from up North I know Old Man Winter and I don’t miss him one bit. I have happily traded my snow boots for flip-flops, but I can’t hide the fact that I still sweat like a Yankee. Perhaps you’ve gotten the look from a native on the hottest days that seems to say, “You chose to come here; you can leave any time!”
The heat will soon break and the bugs will become less pesky as we enter into the fall, but much to the chagrin of the natives, the rest of us are year-round scourges. If you meet someone who is distraught because of all of us newbies and the steady flow of tourists, just remind them that their ancestors knew the same struggles. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that John Couper released extra bugs into Aaron Burr’s room on Cannon’s Point when he had overstayed his welcome.
