Here we have a genuine enigma, one that I’ve wondered about for a very long time. We were on the Woody Pond Trail, that skirts the very edge of alligator-rich Woody Pond. We’re on the Georgia coast, at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. Being there, 5 feet from pond’s edge, so evokes memories of growing up on the streets of my Brooklyn, New York. It’s about spending your lifetime near, very near to high-risk, and almost never being touched by it. Living and being near Them (Be they ‘gators or Connected (Mob)) and forever remaining alive and well.

Suddenly, it flew in! A large, fresh and handsome Viceroy Butterfly. I am on record, as loving Viceroy butterflies. Where did he/she land? On a native Sumac bush.

So a butterfly that is Gorgeous flies to this Sumac, not more than 5 feet from me. Tell me about that serendipity! More than even that, I have spent the great majority of my life seeing Sumacs in Brooklyn, Queens, Nassua County, NY, Manhattan, NY and Pittsburgh, growing wild in empty lots, tiny corners of same, etc., and they have always been unwanted, alien, unattractive and they represent uselessness, for they service no purpose and were not wanted in the first place.

Just the week before that beautiful day, Ellen Honeycutt had posted a really good intro piece on Facebook, about native Sumacs in Georgia. What!! I’d always assumed that all Sumacs were those urban mutts, and now I am discovering that we (We!) have native Sumacs here, that she urges us to add to our natives homes gardens.

Let’s tally up now. I’m along a lovely pond, with 12 foot alligators maybe at my feet, and a prize-winning Viceroy staring me in the face, and that Viceroy is aggressively working the fraction of Sumac flowers that have only opened that morning.

I was so excited, so Screaming Happy!!! Comes my question: How do you/Can you infuse your own excitement into an image that You Really Really Want To Share With You ASAP?

Jeff