Back again to the Brunswick County Commissioners to express our opposition to seismic blasting and offshore drilling for oil and gas. Why has BEAT continued again and again to testify to the commissioners that this blasting and drilling are NOT in Brunswick County's best interest? It is because the arguments against are so powerful and the potential danger to Brunswick County is so great. Our opponents insist on making this a partisan, political issue and threaten retaliation to any commissioner who will stand up for Brunswick County over oil and gas interests. We disagree. The health, safety, and beauty of Brunswick County is a non-partisan issue, and we want Brunswick County to stand up for what's right rather than what's political with almost every coastal community along the entire Eastern and Western seaboards.

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In this meeting, more than a dozen individuals stepped quietly to the podium, state their name and address, and ask the Commissioners to reconsider the issue of a Resolution Against Offshore Drilling and Seismic Testing, then thank the commissioners. Some of the petitioners shared an extra word or two but one gentleman walked to the podium and in a loud baritone addressed the commission with the same request followed by stating, “Businesses should be free to make a profit, but we should also strive to leave the world a better place than we found it.” and then shared the following poem from memory.

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The Bridge Builder
By Will Allen Dromgoole

 

An old man going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide.
Through which was flowing a sullen tide
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

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“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at evening tide?”

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The builder lifted his old gray head;
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followed after me to-day
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been as naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”

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Source: Father: An Anthology of Verse (EP Dutton & Company, 1931)

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What a touching and powerful sentiment!

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