Reflections on the Neches: A Naturalist's Odyssey Along the Big Thicket's Snow River (Temple Big Thicket Series, No. 3)

Rating:
Summary: Reflecting the Times
Review: At 60 years old, Geraldine Watson decided to make the eighty mile journey down the Neches River in the pineywoods of East Texas that she had wanted to take all her life. As a naturalist and Big Thicket activist, she had visited parts of the river many times over the years. In three separate segments, she floats down the river from Town Bluff to just north of Beaumont. On the way, the reader is treated to actual accounts of the trip along with memories and histories of the river, the land, and its people. There are beautiful memories, such as finding of a rare colony of yellow ladies slipper orchids in a hidden glen, celebrating with the river people; sad memories, such as the raping of the forests, the loss of her faithful dog, the hard times of the people inhabiting the river bottoms; and funny memories, such as hitching a ride off an island on a tugboat.

Rating:
Summary: Reflecting the Times
Review: At 60 years old, Geraldine Watson decided to make the eighty mile journey down the Neches River in the pineywoods of East Texas that she had wanted to take all her life. As a naturalist and Big Thicket activist, she had visited parts of the river many times over the years. In three separate segments, she floats down the river from Town Bluff to just north of Beaumont. On the way, the reader is treated to actual accounts of the trip along with memories and histories of the river, the land, and its people. There are beautiful memories, such as finding of a rare colony of yellow ladies slipper orchids in a hidden glen, celebrating with the river people; sad memories, such as the raping of the forests, the loss of her faithful dog, the hard times of the people inhabiting the river bottoms; and funny memories, such as hitching a ride off an island on a tugboat.

Rating:
Summary: An absorbing memoir of past childhood
Review: Deftly written by Geraldine Ellis Watson (a plant ecologist and former ranger for the National Park Service), Reflections On The Neches is an absorbing memoir of a past childhood as well as a commentary upon the natural and social history of the Neches (one of the last "wild" rivers in Texas, just now being subjected to dams) region of the Big Thicket country. A moving and insightful reflection of the ecology and the natural beauty of the land itself, Reflections On The Neches is informed and informative reading, and highly recommended to students of Natural History in general, and the Neches River Valley country in particular.