Growing Up on the Beach Will Never Be the Same

Corpus Christi Skyline

The Sparkling City by the Sea

I grew up in a beach town. In the 50's...when we had to rely on my mother to drive us out to the beach...and then into the 60's...when we had our own cars, and hit Port Aransas and the Big Shell and all those spots in between....the beach....where we danced the night away smoking our first pot at the Dunes in Port A...across from Horace Caldwell Pier...the longest on the coast. Sit out there on the end all night long, fishing, talking, growing up...taking the fish to the Island Food store, grabbing pork&beans in the can, and talking the breakfast cook at the dock into frying up that fish...beans, fresh bread, and fried fish...omy, I can taste it now.

It's the water, you know...the WATER...I'm supposed to be able to verbalize my faith, that's what I'm told...all I can tell you is that it's the water, it comes in every day, the tides rise and fall...the gulls call and coo, and the sun makes it sparkle...the moon makes it glow....it's always there, that water. At the beach. Eternal, every day, fresh and clean, and God's own gift to us. Like the mountains are to those who grow up there...that's the beach and the water and its waves to me and those of us who grow up on the Gulf.

And now in the Gulf of Louisana, Mississippi, Florida....it's gone. Who knows where it all will lead, down here to that beach clean and simple and pure that I grew up on...where I took my grandkids...where my grandson fishes and loves his life. Those families of the Gulf, who shared their lives with their children, teaching them to love the earth and the water...that tradition is gone. Just gone.

and I have to, I GET to be angry at someone....maybe that's the wrong way, but the horror that has settled in our Gulf waters has to have a cause, a reason...and lack of responsiblity at the highest level is good enough for me to focus on. Somebody screwed up. Somebody pushed for corners to be cut, for time to be shaved, for money to be made, for doing it right to fall to the last thought. Mid managment trying to make the big shots happy...and now...the big shot at that oil company gets to have it laid right at his feet.

Yep, that's why they pay him the big bucks...and he knew that when he signed on to take the job. No sympathy from me...the only ones deserving sympathy are those families who buried their dead, the ones going without work, jobs, food, clothes for their children right now, the kids coming in the generations to follow us that will not have the beautiful beaches we did...or fresh clean fish to catch...or the clean smell of the beach in the morning when the sun comes up...with the gulls in the back ground...because it will never be like that again on the Gulf shores of Louisiana or Mississippi.

Yes, the big shot gets to take the rap.That's what he signed on for when he started taking that paycheck, and he knew it....all he wants is his life back. And he'll have that. No one on the Gulf coast will. Bastard.

Now we just pray the damage is stopped before it takes more of our lives, our memories, our youth and our children's future...those of us who love the beach....we know. We get it.

Those that think first of the money. They do not. They just don't get it. Pity them. But make them pay first.

Port Aransas TX

Beach photos by Karen Webb

Corpus Christi Skyline Photo by Ted Limb, Austin, TX