Posts Tagged ‘Galveston’

I have no idea what time it is tonight, somewhere between seven and ten, I guess, but frankly, I don’t really care. You see, we FINALLY got to Galveston…Angel’s eye all healed up and my lady and me TOTALLY ready for some R&R in the salt wind, sun, and foaming surf. Of course, obstreparous Baxter is with us, but he’s young, and adorable…and learning quickly. Even the people he pounces on forgive him.
Just this moment I’m sitting on our balcony enjoying the sounds of the gulf and its seemingly ENDLESS expanse all the way to the horizon…salt water…the same stuff coursing through our bodies with every heartbeat…and incorporated so long ago we can’t remember, but when I’m sitting beside the sea, I EMBRACE it like a friend lost in the convolutions of eternity; I think most people do. Delivered over eons by asteroids and comets, the ocean is really our nursery, our liquid parent, and somehow when I’m here, I UNDERSTAND…and thank it…and God for working things out this way.

I know I can only see the surface and never really know what’s going on down in the comparatively small patch swirling below…thousands of births each day, for sure…and thousands of deaths, little bitty deaths, small fish devoured by birds or bigger fish, shrimp snatched up by crabs, even dolphins…my friends…gorging themselves on nature’s bounty, but for me, sitting in the midst of all this wonder, all I see is beauty.
A land creature, I understand the boundaries I have to live with, but Ialso tend to envy those other mammals I can see out in the surf, chirping, jumping, and celebrating their lives, happy and seemingly carefree. To them, what is simply IS, and they joyfully accept their lot. It’s impossible to impose human concepts of good, evil, opportunity, and necessity on what’s going on out there, so I’ll leave the sorting out to God. At this PRECISE moment, I’m totally ENCHANTED…which is where I want to be.

There’s something viscerally ELEMENTAL about an ocean…maybe because somewhere inside us there are memories, carefully hidden memories, or maybe only because it’s beautiful and exciting, or maybe because it’s a shadowy glimpse of where we all began and yearn to return to…a simpler world free from the constraints of wrongdoing, guilt, laws, and repercussions…our scrupulously maintained moral walls, but sitting just beyond the roar and foam, all those concepts kind of float away in the constant wind.  My eyes command me; what’s churning below is stirring…and beautiful…and endlessly FASCINATING.
I want to go there, jump into that surf and foam, taste the salt, join my progenitors, and swim, but my lady is implacable. “NO,” she says, “SHARKS!” (She’s not all that big on sharks.) But what sharks? There hasn’t been a shark attack in Galveston since God knows when…but she won’t be moved. I love her, and I know I HAVE to work out some kind of resolution we can both live with…so…I’m planning to go wading with her…and while she intently looks for seashells…as she ALWAYS does…I’ll slowly slip out into deeper water and swim like hell. At least, that’s my plan.
There are LOTS of dophins out there; she’s seen them, too, and we BOTH know they’re EXPERT at dealing with sharks. Our seabound, brothers aren’t deterred, so I don’t think we should be either. They kinda PUNCH ‘em in the belly…REALLY HARD, not hard enough to kill but hard enough to get their attention, and it ALWAYS works. Actually, it looks like they’re playing when they do it, but the sharks don’t seem to understand and swiftly swim away.

My lady worries a lot, particularly since I don’t choose to worry a whole lot about anything. The way I see it, life’s too short to burden yourself like that, but she compensates by worrying for both of us…and I’ve learned to live with it. Swimming out there would be FAR more fun than swimming in the pool at the condo…and much more philosophically enlightning, but…you know…it’s a nice pool…a REALLY nice pool…with chairs all around, a shower, and float mats for catching a little sun. What the hell? I’ll do BOTH…fake her out, swim in the gulf as long as I can get away with it, then go back, wash off, and dive into that pool.
GOD, I love Galveston!

Stewart Beach, Galveston

Oil has arrived in Galveston, but they said it was only tar washing off skimmer vessels. Come on, Guys, don’t play dumb; haven’t you noticed a pattern? We have. First, tar balls wash in, then a sheen, but that hasn’t been the end of it anywhere. The next thing we’ve seen from here to Florida is huge gobs of sticky orange oil, and we’ve sort of been expecting it in Texas anyway. Ten days ago a friend of mine spotted it off Cheniere Au Tigre, and that’s just a long spitting distance from Galveston.
Talking heads keep saying they’re going to clean it all up, like that’s even REMOTELY possible. Don’t they know that stuff is damned near permanent? I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating. Go up to the Valdez spill site and kick over a rock. You’ll see just how easy it is to clean up. Oil floats, but it also descends below the surface, even down to the ocean floor…and it’s thrown every which way by wind and currents. I don’t have the same happy glasses they seem to be wearing. Before it’s done, I think we’re going to find oil EVERYWHERE in the gulf…in the water, on beaches, under rocks, and in costal marshes all the way to Mexico.
Gulf water will stink, and birds will no longer dot the sky looking for bugs or a bread handout from tourists. Nights on shore will be silent, and you’ll choke if you stand in the evening breeze. EXACTLY how much oil did you think the gulf could absorb before it was destoryed? But don’t worry; it’ll be back to normal in a couple of hundred thousand years. Geologically speaking, it’s not all that long, but from our three score and ten perspective, it’s forever.
And a part of me will probably be sad from now on. Galveston! My God, I’ve been going there since I was a little kid! I remember catching an angel fish from a pier one day. Everybody over there was fascinated; they had never seen one caught on a line before. Of course, we let it go…not that good to eat, dad said, but I wanted it to live for another reason. It had fought the good fight, and as a boy, I respected that. It was beautiful…and scrappy, and I loved it…just as much as I’ve always loved Galveston itself.
The water isn’t clear in Galveston, like it is off Florida’s beaches; scores of rivers and the great Mississippi see to that. It’s mostly murky but not so much that you can’t see fish trapped inside incoming waves…and dolphins folicking a few yards behind them where they gave up the chase. I was swimming in Galveston not so long ago when two dolphins rolled up out of the water right next to me. I thought one of them looked pregnant. Some idiot woman screamed SHARKS, and people started scrambling out of the water, but I stayed and savored the majesty of it all.
They seemed to be having fun, chirping and clicking as they swam around me only a few feet away in a playful circle. They knew I wasn’t a threat; they thought I was a friend…and I am. I always will be, but I wish I could click and chirp too…and warn them. They’ve got to find a way to shepherd their child away from the malevolence growing in the gulf…even farther when oil reaches the Caribbean…and it will.
Galveston brings funny memories back into my head. I remember one day my dad decided to ride the roller-coaster across Seawall Boulevard from the beach. He told us to watch carefully because he was going to wave to us from the highest point on the ride, but when he came into view, all we saw was a blanched face and bloodless hands hanging onto the coaster bar for dear life. We teased him for weeks afterward.
Galveston…what else do I think about when I hear that name? The 1900 hurricane for sure, and those nuns roped to children when they were dug out of the sand. They loved those children and proved it…with their lives…and those ropes. My lady’s mother actually grew up in that orphanage twenty-five years after the storm. She always told us how much she loved gulf seafood, but she was lying. She only liked shrimp. You could chase her all the way to Oklahoma with an oyster.
Galveston, wonderful Galveston…we’ve been there so many times, my lady and me…my dog Angel, too. We always stayed in the same apartment, just off the beach with a clear view of the surf and a constant, salty breeze. The ocean’s roar lulled us to sleep at night while the smell of the sea blew in through open windows. It was wonderful. Even Angel seemed to think so, but she’s not very picky. She’s happy when we’re happy.
Soon, it might only be a memory…like New Orleans, but Galveston’s tough. While it’s weathered many a storm before, I’m afraid it could lose this particular battle, and I wouldn’t want to go back only to smell oil on that wind sweeping in off the water. I prefer memories, but even they are getting dim. Since this began, I’ve had to learn to compartmentalize some of my memories…hide them down deep where they’re not likely to jump out and remind me what’s been lost, but I find myself having to bury more and more of my past every day.
It’s incredibly sad…upheaval, geologic change on this scale, the death of an ocean that has afforded me and my family so much joy. I guess that’s what monumental really means, what irretrievable loss really feels like. My father’s roller-coaster disappeared long ago, and my life seems intent on following it lately. I know he’d have some wisdom to share, find some way to make sense out of it, but he’s gone, too. Dad, I hope you can’t see this up there wherever you are. I know it would hurt you almost as much as it’s hurting me right now.