Today was for the oysters. I woke with the dawn, well-rested for the first time in days. The distant cry of the morning train reached my ears from the crossing on Gause Boulevard, heralding the break of day with the unchanging punctuality of sunrise. I worked the property with Tom for several of the day's cool early hours, then we went to visit his ailing mother in a nursing home a few miles away. After a short time there, we left on Highway 190 for Biloxi. This small two-lane road took us to the coast. We saw the remains of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina: empty foundations, shattered remnants of private wharves, and houses twisted and torn as if by giant, clutching hands.
We stopped and ate at a harbor in Pass Christian, Mississippi, at a precariously leaning shack called Shaggy's. We snacked on Tuna and seaweed on the second-floor deck overlooking the harbor. Fish gamboled just below the surface of the water twenty or so feet below, flashing their silver bellies at the sun.
From the harbor, we continued east along the coastal highway, white sand beaches to the right and sloping lawns, live oaks and antebellum plantation style houses to the left. It would be worth whatever these places cost just to have a rocking chair that faces the Gulf of a summer evening.
Stopped at one section of beach and waded into the warm salt water. 100 yards out and i was barely waste deep. I swam for a few minutes, then returned to shore. There was another brief period of driving before we arrived at the Hollywood Casino in Waveland, Mississippi. I ate myself sick on fresh, grilled and fried oysters, fried catfish, hushpuppies and peach cobbler, then proceeded to watch old people gamble for a few hours while the food settled. Back on the road and back to Slidell. My three-day weekend is at an end. Time to rejoin the working world in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment