Well, I just feel so badly, having seemingly abandoned Old Galvez for all these weeks. But I actually didn’t, not really.
Before the storm, as Ike approached, she was all that was on my mind, and I was glued to CNN and The Weather Channel as Ike took a bead on this vulnerable little sandbar community.
And I kept after the coverage, too, for at least as long as the national media deemed it lucrative to cover. Which, as it turned out, wasn’t long. And after that, mostly silence.
News of the Galveston hurricane fell from the headlines almost as rapidly as it made them, and soon I found it increasingly difficult to keep a pulse on things there. And so the weeks went by.
Even now, it’s hard to really know the state of recovery on the island. From what I can gather, Galveston seems to be limping along, sweeping up the slushy mud, tearing out soaked flooring and drywall, slowly beginning to build anew. How long before she’s back in full swing? Oh, a long time, I suspect.
And when she does come back, she’ll be missing a few significant landmarks, by far the most notable being the famous, even infamous, Balinese Room pier, beaten to splinters and dumped unceremoniously along Seawall Boulevard, courtesy Ike the Terrible.
Historic Murdoch’s pier is gone now, too, for all practical purposes, and so is that funky and forever endearing public fishing pier, an icon so beloved I was moved to Photoshop it into the masthead of this very blog, alas.
When Galveston comes back, and she will eventually, she’ll be short a little character here and there, as if, in that whirlwind moment, Ike shoved her into a dentist’s chair and yanked a few significant teeth. That snaggly little tooth that gave her smile so much charm has been plucked, and for good, leaving her personality more than a little diminished.
Galveston, and all of us who love her, lost much in Ike.
Fainter now are the echos from the Big Band Era, the distant laughter, the tinkling of martini glasses, the whir of spinning roulette wheels, the whisper of voices in the darkness as muscles tensed in anticipation of yet another impending Prohibition-era police raid.
Fainter, too, are the soft refrains of a melancholy love song, crooned in that velvety voice by a dashing young, not yet “Old,” Blue Eyes …
We all mourned the devastation of New Orleans in Katrina, and well we should have. But we should also remind ourselves that once there was another faceted jewel of the Southwest, a star that far outshined the Big Easy back in the day, and her name was Galveston. Seems to me she should warrant at least as much attention, care, and help rebuilding as her neighboring old gal pal to the east.
Where are all the reporters now? It doesn’t matter, really. Galveston will return. It’s happening even now, albeit slowly. She’s a city borne of her own bootstraps, and she’ll rise again one day, on the strength of sheer determination if nothing else.
So don’t count this old girl out yet. Just step back and give her a minute or two to touch up her lipstick.
See you on the beach.