About a week ago, I was invited to go to Congressman Ron Paul's birthday bash, which was held yesterday (August 15th) at the San Luis Convention center along the Seawall in Galveston. At first I didn't want to go because I haven't been of the mood of late to pay attention to politics. However, I had a long week at work, but more importantly a number of events that have occurred in the past year that that have led me to reexamine many aspects of my life. I called the gentleman who had sent the original email invite if he was still going to the birthday bash, to which he said yes. He then - thoughtfully - asked me how long it had been since I had been to Galveston? I answered about 12 years. He said, it sounded to him like I needed to go and get out of town for a day or two.
It was a great idea. I really didn't give a damn about going to hear some long winded politicians get long winded about whatever it was that pissed them off and fired them up, but the prospect of walking along the beach on a hot sunny August afternoon and spending $20 to sit down and enjoy a nice plate of barbeque with some friends for a few hours really sounded like a wonderful thing to do.
And so it was. We took off about 11:30am, got stuck in traffic around Clear Lake City, but made it into Galveston around 1:15pm. The first thing I noticed was that the trees along the medians and esplanades were drab and gray. It occurred to me that the trees might be dead, maybe because of salt water that had been pushed in from the ocean from Hurricane Ike. Otherwise, Galveston seemed lively, though we noticed houses and structures here and there that had been abandoned or were still boarded up. Still, I would judge that Galveston has made a solid recovery from the devastation wrought upon it by Ike.
We had some time before some pre-dinner speakers were scheduled to speak, so we headed over to the privately held Porretto Beach, where we met up and had a nice 30-45 minute talk with Sonya Porretto, about her legal battle with the State over her family's ownership of a stretch of beach.
As we got out of my car, I immediately caught a whiff of the salty sea air, something I had not smelled in years. We walked through a neighborhood of mostly modest houses, nearly all of which were now repaired. Almost immediately, I realized why it was that people loved living near the sea. In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, environmental attorney Jim Blackburn wrote that before people were to be allowed to rebuild so close to the coastline, they should be shown maps of the devastation and misery that occurred as a result of Ike's wrath. All I can say in response to that is that the moment I basked in the sunshine, smelled that salty air and walked through that neighborhood towards the seawall, I knew that no amount of protest or anger from Mr. Blackburn or his friends, nor would any amount of wrath from God and Mother Nature would convince some people to not want to live near the ocean.
We chatted with Ms. Porretto, as mentioned above, and I immediately resolved to try to start blogging about her story. But more to the point, listening to her made me ask myself for the 100th time why it was that I didn't become a lawyer, or at least go through law school? I've listened to this crap over and over again so many times and it makes me think that there's often no accountability anywhere to be found or had in this world. It's time that I started resolving some of these questions that have been simmering inside of me once and for all.
After our visit with Ms. Porretto, we made our way over to the convention center, where there were packed rooms listening to the invited speakers. It didn't really bother me that I could not get in or hear what they were talking about. I wandered over to the main convention room, where I met some friends and chatted about various things. Eventually the room filled up and we had our dinner. There were auctions to raise money for Ron Paul, as well as speeches from the likes of Barry Goldwater Jr. that weren't worth listening to. I mostly enjoyed being with my friends and chatting amongst ourselves about battles from the past, things we wanted to do now, or were thinking about doing in the future.
About half way through Mr. Paul's speech, I got up to go to the bathroom, but instead of going back into the conference room, I decided to sit outside on the steps of the convention center. I sat, staring into the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, contemplating my life and what I would do with what remained of it. It has become far more important of late for me to be doing things like this rather than pay attention to what the talking heads and windbags are griping about today.
And so it was. I stopped by a store to pick up some drinks on the way back to Houston. When we got back to town, the gentleman I was with pointed out that I should try a burger at Stanton's sometime when I'm in that part of town. I feel like I'm catching a second wind, rediscovering that learning something new about the people you care about, your hometown, and doing things that you find are worth doing is what makes living all worthwhile.
Wizard