Greetings from the GULF COAST

I have been here many times, in the three years I lived actually ON THE BEACH...
with boarded up windows, awaiting winds and rain and hurricanes...

but never imagined I would be sitting on my back deck, on a beautiful morning, watching the sunrise
awaiting an oil spill.

What an eery feeling to imagine that the place I called my back yard might soon forever change...

I remember a particularly scary red tide...that brought dead fish to the shore, and a dolphin that once floated up. My teenage friends and I marveled at the scars on his sides.

But we can only pray that God will protect us, as we pray he will protect Nashville from floods, or Mexico from gangs and protect those caught up in riots in Greece or Europe from fallout from their own natural disasters.

We live in a world where, no matter what we try to control in our back yards...it is ever moving, changing, and we can only, as we hope our oceans will, adapt.

I still wonder if the color variation of sand from Texas (more golden brown) is a reflection of the years of oil exploration there. I look out at a fluffy white mound of sand dotted in swaying sea oats and wonder if it will ever be the same for my children's children to walk on?

Everyone who comes into Crestline Seafood wants to know...what is gonna happen?
We all know....there are plenty of other fish in the sea...but what will be of those favorite...plump, red juicy gulf shrimp that come out of the waters just beyond the shore...sometimes in big boats at night we can see their nets dragging the floor for something that might be on a table in Minnesota the following night.

What is gonna happen to the truckers who dock in Mobile to pick up loads of cargo from all over the world and the ships can't get through?

How long will they be unable to import? To export Southern pine timber being harvested and waiting to be sold to a foreign country that is paying top dollar?

For that matter, when will anyone be able to light a firecracker along the coast?

This is affecting us all. I laugh at the way BP says "legitimate claims". Our lives are ALL affected. You just might not notice it til you order grouper or Appalacicola Oysters (some of our favorites) and we say, sorry those don't EXIST ANYMORE. How about an upper east coast variety?

News reports are still showing the oil out in the gulf, men with only greed who spent billions to figure out how to tap into it and nothing to assure that it did not spill (as required in ALL COUNTRIES except America) try to figure how to thread a needle with bungie cords in a dark, moving ocean.

We along the coast can only pray that tonights sunset and tomorrows sunrise yeild the same beautiful beach that is lying here in front of me today.

For today, I am gonna be puttin my toes in the white sand and counting my Blessings.

Allison Adams