I had so much fun catching them. My non chest bearing strategy was a big smile, shaking my hands crazily in the air and jumping up and down--which, happily for me, got me a lot of beads. It helps that there's not as much competition as you'd find in a place like New Orleans--but, whatever.
The coolest and best looking revelers I ran into were clearly Spencer and Kate (see the Jack Russels to the right). Anybody who's in Galveston next weekend can attend the Barkus and Meoux parade there and see them along with the rest of the animal participants, which sometimes includes goldfish and alpacas I was told.
I was lucky enough to get to stay at my cousin's restored home (circa 1890, survivor of the 1900 hurricane) on Mechanic Street. According to local lore, it once covered the head of the famous pirate/privateer Jean Lafitte. Thomas Paine was also a privateer I seem to remember. So if privateer is a nice way of saying pirate, I guess Thomas Paine was a bit of a swarthy badboy. Didn't he sign the Declaration of Independance?
Anyway, it was really sweet to spend the weekend there. They definitely have a lot of stress to exhale in this part of Texas. There was a lot Ike evidence in Galveston. Most people on Galveston island, my cousin included, were just finishing rebuilding from the 8'-0" or more of ocean water that had flooded the island in early September. On Sunday we took the ferry over to the Bolivar penninsula and took a look at what was left of the houses there. Galveston felt very recoverable, despite the prospects for future hurricanes. Bolivar though felt more like a wasteland; the backwash of the hurricane, unfamiliar to what it had been before.
Random, dirty items pop forward in the landscape while driving down the center of the penninsula; it's a lot of miscellaneous household stuff: garden hoses, parts of a vacuum cleaner--the list is endless. The trees or shrubs that are standing are mostly gray, possibly/probably dead from being submerged in salt water. A lot things that ended up on the ground (i.e. cars, bathtubs, coolers, etc.) and parts of buildings were heavily mired in thick, clayish mud. Houses were often teetering and twisting over or not there at all, with only wood piers left behind. Some of the houses that were built with concrete piers appeared to have faired better.
According to my cousin, local code requires that houses on the penninsula be built with concrete piers--I hope that anyone who rebuilds here would do this and that building officials get tough about enforcing it. Apparently some homes on Galveston island are being allowed to rebuild with slab on grade foundations--these are areas that undoubtedly will experience flooding at some point in the forseeable future. It makes no sense to me that this would be allowed, especially considering that they appear to be able to enforce strict rules on historic home renovations down to the type of material a window is made out of.
Of course, there were many cars that were ruined. Piles of cars had been collected near the ferry terminal where we arrived. Only a few, that were perhaps more difficult to move, were still left along the road or wherever they fell.
Unlike the aftermath of an earthquake where buildings appear to have gone through a grinder and end up in crushed piles; the hurricane washes things away or strands them and above all drowns them. Things are sometimes intact but often ruined, unusable. Above all so much is missing--some of it in the piles of debris and then so much of it just completely gone or maybe there but unrecognizable.There is much reason to celebrate this mardis gras probably as there was the mardi gras in New Orleans following Katrina. It helps to understand why celebrations are important and why certain places or people, need to celebrate more often or better or in a way that's different from other places that don't expeience the same kind of loss? Who knows.
This film is a beautiful little meditation on great storms, loss and celebration:
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