There is still a hole where the beachouse was and there is still a hole in my heart. Melissa, 9/13/09

September 15, 2008 Council Member Melissa Noriega Op-Ed in Houston Chronicle:

The Ache that is Bolivar

Yesterday I went to City Hall to go to work after Ike. I stopped in a neighborhood near downtown, where there were seniors that had asthma, and I knew there was no power. My son and I crunched across glass and debris, rolling up to a boarded-up city hall annex. We hooked up my TV and popped the laptop and made coffee. We shared our deviled eggs - a great way to deal with eggs and mayo when the power goes.

And all the while my heart hurt, about Bolivar. My family has - had? - a little mud hen of a beach house in Crystal Beach on Bolivar Peninsula, a 14 minute ferry ride from Galveston. We have ridden that ferry, loaded for the weekend, watching dolphins and dodging tankers, since the 70's. I remember when we bought it; we rode all over the island looking at the unusual structures folks built back then to see the water, before we chose our house.

It was two rows back, on a corner, but you could see the surf break. The man we bought it from had built it himself. He was left handed and all the doors opened backward.

It had huge pylons, sunk 16 feet into the sand, two bedrooms and an open kitchen and living area. It had a septic tank that would get overwhelmed, if we had too big a party for too long, and the water would trickle off on the summer holidays, like the fourth of July.

It wasn't fancy, but it was the center for many family gatherings over the years. We would make my grandfather's pancakes and go and get crab claws at one of the piers. We would go watch the roseate spoonbills in one of the canal cuts, or eat crab at the Stingaree.

When I was much younger, and didn't have a cent, I could charge bread and bologna at the wooden floored Land's store, before they built the Gulf Coast market. There used to be a palomino pony, wild, with a streaming mane and tail that wandered among the pilings like a ghost horse. After Alicia, we never saw it again.

My brother got a laceration on the big waterslide once, and we had to go screaming into Galveston to have it stitched. We waited hours for the ferry, ate catfish and carried soft old mismatched sheets up the stairs to make beds. We lent the house to friends and watched a new generation wade in the surf and run from jellyfish, build sandcastles and dig trenches under the beach umbrella.

Yesterday when I saw the very few photos I could glean, my breath caught in my throat. Slabs scraped bare with waves lapping at the edges. What I think was Gulf Coast Market was in a sea of water. There was a picture of a rescue at High Island, with nothing around but crashing surf. There had been a town there, once.

I cannot imagine what happened to the stubborn, salt-loving residents who I know refused to leave. My dad, who has hammered and painted and repaired for almost 40 years, asked several times if I knew anything about Bolivar, and I didn't know what to tell him.

Today I am going to City Hall to go to work. Who knows what lies ahead for this amazing city of Houston, that I know will pull together, gird up, clean up and git 'er done? We will be fine - we have survived the oil bust and the floods of Allison. We got to practice after Katrina, and we know how to do this. But my heart hurts for Bolivar, and all the memories.

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