Rain

We have had rain this week and the water has collected on the low spot on our patio, so I know we got plenty of rain yesterday evening. In addition, we are supposed to get more rain this weekend, the rain not supposed to end for some time. This is what happens when a low pressure system sits over Texas and blows the wet Gulf air up from the South and over the Southeast. We need it; I don't mind.

The sky was dreary and grey all day today and I drove through several showers on my way to the closing in Ellerslie and on up to Pine Mountain for lunch. When I got to the Country Store on the edge of Callaway Gardens, it was drizzling and I took one of the umbrellas into the store. I wanted to sit out on the outside row of tables and watch the rain come down and eat my lunch.

I ordered a vegetable platter from the menu. The menu is not much different from before, other than the fact that the prices are about five dollars higher per item. I am not surprised by this. I assume this is something they are having to do in order to keep the gardens going. It is clear they are not doing well. I am sad because this has been a place where my family could go throughout the year and enjoy the beauty of creation in its seasonal manifestations. Someday, when I look back on my life, I think I will look on our trips to Callaway as something quite special. I do now.

I enjoy traveling through the area west and southwest of here. The country in Harris County is very pretty. Pine Mountain stretches across from just west of Thomaston and stands as a mutable barrier when you travel south on Georgia 85 and US 27 toward Columbus, south toward Florida and even into Alabama. The land is forested and there are pretty houses, old and new across the countryside.

I had a closing east of West Point one evening when Cindy and I were travelling to Bayou Lacombe to stay with Cindy's Uncle Ray and Aunt Joan. We drove out into the country from Pine Mountain and headed off the main road to find ourselves in an antebellum plantation house, which the borrowers used as a place for people to be married. It was nicely restored and the lights were all lit up for us to find our destination. Cindy came in with me and we enjoyed our time with the borrowers before we headed back west into the night and on across Alabama and Mississippi toward Louisiana.

One of the last times we went to Louisiana, Cindy and I got to Mobile at suppertime and stopped at a seafood restaurant chain from the area. We sat down in the restaurant and I got to eat fresh raw oysters and drink a beer before we headed back on the road, west on I-10. It was twilight and the skies were clear and full of stars. What a time to need a chauffeur. It would have been nice to sit in a car with a big skylight and watch the stars as we whisked west beside the beaches of Southern Mississippi.

One of the times we were driving back from Louisiana, we stopped in Gulfport to see if we could find a seafood restaurant for lunch. I wheeled down toward the Old Spanish Road and headed east along the coast, slowly watching the destruction levelled by Katrina and Rita the year before. It was odd. The beaches were pristine, but no one was enjoying them. The road runs along the coast, and the old residences and other buildings along the north side of the road were mostly gone. You could see the remnants of the buildings about two blocks north of the highway. With the exception of a few fast food places, there was no place to eat.

Finally, we got to Biloxi and you could see the new Hark Rock Hotel built on the beach, and we drove down the narrow streets of Biloxi trying to find some place to eat. By pure happenstance, we found a seafood restaurant in an old store front, which had apparently had its original place of business on the beach before the destruction of the hurricanes. Now, the restaurant was in town and it seemed like it had been there for a long time. Despite the fact that I was just about to my ears in shrimp po-boys, I ate another and drank a Bark's Root Beer and enjoyed the downhome ambience. I wanted to stay.

But we never stay in Mississippi for long. The sadness of the destruction was hard to handle. Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis' last home, was almost gone. They seemed to be trying to keep what was left standing like a skeleton on the coast. I think I would like to go sometime and stay for a weekend. It would be fun. Of course, it depends on how much of the coast has been reclaimed. It has been a long difficult process of restoration. There just isn't enough money out there to commit to what would take to rebuild. Especially in this economy.

I look forward to some day when the economy rebounds to strength. It will happen. It will just take awhile.

Meanwhile, the coast of Mississippi lies in a state of partial destruction. As does a lot of Louisiana. Life goes on, just in sputters and gasps some times.