Blood Beef, Dead Shrimp & Gold

Gary P. Flood

Description

This book was fun to write, growing up in Seabrook Texas in my grandmother’s house by the bay allowed me to have freedoms some will never know. I moved into my “nanas” house shortly after the passing of my grandfather Philip Allen portrayed as Bill Davis in the book. Him and Goldie were true to character along with the beautiful Lilian Allen my “Nana”. The meals cooked in that kitchen are reminded to me daily when I look at the sign from her kitchen that my mother gave me after her passing. It sets high and proud in my kitchen “Lillian’s Home Cooking”. I was my grandmothers only grandson and everyone knew it especially my sisters. That may be why she didn’t mind playing such a strong roll in raising me and forgave easy even when I stole her car at the age of 14 in pursuit of California stardom. My mother and sister still reside in that house today and it’s never been a warmer place to visit with mom continuing the tradition of one great loving meal after another. Waking in the summer and running barefoot in nothing but a torn-up pair of jeans all day. Up and down the bay front fishing and burning my bare feet on the hot planks of any pier I could find. Running through the woods that fronted the salty water was my home. In the summer. As I got older I would occasionally deck hand on a shrimp bout out of port Bolivar named the Proud Mary. The story always went that she snagged a real treasure one time and authorities took it all away from the captain that snagged it. True? Not true? I’ll leave that up to you. I like to think it is. The fish houses that cover the point by the Seabrook Kemah bridge are still ran today with the hard-working Vietnamese family’s that carved their strong hold in the 70s. Growing up and raising a family around the salty shores between Seabrook Texas and Galveston island has given me the blessing of knowing some of the most interesting characters. Some so far out they could only be true, you can’t make stuff like that up. The numbers of friends and family that still reside in these areas will always be what I call home.

Sujets

• Gary Flood
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 20 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669829959
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Blood Beef, Dead Shrimp & Gold
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Gary P. Flood
 
Copyright © 2022 by Gary P. Flood.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2022911312
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-2997-3

Softcover
978-1-6698-2996-6

eBook
978-1-6698-2995-9
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Rev. date: 07/19/2022
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
843366

 
A salty tale of treasure, travel, pirates, island life, and love. From the Chilean hillsides across the Andes into Argentina and a crazy path north to the Texas gulf coast, follow as we take the journey filled with friendly villains and true and not-so-true accounts of the people on Galveston Island, Texas.

Written by: Gary P. Flood
Contents

Introduction
 
Chapter 1     Flashback to ’76
Chapter 2     Goldie Girl
Chapter 3     Thunder and Taillights
Chapter 4     Wharf Rat Lounge
Chapter 5     Proud Mary
Chapter 6     Chilean Blood Beef
Chapter 7     Peanut Butter Cups and Smoke
Chapter 8     Mearl the Pearl
Chapter 9     Chilean Love
Chapter 10   Sparks Fly
Chapter 11   Deceit Underwater
Chapter 12   Duck ’n’ Dang
Chapter 13   On the Half Shell
Chapter 14   Loose Lips Sink Ships
Chapter 15   Can Hear You Loud and Clear
Chapter 16   Got Damn It, Garcon!
Chapter 17   Calling Home
Chapter 18   Wheels Off the Ground
Chapter 19   Calling Home 2
Chapter 20   Fish On!
Chapter 21   Deceit Underwater 2
Chapter 22   Viva la Texas
Chapter 23   Redfish and Submarines
Chapter 24   Sea Castle Cannon Bunkers
Chapter 25   The Chase
Chapter 26   Redfish and Submarines 2
Chapter 27   Baseball and That’s All
Chapter 28   The Tiki Bar Is Open
Chapter 29   Cornmeal and Cast Iron
Chapter 30   Which Way Is Up
Chapter 31   Welcome to Texas
Chapter 32   The Plan
Chapter 33   Operation Dragnet
Chapter 34   Driftwood Castles and Fishy Kisses
Chapter 35   “What’s Shakin’?”
Chapter 36   Going Down
Chapter 37   Phil, er, Up
Chapter 38   Gold Is Good, Diamonds Are Better
 
Notes

INTRODUCTION
A S ANY REFINED beachcomber knows, just about every stroll down the shoreline, where ocean meets land, are all sorts of shapes and sizes of treasure to be found. Whether it be the skeletal remains of a gafftop catfish, which holds the image of the crucifix (don’t tell the Mexicans, for then all beaches along the Gulf of Mexico may become religious sanctuaries for the world’s Latin Catholic community and another sighting of the holy stigmata); or maybe it’s whole sand dollars, or bits and pieces. Maybe shells, shark’s teeth, or sand-tumbled pieces of broken glass (my personal favorite). For the sandpapery little jewel of many colors, depending on its origin, has been broken from its former shape, carried through the tide, tumbled in the motion of the ocean, found its way to shore and tumbled some more in the beach break, rounding all sharp edges and applying a dull finish, and then found by some seeking passerby.
This little treasure of glass is known in my house as “sea glass” and is the number 1 collectible for me and my brood. Its gleam and shine is only but its physical beauty. The source of its origin is where the real dream and mystery make me gaze at each piece with uncertainty and wonder, the real treasure.
So maybe this is where the story begins, the beach. Not just any beach, but one particular beach—Galveston Island, Texas, at the far west end.

CHAPTER 1 Flashback to ’76
I T WAS AT the end of another record-breaking summer day, 110 degrees in the shade, and I had just topped the crest of the San Louis Pass bridge from Freeport, Texas, in what I thought was a real find, an old four-speed ’79 half-ton Ford pickup that was gonna be a fixer-upper. I’d picked it up for nothing, trading out some electric work for the old junker. The only crap I was gonna hear was gonna be from my girlfriend when she got home tomorrow morning from her night-shift job.
So I make my way down onto Galveston Island, passing the tollbooth atop the bridge in total disregard, or rather in total praise and thanks that it had been closed for repair for the last three months due to some jackass mainlander wrapping his 2000 model GMC and twenty-one-feet Shoalwater skiff around it early in the summer. The local gossip column enjoyed badmouthing a drunk rich tourist plowing into the damn thing, taking attention off 90 percent of the locals behaving the same way. Everyone enjoyed the temporary free rite of passage.
After all, the tollbooth, placed there in the ’60s, had paid for that bridge time and time again, one buck at a time. No one could be as grateful and happy as I because at this moment in time, some sticky change from a cupholder that was wedged up between the rollup glass on the driver’s door and a couple of coins mixed with sand, dried french fries, and beer caps from the floorboard might equal forty-five cents and is all I had on me, having left my wallet on the counter at the hangar this morning; and that was not even half the toll needed to cross the bridge on a regular business day.
The best part of this ride was jumping the pass and staring to the south across the Gulf of Mexico and knowing that even though the island would change its appearance over the years, the view of the gulf would always stay the same, as it has from the beginning of time.
Next, I guess, is with no surprise; for a gas engine can only run so far on fumes, desperation, and just flat-ass willpower. Just as the downhill run of the bridge came into play under the four tires of my new find, the tank ran dry and we started our semidownhill glide into Galveston’s west beach territory. With just a single cursed thought of running out of gas, having no money on me, and a good slap on the oven-baked dash, all discouragement blew away with the warm south breeze that carved its way through the cab of the truck. I guess I was just thankful that it was leaning toward the cooler part of the day, and being raised here from birth, I was nearly certain to know the occupants of the next vehicle to pass though none lay in sight yet. Just me, the gulf, Luis Pass, and this broken-down ’79 Ford pickup, almost half of my worldly possessions.
As the evening sun baked the already dry, rotted dashboard to a burned well done, it reminded me of my existence on the west end of Galveston Island. Not only did the summer bring heat that was normally found inside an oven on broil, but things also that were exposed to the elements down here all had premature expiration dates. Things, that is, excluding well-made maritime vessels and the hardy souls of the people and plants that inhabited this temperate zone. If not for the prominent south wind off the Gulf of Mexico, the mosquitoes and rattlesnakes would be the only things at ease. And as did heat penetrate only still or slow-moving objects, old man winter was surely destined to blow from the north and send a wet chill to the bone, through and through, to every islander. And though summer and winter alike held their share of hardness, the rewards that this time-battered old island hid from the eye of most outweighed any of its temporary discomforts.
So where were we? Oh ya!
Broke down, end of the day, staring out across the gulf in hopes of catching a ride to town for some gas. Not patient enough to wait for someone to rescue me, I sucked in a deep breath of salty air, held it, and let the spirit and blood sort between the inspiration and oxygen it needs to begin my downhill walk to the bottom of the bridge. Certainly, enough time will have elapsed to be saved. As I put rhythm to my stride along the guardrail, my mind digs through a collection of walking songs. And as if an invisible hand came out of the sky and pressed play somewhere deep in the gray matter between my ears, I time my steps to Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.”
With one hand dragging across the top of the old galvanized guardrail, with just enough down pressure to avoid any sharp spots or nicks to the hand, and the distance growing between me and my broken-down possessions that refuse to run on inspiration, my eyes focus downward over the edge of the handrail and into the emerald-green waters that reveal themselves from time to time in this part of the gulf despite the muddy antagonizer to the East, the Mississippi River making vast amounts of mud and sand deposits out of New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico and then due west and straight across the front of Galveston Island. It just so happens that now is not one of those times, and the deep-blue waters of offshore have cut a happy little trail straight to