I had a recurring dream when I was a young boy. In that dream, I sat in our 1930s vintage beach house at Gulf Shores. The cottage was on the island’s west end, about 1.6 miles from what is now known as the Pink Pony Pub. When my grandparents built their vacation home, there were no condos and few other houses nearby. Unimaginable in today’s world!
The beach house remained in its original state for decades. As children, we spent many vacations enjoying the sun, sand, waves, and wonders of the Gulf of Mexico. Our house had no air conditioning or phone. We were “unplugged” because there weren’t as many alternatives as today.
Anyway, back to the recurring dream. As I sat on the sleeping porch, the water began covering the sand in front. Very quickly, the waves started getting closer to the steps, and as they began covering the pilings supporting the cottage, I watched in absolute amazement. The waves began crashing through the windows. And then, I wake up. Oddly, the feeling was more of fascination than fear.
I don’t know how many years I had that dream, but I had a similar “real-life” experience when our family moved to Okinawa when I was about four. My dad was an air traffic controller in the Air Force. On the day we arrived on that Pacific island, they were in the beginning stages of a typhoon.
While I was quite young, I still remember my parents placing my brother and me on the top bunk of our bunk bed. The water rose high in the evening to touch the mattress on the bottom bunk. My sister was with my parents in their bed. Mom and Dad told us later that they placed all their oriental-style furniture on top of the government-issue items to save as much of their privately owned goods as possible.
For all of us living on the Gulf Coast, hurricanes are a natural part of our existence. Most of our storms cause minor damage, but when they hit hard, the storms leave a lasting impression.
The first major hurricane I remember was Camille. Most Mobilians had to take a short car ride to see the horrific damage to the communities on the Mississippi coast. The consequences were visible for decades after the 1969 event.
Ten years later, Frederic wreaked havoc on Mobile and the Alabama Gulf Coast. We worried about our cherished beach house at Gulf Shores. We were allowed to view the results several days after the storm hit. When we reached our site, we saw two and a half pilings and parts of the fireplace. Everything else was gone. I’m not sure we could have identified our property if it hadn’t been for the chimney.
That modest house provided decades of beautiful memories for my family, friends, and classmates. My grandfather had already passed away well before this time, but my grandmother, Genevieve Finch, was heartbroken.
“We still have our family, and that’s the most important thing,” she said. But, a cherished part of her life disappeared.
A few years later, my parents built a beach house about two and a half miles further west. Again, we began building memories of our own. Theirs was the first house built after Frederick before the landscape changed to huge single-family homes and towering condos. Dad used to shake his head when we were fishing in his small skiff well out into the Gulf, but still in sight of the shore.
“You can always see our place,” he’d say. “We’re dwarfed by the giants everywhere.” We never felt deprived, however. Our place still maintained the spirit of the Gulf Shores we had grown up with. We hosted family reunions, the kid’s high school parties, and gatherings of friends that produced a lifetime of memories. That’s the important thing!
My mom passed away in 2003. Less than one year later, Hurricane Ivan arrived. And, once again, our much-loved home away from home left its moors and disappeared. I vividly remember Dad walking on the beach before the pilings, standing like ancient ruins. He died in 2006.
My brother and I, and our wives, had the opportunity to rebuild. But, too much had changed, and the days of deciding to “go to the Gulf” on a whim seemed to have disappeared. I still remember the many days when we could walk a mile on the beach without seeing another footprint.
We sold our property. The new owners built a three-story, ten-bedroom, ten-bath, ten-thousand dollar-a-week rental mansion with a pool on our small paradise. Bless their hearts.
I still remember my Grandpa sitting on a reclining cot, reading the paper, and enjoying the breeze through the screened windows on the sleeping porch. I remember sitting on the steps with siblings and cousins as we scraped our teeth across ice-cold watermelon. I remember the quiet conversations with my mother on the porch in the evenings with a million stars filling the sky.
Still, my cup overruns with blessings. Family, friends – people! My grandmother said it best. “As long as the people are safe, we can always replace the things!”
God Bless,
Tommy
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