PORT ARANSAS

Port Aransas is a small fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico, southeast of Corpus Christi. It's still there but has become very modern, much larger and populated with restaurants, motels and "fun" things that can be found just about anywhere else on a coast in the U.S. When I was growing up in Beeville, Port Aransas was the place we went to go fishing and/or camp out on the beach.
There were several families from Beeville who had vacation homes in Port A; in fact, so many that one street was renamed "Beeville Avenue". My parents and I were not among those but we did stay in various motels in town and of course, had access to the beach. We loved to fish and did so by either surf, pier or jetty, or renting a boat for deep sea fishing. On one occasion when Daddy chartered a boat for half a day's deep sea foray, I got so seasick that we had to turn around and return to port. He was not pleased with me because the owner gave no refund plus, of course, we didn't get to fish. We had an opportunity to go out again when I was a little older and that time they advised me to take a seasick pill. I did and it worked, except it put me to sleep and I didn't get to fish at all; just slept on top of the motor cover all morning. They caught a lot of fish and had a great time.

There was a restaurant called the South Grill, (no longer there), which backed up to the piers where the fishing boats were moored. Of course there was no doubt that the seafood was fresh and it was wonderful. One evening we were dining there are Mama couldn't get the salt to come out of the shaker so she called the waiter over to get another one. When she told him it wouldn't shake out, he said "when it rains it pours, but it ain't rainin' now". That's an old theme quote from Morton's salt. Corny, I know but just wanted to add it. That restaurant had added attractions, one being a big room for gambling off the dining area. This was not an amenity that all diners were aware of.  Sometimes after we finished eating, Daddy would excuse himself and go in to that room for a quick game of poker or blackjack. Women were not allowed. "We've come a long way, baby".

Speaking of the fishing boats with their catch, it was great fun to wait on the pier for them to dock so that we could see how well they had done. You could buy fish right from the boat if you wished and it smelled bad and was slippery but it was a wonderful experience.

Camping out on the beach was also a grand experience. In those days you could drive down the beach from Port Aransas and stop just about anywhere you wanted to for camping. The beaches had names like Little Shell and Big Shell, referring to the size of the shells washed ashore. Big Shell was further away from Port A and the fish we caught there seemed bigger than others. This is where we did the surf fishing, wading out just to where the waves were breaking and casting our line as far as possible.

We would scale our fish and cook them over a campfire on the beach, which makes them taste even better than at home. If we had to go to the "bathroom", we had to climb up behind the dunes and hunker down to do our business. One time Mama was behind a big dune when a small airplane flew over and spotted her. He circled back and flew lower and Mama was shaking her fist at him and cursing. I bet he got a good laugh.

As I write about this, I realize how fortunate I am to have experienced all this before modernity and organization took over our lives.