When I was a young reporter working for the Panama City New-Herald sometime back in the last century, I used to take my dinner hour at a small bar where I could buy a pitcher of beers for $1 and raw oysters for ten cents apiece (plus all of the crackers and cocktail sauce you could eat).
The oysters, of course, were from Apalachicola Bay, three-years old, three inches broad and the tastiest warm-water oysters in the world. The real treat were those that came from Big Bayou near Saint Vincent Island that were actually harvest by fisherman in small boats using tongs. I read somewhere that the Apalachicola Bay is the last place in the world where wild oysters are still plucked from the seabed by hand with tons.
That tells you right there that the majority of the fishermen live a tenuous life, totally dependent upon the natural and pristine environment.
That bar in Panama City is long gone I understand and the best places to get oysters these days are Hunt’s Oyster Bar in Panama City and either Papa Joe’s on Market Street or Boss Oyster on the river, both of the latter in Apalachicola.
But you’d better hurry. There’s an oil slick headed their way and it may years before we can recover from its ecological impact. And yes, I care about the oysters, but these creatures are only a very small part of the ecological system of the Gulf Coast. I cringe even to think about the wildlife, the fishes, the animals, the birds, that will be harmed and even killed.
If it turns out that Bristish Petroleum cut corners, did not use the proper safety equipment, or otherwise contribute to this disaster, I hope we pursue both the company and the politicians who allowed this situation to exist. And I hope we really start to think intelligently about the harm we do to nature and what we can do regulate and control all our destruction of nature from the coals fields of Appalachia to strip mines in the West to the oil fields in the Northwest to the platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Not just for us, but for our children.
Beach, sun, sand. Hotter.
Children splash, sputter. Laughter.
Corks bob in water.
Citizen Poet 