When I was planning our summer, one of the things I wanted to do was take my kids to a few Mississippi places they hadn’t seen to give them more of a taste of our home state. When we scheduled our family vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama last month, I decided to tack on a few extra days at the front end for us to wander through the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
My late husband, Mike, grew up on the Gulf Coast — in Long Beach, Mississippi — and I have bittersweet memories of only a few visits we made there, and of him sharing with me some of the things he enjoyed most about it. Although the Coast is only about five hours from our home in Starkville, before this summer, I had not been back to the area since we were there together. And, that was also a few years before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
For the Mississippi leg of our vacation, we stayed in Gulf Port, but did a lot of driving and exploring from Bay St. Louis to the west, all the way across to Ocean Springs to the east before heading over to Alabama. The trip brought up a lot of emotions for me. As with many things related to their Dad, I was a little apprehensive about showing the children some of the places that hold deep memories for me. At the same time, I was also excited to show them more about the things he loved and the place he lived as a child. They were so young when he died, and sometimes I think I need to fill in more of the picture they never got to experience with Mike. Of course, with anyone visiting the Coast for the first time since Katrina, I was very curious and apprehensive again about seeing the destruction and the changes it caused — even 10 years later.
It was actually a neat and cathartic experience to return to some of the places Mike showed me in on the coast, even with some of the huge changes caused by the hurricane’s destruction. The children were most interested in the simple details rather than any of the emotions about the places, and that was about my speed too.
We visited Shelter Rock Drive. Mike grew up in a small house on that block which is adjacent to Hwy 90. Although his childhood was filled with challenges, the neighborhood was a good spot, considering his love of wildlife, fishing and so many outdoor experiences. The lot on the corner of his street and Hwy 90 stood vacant since Hurricane Camille in 1969, when the house that was originally there was destroyed. Mike told stories of climbing the live oaks that remained on the lot during his childhood. During this first time back, my biggest glimpse of the reality of Katrina’s devastation was that Shelter Rock Drive is virtually just grass plots and concrete slabs almost grown over now. Not an easy sight to see, although I knew in my head it’s what I should expect.
Aside from driving around a little, the other place we visited in Mike’s hometown was the Long Beach fishing pier. Mike and I actually fished there a few times, which you can read as mostly Mike fishing and me dropping a few casts every now and then. Mike spent a lot of his youth fishing the pier and in some of the streams like Wolf River.
The water in the Mississippi Gulf looks dirty. Mike taught me that it’s because it IS dirty. Not from lack of care, but because of the Mississippi River. The barrier islands trap water spilled into Mississippi Sound from the river and push it to shore. It makes for a “brackish” environment with its own wildlife and habitat. At least that’s my recollection of his explanation.
Mike taught me a lot of small details. And they’re all sometimes a little sketchy now…
Oleander is very pretty, but don’t ever use the stalks for a marshmallow roast because they are poisonous. The beaches on the Gulf Coast are actually man-made, and the native beaches were a lot more rocky. Deer Island almost touches the mainland in Gulf Port and he enjoyed camping there on occasion with friends. In the days before gambling was legal in Mississippi, the casino restaurant boats would sail out far enough to touch international waters in order to comply with the law. And folks on the boats tipped well. Crab cages have a trap crabs can crawl in, but not out. Crabbers drop their traps with a weight and line and come back hours later to haul in their catch. The water moccasins look just like hanging vines on Wolf Creek. “Floundering” uses this jabby thing on the end of a pole. Flounder have both their eyes on the same side of their body and if you slide your feet along the beach floor, you might stir one up. Fish from the pier really prefer live bait, but cold shrimp will do. Live bait shrimp aren’t pink. When somebody gets a hit on the pier, everybody watches him reel it in. There’s a tiny little jelly fish that washes ashore sometimes during low tide that makes the beach light up as you touch them. Pelicans fly long distances, see their prey from high up and take an amazing dive to grab it.
In our short visit to the pier, the children saw the same pelicans I did when Mike took me there. They looked across to Long Beach Harbor. They watched the daily fishermen cast out their nets with the weights on the end. I told them the same stories he told me and shared the details like I was a pro. Only, I’m not. I’m just trying to remember. The same as they are. All part of weaving together a life that only forms in our memories now.
I’m so glad we took the time to revisit Long Beach this time — the first time for the children. Like priming a pump, the first time visiting what could be a difficult place draws out the opportunity for future experiences. I’m actually excited about taking them there again, and hoping they can find some of their own special places and memories in the place their Dad called home.
Stay tuned for a few more posts to come as I share more about our visit to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the Gulf Shores, Alabama area. We explored as many downtown areas across the coast as we could and found lots of fun places — small businesses, restored areas, museums, collections and more. Good memories!
Hello & welcome! I’m Haley Montgomery, and I’m the designer and owner of 
My name is Ron, but back in grade school with Mike, I was Ronnie. Reading your blog brought back some memories of Mike. Mike and myself were in the same grade and best of friends up until High School. I remember after school, we would walk his bike over to the crossing guard (who happened to be my mother) at Jeff Davis Elementary (now called Harper McCaughn) and ask my mother if I could go over to Mike’s. She would always say yes, and off we would go. Our first stop was just on the other side of the crossing walk – the Post Office. What we, as kids in grade school, found out was that the Post Office threw a lot of neat things away! We would actually climb into their dumpster and spend a bit of time opening up the boxes, envelopes and letters. We’d collect stamps, stickers, anything we thought was cool. One time, we found some Army medals that somehow ended up in the trash instead of delivered to their owner. Mike ensured they were sent where they were supposed to go. He was always like that.
Another thing Mike and I had in common was fishing. Mike lived over on Shelter Rock and I lived to the east of the school – opposite sides of town. But the USM Gulf Park pier was about half way…give or take. One summer, we spent EVERY day fishing. We would both wake up at 6AM and load up out bikes with buckets and poles and tackle boxes. We would cook ourselves fried egg sandwiches and scrounge up one dollar each. We would then meet at the bait shop on Hwy 90 at 7AM and buy two dollars worth of bait shrimp. Just down the highway was the long wooden pier, which was locked of course with a barbed wire gate. We would chain up our bikes to the pier, shimmy around the locked gate and make the long trek to the end of the pier. And fish all day. When we got tired of fishing (me more than Mike…he never tired of fishing really), we would actually crawl around UNDER the pier. You see, we found out that a lot of people are really bad a casting. A lot of line, sinkers, hooks, lures, etc. would end up tangled under there. That is how we loaded up our tackle boxes without having to pay for a single item.
At times we would cast our nets from the pier. Go swimming. Sit down and eat our fried egg sandwiches. If we were lucky, we had a bit of money and one of us would run to the McDonalds and grab some burgers. I can remember clear as day sitting on the railing next to Mike, the sun going down and we had been there for 12 hours straight. Wind blowing in our hair, the smell of salt water and sun-bleached wood from the pier. Always the smell of fish. We’d pack up, go home, sleep and be back on our bikes at 6:30 to meet at the bait shop at 7. Every single day that summer.
Later on in life, we would go bass fishing. Mike had a boat and trailer he got from somewhere…it looked like it came from a trash heap, but he fixed it up and got a trolling motor for it. My mother, as well as being a crossing guard, was also a Girl Scout leader. Seeing as I had two sisters, when it came time for Girl Scout Camp, I had to go along…ha! Well, the first summer I begged her to bring Mike so I wouldn’t be bored and she agreed. What we didn’t know, is that at Camp Itakana, there is a lake and NOBODY fishes it. I thought Mike was going to lose his mind. We were out in a canoe the first year. The second year and every year after that, we had Mike’s boat. Mike would ever, on occasion, drive up himself and sneak onto the camp just to fish. He loved that lake.
We grew apart between Middle School and High School. I played the saxophone with Mike in Middle School and continued in the Band all through High School. Milke went the route of the football player. But that is just how life is at times. What I can say is that my childhood memories are completely filled with the fun and adventure Mike and I shared. Those were good times. He was happy out there fishing.
A few other small tidbits that may make you laugh at Mike.
When we would finish digging around in the Post Office dumpster, we would head to his house. The thing is, we only had his bike, which was either a 10-speed or one of those older mountain bikes. Mike would ride normal, but moved up all the way on the seat. I would sit behind him. And we would BOTH pedal – his feet on the inside and mine on the outside – all the way from Jeff Davis to Shelter Rock.
For a time, he collected aquariums. Now, most people would put pretty tropical fish in them, but not Mike. He had conchs, shrimp, croakers, anything he could get from the gulf. He had a few saltwater tanks. Then he would have his fresh water tanks full of bass, crappie, trout. He also had “ditch” tanks. Those had tadpoles, turtles and frogs. Unfortunately, he had them all stacked up (5 high) on plastic shelving against the wall. One day I burst into his room and it was like slow motion – the whole wall came down. I thought his mother was going to kill me.
One Halloween, we created a “Haunted Room” for his sister and her friend. We decorated the room and then both of us sat in a two chairs, covered by sheets. When they came in, they sat down and we jumped up screaming and hollering They acted scared, but I am sure they knew all along (I’m looking at you Peggy!).
One weekend day, we were getting yelled at by the neighbor down the road for having our BB guns on his property. Just then, a huge water moccasin (cottonmouth) came out into the ditch and I remember Mike and I going to town on it, the neighbor cheering us on. We eventually killed it, coiled it up like a rattlesnake and tossed it in his freezer. I am sure the rest of the house loved that. Well, our plan was to take it to school (still in grade school) for show and tell. We took this dead poisonous frozen snake (it was 6 foot long) to school and the principle lost his mind. He said we could not take it to show and tell. Of course, Mike and I decided he was foolish and mistaken, so we grabbed a roll-around cart, tossed the dead frozen snake on top and did it anyway. Mike even brought toothpicks so we could prop open the mouth and show the fangs. I’m sure we got in trouble, but I only remember the fun parts…ha!
[…] photographs this week, and looking back through what I captured during our summer adventures. As I wrote a few weeks ago, we tacked a few days onto the beginning of our annual beach trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama to […]