It’s not easy watching a former home hit hard times. More than three quarters of my life has been spent along the Gulf Coast, and as I write this, a cap is tentatively curtailing the spill of oil into the gulf. This is not going to be a diatribe on what this president’s administration should have done to curtail the tragedy, nor will it be a lambasting of the previous president’s eight years in office. Frankly, I’m just hoping it’s not a eulogy.
Hurricanes, though powerful and damaging, are an accepted part of life in the region. The oil spill is something else entirely. Even if the current cap holds the oil at bay, there remains the pending problem of several million gallons of oil spreading to beaches and decimating wildlife. Already, prime oyster and fishing grounds are closed, even though they have not yet been contaminated from the oil spill. I worked in a seafood restaurant and know a number of fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen, and they are seeing their livelihoods disappear with every ball of oil that washes ashore, as are countless restaurants and businesses who look to the Gulf to lure tourists.