In Spite of the Best Efforts of Many Good People
By J. Lee Austin
In sharp contrast to last weekend’s joyful and charitable Texas Crab Festival, the so-called Go Topless weekend was a selfish hot mess. Friends invited us to join them for dinner at their beach front home. Its high roof provided us with a bird’s eye view of the cacophonous spectacle stretching as far as the eye could see in both directions.

And quite the surreal scene it was … hordes of aimless “yutes” pickling their brains and earning themselves a permanent criminal record, with the salt-of-the-earth rescue and emergency types standing by at full attention ready to snatch them from the jaws of their imminent death. Rod Serling would have had a field day with this eerie juxtaposition.

J. Lee is a contributor to Crystal Beach Local News, and is the founder of The Good Help Network, a reader-supported publication.

We looked on in rapt horror as hundreds of young people progressively destroyed their cognitive abilities with gluttonous intake of alcohol and drugs. Even the dullest dodo bird could see that no good would come of this.

And it certainly didn’t. On the Sunday morning after the Saturday night debauchery, the Galveston County Sheriff’s office website was reporting dozens of arrests for public stupidity … er, public intoxication, driving while intoxicated, failure to drive in one lane, driving at unsafe speeds and the occasional aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Many were on the brink of assault with a deadly vehicle by zipping amongst the stumbling herd while driving thoroughly plastered. Reckless doesn’t begin to describe it.

There were also several arrests for not wearing a seatbelt. I guess I didn’t realize this was an arrest-worthy crime. Maybe there were other mitigating factors, like shooting off your smart mouth or something.

It was shortly before midnight, when the “party” was really getting rowdy, complete with a trailer full of twerkers twerking their butts away, that we made the bold decision to wander into the fray and talk to some nearby First Responders.

We were honored to meet 5 team members of TEXSAR, Texas Search and Rescue, now celebrating its 20th year of doing good things. They were a lively group, all dressed in trumpy orange, but not necessarily endorsing any particular candidate.

Clearly making the most of their sticky situation, they were actually interacting in a fun and whimsical way with the crowd. They seemed glad to be here and had nothing but praise for the Bolivar community that had made them feel so welcome and wanted … and that had even cooked meals for them … thanks again Eagles!

While chatting with us the crew maintained their constant vigil and reported that they had so far had 2 call-outs, both for overdose victims. I guess the unfortunate overdosers could at least take solace in the fact that they were not among the other sillies who got themselves put behind bars.

Is it even possible to arrest an unconscious person? If you are read your Miranda rights but are too wasted to hear the words, does a tree falling in the forest still make a sound? Just rhetorically wondering out loud here.

TEXSAR is an entirely volunteer, non-profit organization based in Austin with 4 branches around the state. These folks can save your bacon from 9 ways to Sunday … on the land, air and sea. If I were a few decades younger I would totally apply to be a Flood & Swiftwater Technician. No idea what that is, but it’s sounds like a lot of fun.

Or maybe I could pilot a drone for them. There were plenty of those buzzing around. Might be a preview to the next-level madness to which we can all look forward … perpetual drone wars. Kinda like the incipient unmanned aircraft skirmishes gaining in popularity along the Rio Grande. All eyes on the sky!

So for anyone with a sense of adventure, spare time to commit and a burning desire to rescue your fellow man, TEXSAR may be for you. They have 268 active personnel and are always looking for new volunteers. There is a wide range of roles to be played … things like mantracking, rescue diver, public relations and a whole lot more. So, sign up and/or donate. You might be lucky enough to find yourself saving lives on a feral beach somewhere.

Many, many thanks to all the wonderful citizens who volunteered, not to mention the businesses that sacrificed by closing early and those who cleaned up the mess afterwards. It is clear from the numerous arrests, utterly senseless injuries and death that there is much work yet to be done.

Let us not rest until the Jeep weekend is finally made safe for all. Maybe it would help to change the name of it, especially now that many Jeepers are going to Surfside instead of Bolivar, probably in an effort to distance themselves from the non-Jeep loony tunes who have taken over here. Maybe we could call it something like The Great Incarceration Palooza.

~~ j ~~

“I don’t like jail. They got the wrong kind of bars in there.”
~~ Charles Bukowski