Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Otherwise Lovely Day at the Beach Gets Punctuated by Reckless Rollover
By J. Lee Austin, MD
It was a stereotypical, sweltering summer day on the Texas Redneck Riviera. High overhead were intermittent stratus clouds faking the brain into believing its exposed epidermis was not getting sunburned into that familiar vermillion shade of over-cooked tourist. Driving down the beach, we were reminded of Mother Nature’s petulant personality, as we crept past Hurricane Beryl’s witchy legacy of wrecked decks and pronated fences. Human nature was also on display, as evidenced by freshly erected walkways built over imaginary and/or future sand dunes. Build it and they will come, I guess.

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

The beach itself had accomplished quite the metamorphosis, as it so often does. Right after the “Cat One” storm, the beach was wide, hard, flat and smooth, an adolescent racer’s dream where sixty was possible (though not even remotely advisable.)

Fast forward a couple weeks, after a seemingly endless series of torrential downpours produced countless rivulets that creased the sandy interstate into a rough, tooth-rattling rub-board of a ride. Rude I tell ya.

On we oozed, bumping along at a blistering 2 mph when we finally arrived at the ever popular “washout,” the spot where a small river of clear, brackish runoff meanders its way into the sloshing gulf waters.

Teeming with marine life, the little stream flowed briskly by, with ample schools of wiggly finger-mullet, oily menhaden, super-cute baby pompano and the ever-grumpy blue crab. (On her way to the beach Kim actually saw one of these confused crustaceans right out on the hot highway, straddling the yellow line and snapping his claws at passing cars. Don Quixote got nothin’ on him.)

Intrepid we fished, battling the sloppy brown surf, which yielded the elegantly finned but extremely slimy catfish known as gafftop sails, more colloquially called stupid slimers. We landed a small black tip shark, which provided a sweet teaching moment for passing children with their mom. They stopped to feel its leathery hide before we released it. No, you cannot have a shark tooth.

Packing up to leave, we heard an engine revving wildly and splashing fast through the wash. I heard John say, “Oh look, these guys like to do donuts.” I didn’t look up, but should have.

The collective gasps and holy craps snapped my head up just in time to see the monster ATV finish its violent flipping act, comically coming to rest in a perfectly up-side-down cartoon style attitude.

We dashed in to help the startled riders exit the inverted beast and make sure they were not hurt. She said she was fine, then realized she had a baseball size hematoma on her shin. The driver had sustained a large abrasion of his now naked manly ego.

“My girlfriend is never gonna ride with me again.”

I guess some girls are just fickle that way, brother.

~~ j ~~

“Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid.” ~~ Dean Koontz