Inside the Moon Winter Texans A2 Frostbite Betty A5 Moon on a Spoon A7 Traveling Moon A9 Fishing A13 Issue 772 The 27° 37' 0.5952'' N | 97° 13' 21.4068'' W Photo by Maryse Tremblay Island Free The voiceMoon of The Island since 1996 January 31, 2019 Weekly www.islandmoon.com FREE Around Port Moves The Island Forward with By Dale Rankin Harbor Island There was a moment of panic Desalinization early Wednesday when the morning weatherman mentioned something Plant about “thirty below!” That will get By Dale Rankin your attention. But as it turned he wasn’t talking about us. The fact is One week after the City of Corpus that we are thirty below…the century Christi announced that it will not mark. move forward with plans for a water desalination plant on Harbor Island But for the folks our Winter Texan across the Corpus Christi Ship friends left behind north of Swinney Channel from Port Aransas the Port Switch thirty below may not be the of Corpus Christi scheduled a public worst of it. At mid-week the polar hearing to move forward with its vortex settled in over the Upper plans to put a plant there and has filed Midwest and the Deep Freeze was a permit with the Texas Commission on. In northern Minnesota where on Environmental Quality. Bert and Frostbite Betty are holed up in their cabin it is 38 degrees below Charlie Zahn, Chairman of the Port zero! Bring in your brass monkeys The five candidates for two seats on the board of the Padre Isles Property Owners Association Board of of Corpus Christi Port Commission, everybody! said this week the port is moving Directors met the members last Saturday. For statements from the candidates see Page A3 in this issue. ahead with its separate plan to permit The Old Farmer’s Almanac says a desalination plant on a portion of we may get a little of the northern the 254-acre site owned by the Port chill in weeks to come on our little Property Owners Should Have POA Ballots on Harbor Island. sandbar as the cool air makes its way south and we are in for a chillier Property owners should by now have candidates on the ballot with the two The system used in last year’s “We asked the industries at the than normal February. By March, received their ballots for the March 9 top vote getters taking the seats. election will be used again with port what their top three concerns the accounting department at Texas according to the Old Farmer, things election of two members of the Padre The candidates in ballot order are: were and they said ‘a drought free A&M Corpus Christi is handling the will start warming up and by April we Isles Board of Directors in the mail. Kelly McFadden, Judith Cutright, water supply, a reliable electricity ballots. The ballots will be mailed to will be back to normal. Here’s hoping They were mailed last week and are Robert Algeo, Daniel R. Brown supply, and an adequate workforce’ a safety deposit box maintained by the Old Farmer is right but for now due back by March 2. The results of III, and Brian T. McCabe. See the in that order,” Zahn said. “Some of the university employees, they will that polar vortex is a booger. the election will be announced at the statements from the candidates in this our industries would have been shut not be accepted by nor handled by annual meeting on March 9 with five issue. down during the last drought without Coyotes’ song the POA office. action taken by the city. We have to Those of us living on the edge of Laissez les bon temps make sure we have adequate water Island civilization have been hearing for the next drought for the future of the wistful cry of the canis latrans in rouler! Island on the Move the port.” the evenings just after sundown. Our coyote neighbors have been in a vocal state of mind the last week and their 2019 Barefoot Desalination cont. on A4 yelps and barks can be heard when the wind lays down. The funny thing Mardi Gras about the coyotes call is you can’t tell 2019 Texas if it is one or twenty, the sounds just March 2 seem to meld together. Island dogs By Elaine Motl Adopt-A-Beach pick up their ears when they hear The 10th Annual Barefoot Mardi their wild cousins bleat the call of Gras with Parade, Festival and King Winter Beach the wild. In every wiener dog beats & Queens Ball is scheduled for the heart of a wild dog but in the end March 2, 2019. Cleanup a full food bowl and warm blanket Texas General Land Office Adopt- always win out. The Barefoot Parade, which is always A-Beach Winter Cleanup is set for held the Saturday before Fat Tuesday Work is underway in earnest on the IGA grocery story on SPID. ISAC Owner Moshin Rasheed has set a goal of opening by the end of 2019. Saturday, February 9, from 9:00 a.m. which travels the beach on North to 12:00 p.m. To volunteer check in The Island Strategic Action Padre Island between Whitecap. at one of the following locations: Committee will meet Tuesday, Blvd and Nueces County Park Rd February 5, 5:30 p.m. at the Comfort near Access Road 5, is expected to Nueces County - Packery Flats Suites on Windward. The agenda was have 60-plus floats. Check-in: Parking lot off Hwy 361, not out by press time but likely topics The Official Barefoot festivities kick on Mustang Island near Packary are the ongoing repairs to the Packery Channel Jetties after Hurricane Harvey and off when the Parade begins at 11 a.m. beach maintenance along the Michael The Barefoot Festival, with its party Contact: Jace Tunnell, Coastal J. Ellis Seawall. There may also be an of food trucks, artists, exhibitors and Bays Foundation 361-882-3439 children’s activities, will be bigger update on the Park Road 22 Water [email protected] Exchange Bridge. with new additions. Live music, Happy Hour Prices, Kidz Fun Zone [email protected] Taxpayer’s Prayer and a Mardi Gras Costume Contest Plans are still in the early stages Work also has begun on a new for all ages! Open from 11 a.m. – 5 for $1.5 million in improvements office development on SPID near Kleberg County - Padre Island We lost an icon among American p.m. in Bali Park at the Briscoe King to the area under the JFK Nemo Court. For more info see National Seashore writers last week with the passing Pavilion, you’ll find lots of family Causeway. City planners told the Business Briefs on page A4. of Russell Baker who died at 93. For Check-in: Malaquite Visitor Center fun. 36 years Baker wrote his Observer ISAC in December that the work should begin in 2020. column in the New York Times Barefoot cont. on A4 Cleanup cont. on A4 winning two Pulitzer Prizes along the way. As tax time arrives we revisit Baker’s Taxpayer’s Prayer. A little Island history O mighty Internal Revenue, who turneth the labor of man to ashes, we thank thee for the multitude of thy forms which thou has set before us Surviving the 1933 Hurricane and for the infinite confusion of thy commandments which multiplieth the Editor’s note: This is the latest So, the days flowed into weeks, and fortunes of lawyers and accountants installment of the memoirs Island the weeks became months and years. alike… of Redemption written by Louis I had grown steadily stronger, and When asked what courses should be Rawalt who along with his wife seldom gave a thought to the fact that taught in journalism schools across Viola lived at various locations on I wasn’t even supposed to be alive. I the country Baker wrote: Padre Island after being given six could walk for miles without tiring, months to live due to injuries from and many nights I slept on the sand The ideal journalism school needs a mustard gas attack in World War with only a piece of tarpaulin around only one course. Students should be I. He lived on The Island for more me when I was fishing away from the required to stand outside a closed than 40 years. camp. It was one of the times when door for six hours. Then the door In the last issue Rawalt had I had gone alone to a spot thirty- would open, someone would put his five miles below our shack that the head around the jamb and say, ‘No been harvesting gunnysacks of Old Hospitality Bourbon whiskey car stalled. No amount of coaxing comment.’ The door would close or tinkering could get a sound out again, and the student would be which had been thrown overboard by the captain of the I’m Alone of it. There was nothing to do but required to write 800 words against start walking. It was seventy miles to a deadline.” smuggling ship in the Sigsbee’s Deep where the ship was shot full Corpus Christi Pass where someone For anyone who has ever spent six of holes and sunk by the Coast lived who had a car. The tide was hours on the wrong side of that door Guard. exceptionally high, and I had little it sends a chill down the spine. hope that any fishermen would be Rawalt and his wife Viola arrived on The Island across the Don By Louis Rawalt venturing down the beach that day.