Dumb to brag; dumber to have stayed...

Galveston's seawall used to be a twenty mile mural. Ike eroded a lot of it. Once higher priorities are addreesed, I hope our local artists will come in and fix it.

While walking the dog on the seawall Sunday, we noticed a crowd up ahead. These days that usually means a meal truck. FEMA, the grocery stores, some local churches, a mosque, and the Salvation Army give away hot food twice a day. But this group was a bit different. It was the Salvation Army all right, but they weren't giving away meals. Their band had taken its place atop what is left of a concrete stage and had begun to play hymns. I am not a religious person, so hymns take me back to my childhood and a simpler time.

This was a setting to behold. To stand there, in the midst of a cool sea breeze with the water uncommonly blue, stirred me to tears. Several van loads of folks from a Baptist church in Oklahoma joined the rest of us to take it in.

There was no proselytyzing, nor were leaflets and unwanted religious tracts littering the ground. There was just all of us - making the best of it and, in our own ways, conveying the same thing to each other --hope.