A few amazing bloggers have come up with idea for those who love the Gulf Coast to write about it and link them all together. Thanks to Deb, Caroline and Maria.

The project is called Love the Gulf.

Our beautiful and amazing Gulf Coast, already crippled from Hurricane Katrina and in Mississippi’s case, the influx of mega-casinos, is facing another threat.

Oil. One of the lifebloods that keeps so many families, mine included, afloat. I wrote about the fact that I am very proud to be “oilfield trash“, and about the contributions that the men and women of the oil industry make. I also have relatives and friends who are fisherman, shrimpers, and people who make their living from the other bounty of the gulf, seafood. The oil is threatening the seafood, the wildlife, the land. It’s devastating and sickening to anyone who loves the land. Eleven human lives have already been lost and livelihoods are next while many in Washington stand idly by, content to swing a golf club instead of swing into action.

I believe the true measure of this catastrophe has yet to be measured, and I am afraid to know what the final toll will be.

Until then, I cling to my memories, and I hope for the best while so many expect the worst.

Here is my contribution …..

Jimmy Buffet sings a song called “Biloxi”, and in the song he sings about the sun shining on Biloxi. Jimmy is a son of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and each of his songs brings me to a place back along those shores where so many of my memories were formed.

I am a daughter of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where I was born in a town called Ocean Springs. I came into the world two days after Hurricane Camille decimated much of the area. My parents and grandparents had a home in Bay St Louis, on the back bay. My mom and dad dated along the Gulf, and I still remember going to the same snowball stand on the beach where they went after one of their dates. I grew up going to the beaches in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama. I learned to swim in the waters off of Gulfport, and drove my first jet ski off of a beach in front of Jefferson Davis’s Beauvoir. We spent weeks each summer at a beach house in Gulf Shores, and when my dad was still working, lived in a condo on South Padre Island.

I remember my grandparents taking me to “The Factory” for shrimp and crab claws, and how they’d let me play on the beach and feed the seagulls after dinner.

I remember family vacations with more cousins than you could count trying to climb onto a float while moms and aunts set out our lunch on the sand.

I remember the excitement of riding the ferry to Ship Island with friends, laughing and using baby oil to tan and taking lemon juice to put in our hair for “sun lights.”

I remember Mary Mahoney’s, Marine Life, Point Cadet, the Biloxi lighthouse, Eight Flags, spring breaks on South Padre Island and in Panama City, Galveston, Destin, Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Bayou la Batre, the Venice fishing rodeo, the Blessing of the Fleet, bonfires on Pass Christian beaches, Mardi Gras parades along Hwy 90.

I remember the first time I put my own brand new jet ski in the water, fresh from the boat show, and rode up and down the beaches until the sun was setting.

I remember fishing and crabbing with my daddy, Gregory and I on our honeymoon in Marco, him washing my hair in the outdoor shower after 99 cent margaritas, vacations at the beach, family, love, community, the gulf.

I remember …..