For my Enviromental Science class we had to write a min 200 word, max 300 word story or poem on a bit of Louisiana's Enviroment...This is mine.


“Look Jeremy,” I remember being told as we stepped over the hill that barred our view of the gulf. My eyes were bombarded with images I had only seen on television and in magazines. Soft, white sand covered the distance left and right, deep blue water cascaded along the shoreline washing away and replacing the sand. Gulls and pelicans dove and weaved through the air. The pelicans broke the surface of the water quickly and returned back to the air with a bill full of water and, it hoped, fish. As we neared the barrier of water and sand, I could make out tiny shapes moving about. Christopher, my cousin, picked me up and moved towards them quicker than I could hope to. Kneeling down and placing the yellow pale down he began to dig in the sand, chasing down the shapes I had seen. In but a second, or so it seemed to me, he retrieved several sea shells which, to my surprise, had crablike creatures living inside of them! I couldn’t help but notice while he chased these strange beings down that there were white dots in the sand which stuck their tongues out at us, as if mocking, and vanishing beneath the surface. The rest of my day involved being taught how to swim, finding out the hard way that, despite being clear, blue, and cold, sea water was certainly towards the bottom of my preferred beverage, and that sand was an exceptional replacement for legos when wet.

Now, years down the road, I returned to Grand Isle. What I found, though, tore at my heart. The very place that had created such a treasured memory was wrought with trash, weeds, and abandoned items.