There’s no matching the fighting power of a brute bull redfish, and there’s no better place to experience it than the passes near Grand Isle.
President Bush has had some sort of epiphany.
It’s obvious. Perhaps he was visited by the ghost of Christmas Future one sleepy August night on Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe Christmas Future held the hand of the leader of the free world and took his spirit on a midnight stroll through the heart of America’s Wetland.
“Twenty years ago, this was all marsh,” Christmas Future said as the two ghosts stood on the Empire bridge looking west. “That right there was Bay Pomme d’Or, and behind it was English Bay and Cyprien Bay. Beyond that was tiny little Scofield Bay.
“Today, they’re all gone. There’s nothing between us and the Gulf but a thin strand of broken beach.”
Then Christmas Future took the hand of the president, and they were catapulted through a spiritual portal to the top of the lock at Bayou Bienvenue.
“Fifty years ago — just 50 years — this was cypress swamp,” Christmas Future said. “But the straight canal you see before you destroyed it. When it was dug in the 1960s, it was like a surgical cut into heart of the swamp that was never closed — an open, festering wound that ever invited the infection of salt water.
“Like a flesh-eating bacteria, the salt continues to consume this marsh today. Every year, the canal loses 15 feet of shoreline along its length.”
The president shook his head, closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. Christmas Future touched his back, and when the president opened his eyes, they were standing on the Leeville bridge.
“This is the Barataria Basin, the fastest-eroding estuary in North America,” Future said while sweeping his arm. “The basin is home to 602,000 people with a culture unlike anything else in the world.
“A century ago, this was an orange grove,” Future said while pointing to the north. “Today, it’s open water.”
The president hung his head, and looked down from the bridge.
“What is that?” he asked, pointing to a series of rectangular blocks under the water.
“Those are tombs,” Future said. “The salt water knows no mercy, not even allowing the dead to rest in peace.”
Future then took the president to the city of New Orleans. They stood atop a three-story building in the French Quarter. Only those buildings with three or more floors were visible. The rest were covered with water.
“This is a day that is coming,” Future said. “The marsh was New Orleans’ protection, but the front lines are now too thin.
“More than 100,000 are dead.”
The president sobbed. When he opened his eyes, he was back in his bedroom at the White House.
The president’s spiritual journey to South Louisiana actually happened. There can be no doubt.
How else do you explain the fact he vigorously — but unsuccessfully — fought Louisiana getting $540 million over four years to help fight coastal erosion, and then, only days later, told a group of Louisiana reporters he felt strongly the state should use the dollars as matching money to gain more federal funds?
That was great news for Louisiana officials, who have been struggling for ways to find state funds to assist in combating the disaster.
We need more. Much more. But it was remarkable to see the president’s change of heart. Thank you, Christmas Future.
