Jerkoffs Gone WIld

College jerks gone wild. They might like spring break...but for us it's a big pain in the ass. Some of the area merchants (especially restaurants and bars) make enough money off of spring break to keep going through the whole year, but the rest of us suffer. In typical old fart reflectionism, I remember when this island was just a strip of sand, dotted by a few fishing shacks and a mix of people as salty as the gulf waters. I had a friend who was the only tattoo artist around for a long time, and during one particularly rough streatch of my life, I decided to get a tattoo. At that time Barrys shop was located over in Port Isabel, and he really didn't know me. So anyway, I got the tatt, and afterwards we started talking surfing. I mentioned that I was not too comfortable with my current stick, and he told me he had a board that was perfect....showed me a seven two fun shape, which I immediately fell in love with. But as a college student, I had little money. He told me to "take the board, and bring the payment when I could". I managed to scrape up the money, and paid him the next week when I came to the island to surf. That was in the springtime too, when we usually get the best waves. Harpoon Barry and his wife were killed on the night of September 15th 2001 when the car they were driving plunged off of the broken Queen Isabella Causeway.

Spring break is a time to trash the island, a time when all of our future leaders can operate on their worst behavior.

Several years ago, we got caught on the causeway one night around midnight. While waiting in line, the car next two us, a white Lexus full of twenty-something little girls deposited a couple of empty fourpak winecooler bottles on the ground. D leaned over me an yelled: "pick up your bottles". One of the passangers shot the finger at her. On the dashboard of our old van there was a big old cold greasy onion blossom that my daughter had purchased at the livestock show and rodeo just hours before. I picked it up like a baseball, and hurled it at the pearly white Lexus with open windows. Part of it splattered on the windshield, and the rest showered the kiddies inside. The electric windows went up, and the passengers all sat bolt upright, frozen for the rest of the ride across.