From the Heart (of Texas): Lost in Port (Sunday Plus)

One of my favorite things to do at the bay is to leave it, meaning to head into town to visit the grocery store, look at the lighthouse, and now get some sweet tea at the Buc-ee's. When I was a teen, in my anti-bay phase (there was my tween pro-bay phase when we first got the house in 1982 when I'd swim and fish happily, followed quickly by my burgeoning bay antipathy marked by sullenness and a lack of interest in anything bay-like that lasted about 6 years, through high school. Then I went off to college and graduate school and didn't return for years. Now I feel like the prodigal child returning to a welcoming and forgiving bay family. And I find that I can enjoy it again both by myself and through my kids. Who thankfully won't be sullen for at least 5-7 more years!), before I finagled my mom into letting me stay in Houston alone while they went to the bay (only after I had my driver's license at 16), going into town was one of the highlights. Things have changed in this baytown--it's gotten bigger, with more stores. Today's venture to town for crackers for making the crust for fried shrimp found me also perusing the Mexican baked goods and selecting some brightly colored molletes and marveling at the array of beans such as Mayacoba, Haba, and pintos in bulk. We stopped at the doughnut shop because Yelp recommended it and brought home doughnuts for everyone. Which I wasn't hungry for because we got bean and cheeses and tamales, plus sweet tea and orange cream swirl Blue Bell ice cream at the Buc-ee's. We contemplated tracking down Indianola, the ghost town created by a 19th-century hurricance, but instead drove down Main Street, which we had discovered the day before.

The day before when Pop had sent us to town to buy bait. Sure, send the two "foreigners" into town for bait! Uncle B had said to try the causeway; no go. Locals in line at the Buc-ee's suggested a bait shop on Main Street, "just turn left." But they must have thought I was a local because they forgot to tell me that the big thoroughfare through town is NOT Main Street. It took a few more calls back to my folks to determine that Main Street, in fact, wasn't main. It's the "old" Main Street, with a 1904 hotel and an abandonned but no doubt once prosperous town center. And there was the hole-in-the-wall live bait shop with huge vats of shrimp and minnows and mullet. And no dead bait, or frozen shrimp. Then, heading home, we stumbled upon the bait shop the Buc-ee's folks had directed us to, a nicer place, but similarly devoid of dead bait. But they did have postcards--of the lighthouse, the historical marker at Indianola, the beach hotel, and the shrimp boats. Proof that we had indeed found the bait shop, even if we never found bait.