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Inside the Moon
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Annual LA POSADA
Lighted Boat Parade
Classic Car Club A4
La Posada 2015 A5
Fishing A7
Moon on a Spoon A6
The
Issue 605
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
November 19, 2015
14646 Compass, Suite 3 Corpus Christi, TX 78418
Around The Island
Live Music A18
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Weekly
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Photo by Miles Merwin
Island Bald Eagle Stars in Trump Campaign
Kleberg Forest
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com Our first draft of history this week will record that this was the first week that started to feel like what passes for winter on our little sandbar. Mid-week found us in the throes of Chamber of Commerce Weather as we leave the gloom and doom predictions from the Weather Wonks behind and head into the weekend. When the temperature drops below 70 degrees we Islanders break out the winter gear, which consists of socks to go with our flip-flops and koozies turned inside out to keep our hands warm rather than our drinks cold. The National Weather Service warns of strong Rip Currents along our beaches through week’s end as swells with durations of 10-16 seconds between them bring conditions that produce the potentially dangerous currents. Waves from 4-6 feet are expected through the weekend riding on top of swells of 2-3 feet and should bring the surfers out. High tides are also expected especially between Bob Hall Pier and Port Aransas but not as high as those a few weeks back which pushed water to the dune line. High tides over the weekend make beach driving south from Bob Hall a journey in soft sand at the base of the dune line.
Daylight Saving yawns We have noticed a few more yawns gaping in Island faces of late as we all come to grips with Daylight Saving (no “s”) Time. The origins of this Time Shifter are up for discussion but if the rational was to save energy studies by the U.S. Department of Energy finds that it impacts energy usage by only 0.03% and in some states actually increases energy use. It certainly has seemed to decrease energy in we bleary-eyed Islanders. What we can’t figure out is if daylight is being saved where did it go? It’s still light when we wake up but it gets dark before Happy Hour. Fisherpersons trying to get on the water before dawn have to get up earlier, and surfers have to paddle ashore an hour earlier but no time is actually being saved. Mexico seems to be completely flummoxed by the time change. Even after finally adopting DST in 1996 it then allowed any town within twenty miles of the U.S. border to synchronize their time change with that of the U.S. while the rest of the country holds to a different schedule.
By Dale Rankin It all started with a call to the New Jersey Audubon Society in 2012. The voice at the other end of the line said, “This is Donald Trump and I want to do something for the birds at my golf course.”
Recent storms in the Gulf of Mexico shook loose timber from the Mexican shores and Gulf currents this week began delivering them to the beach in Kleberg County. As of mid-week large, whole, trees were still washing up. Crews from the Nueces County Coastal Parks Department have been monitoring the beach to keep driving lanes clear. Meanwhile, further south on the beach at the north end of Padre
Island National Seashore the new bollards which went up recently marking the entrance to the park have made it difficult for all but the most robust of four-wheel drive vehicles to get though as the deep, soft sand makes driving through the opening a dicey proposition. Any beachgoer whose vehicle can’t make the passage must drive the six miles back up the beach to the nearest access road and then drive back down Park Road 22 to enter the PINS beach.
SMA Food Drive Collects Half-Ton of Food Christmas Spirit and Giving Alive at Middle School
Next week is Thanksgiving so our deadlines will move up a day to Monday.
Jonathon Woods travels the country with his menagerie of twenty-eight birds; he has a total of sixty, which include eagles, hawks, vultures, falcons, and owls, eleven months out of the year doing his show called Extreme Raptors. When he’s not working he relaxes at his Island home of ten years. A native New Yorker he grew up on Fire Island and at 16 years-old began writing a column on birds for the Fire Island News.
La Posada 2015!
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For full details see PAGE A5 in this issue.
Mark your calendars
It’s just about time to La Posada everybody , we’ll see you at the Kickoff Party and at Louis’s house. In the meantime, say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Photo shoot in Trump Tower
The La Posada season will kickoff on LA POSADA Lighted Boat Parade Tuesday December 1` with a party at Scuttlebutt’s and the lighted boat parades will follow on the weekend of December 11-12.
Two common sayings from Mexico come to mind: The Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the Mexican Way… and, So close to America so far from God. Incongruous as it may seem the La Posada Lighted Boat Parade is but four weekends away and Barefoot Mardi Gras a scant two months. Moon Mike used to say that Island Life is like a Seven-Layer Bean Dip at a La Posada Party; when things start out everyone kind of hangs out with the “layer” of people they know, but by the end of the evening the people and the bean dip are all mixed together in one big happy Island mosh pit. That Mike was a silver tongued devil and in this case we think his metaphor is right on target.
He was referring to the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster New Jersey and The Donald wanted to increase bird habitat there. The President of the New Jersey Audubon Society knew just who to call and a phone rang on The Island.
Students assist Corpus Christi Food Bank workers packing food donated by SMA students. Photo by Shannon Trial
La Posada Kick-Off in 2 Weeks! Registration Form, Schedule & Map Page A5
Woods traveled to New Jersey and set up habitat for various native birds on Trump’s golf course and began doing regular shows there. Trump,
who is a bird enthusiast, attended several and they became friends, often talking politics and Woods encouraged him to run for the White House, and that’s where things stood for the next two years. Then last August things changed. He was driving through wheat fields in Kansas when his agent called from New York.
Trump Continued on A2 Barefoot Mardi Gras February 6
7th Annual Parade and Party adds a Festival
Add a Little Cayenne to your Weekend & Leave the Shoes at Home! The Barefoot Mardi Gras returns on February 6, 2016 for a 7th year in a row on Padre Island raising money for Big Brothers Big Sisters and now the Island Foundation Schools. A Family Parade takes place along the beach off Park Road 22 between
Mardi Gras continued on A
By Brent Rourk It started slowly as most food drives seem to do. A can or two clunked in the bottom of a large container. It looked decidedly dismal for a day or two, but then slowly and surely the outlook changed. A container full and then two. More cans needed additional containers. As students entered SMA in the morning they cheerfully depositing cans and packages of nonperishable food for the Student Council sponsored drive to benefit the Corpus Christi Food Bank. Within two weeks, cans over-flowed near the entrance to Seashore Middle School. As an incentive, students were allowed to break the dress code if they donated 6 or more nonperishable food items to the drive. More than 150 students donated to the cause. On Monday the food bank gratefully picked up the food donated by giving
Food Bank continued on A15
A little Island history
The Russians are Coming!
Editor’s note: This is part two from a book from Islander Sheryl Palmer Wegmann’s book: A Sentimental Journey—the War Years. A book written as a tribute to her parents who belonged to The Greatest Generation. By Sheryl Palmer Wegmann My father, Leslie B. Palmer, B-17 pilot, was shot down in a raid over Bremen, Germany on November 29, 1943. He was captured and became a Prisoner of War at Stalag Luft 1 in Barth, Germany on the Baltic Sea. The Normandy Landing took place on 6 June 1944. Morale in the camp was high for a while, but soon after, the POWs suffered even more when provisions became critically short. Letters and parcels from home were extremely important to the well being of the POWs.
History continued on A15
Vapor rises from the compacted ice near the perimeter fence of Stalag Luft 1. The snow has been compacted by the feet of hundreds of prisoners walking around the compound next to the warning wire which they were not supposed to touch. The space between the double perimiter fence was filled with compressed barbed wire. Photo by Linn C. Stuckenbruck, May 1945