Mardi Gras weekends.

I think the island of Galveston is trying to make believe that Hurricane Ike was a figment of everyone's imagination. I realize that life has to return to normal on the Island, but still, it's hard to be normal when half of the Island is still in bits and pieces.

More than half of the stores and shops on The Strand are still either boarded up or closed. Mostly all of the small homes on the Island that sustained major damage during Ike are still damaged and probably still not habitable. And I'm sure that the owners of those homes who have nowhere else to go are still living right in them, habitable or not.

Mardi Gras usually brings a lot of money into Galveston-- restaurants are over-flowing, hotel rooms are all filled up, tourists and locals are shopping and browsing in all the stores, the local bars can't mix up the drinks fast enough. But this year.... I just don't think the Island will see much of a profit. Added to the devastation on the Island, the weather last weekend and this wasn't all that great. The warmer the weather, the more crowded Galveston usually is. Rainshowers last weekend, cooler temperatures this weekend-- not our typical Mardi Gras weather.

We haven't been to any of Galveston's festivities since Ike tried to drown the entire Island last September. The Dickens On The Strand Christmas Festival this past December went on as usual, but we just didn't have the heart to go there. We had driven across the bridge onto Galveston Island in early November and it was heart-wrenching to see the path left by Ike. Path? More like a rocky, debris-strewn road. The thought of watching the Queen's Parade in the Dickens Festival, while most of the Island was still littered with damaged boats and dotted with roof-less homes just seemed a bit ridiculous.

The Powers That Be in Galveston are now saying that the only way to revive the Island City is to bring in legalized gambling. Well, how nice that Hurricane Ike gave everyone a reason to introduce gambling (once again, only legal this time) to Galveston. Are they going to spend millions building fancy-dancy casinos and hotels on the Island, and not spend thousands to help rebuild the out-of-the-way streets filled with century-old private homes?

As in all cities, whether they be Island or Mainland, those with the most money and the most influence will win. I liked Galveston just the way it was, pre-Ike, with its eclectic shops and cafes, the restaurants-on-stilts hanging over the Gulf, the clapboard homes with open porches, the purple and yellow house with the green shutters, the trolley cars and the horse-and-buggy rides. It was a unique little Island always in danger of hurricanes coming up into the Gulf. If they bring in legalized gambling to "help the Island recover," it will be an Island in danger of greed.... much more dangerous than any hurricane.