South Padre Island is accessible from Texas highway 100 via the Queen Isabella Bridge that connects Port Isabel, Texas on one end and South Padre Island on the other.
When you hit the beaches here you have miles and miles to walk and on most mornings men and women carry Wal- Mart plastic bags to hold their seashells. South Padre is a favorite haunt for Spring Break revelers as well as us retired folks.
Pier 19 is a local restaurant and tourist center where you can have breakfast, schedule fishing or dolphin tours, buy in the gift shop, fish off the pier, look at photos and memorabilia from past decades.
Out front of this eatery is a huge shark caught by Captain Phil Cano on February 30, 2004. Its mouth is open, blood drips down the sides of its jaws, teeth are pointed and ready to bite again. You can see the monster from blocks away.
The problem is February 30.
Once the date is suspect it is easy to start questioning the rest of thIs fish story.
Truth doesn’t matter much in a place where weather changes often, time stretches, and you only need shorts, a T shirt, a ball cap and sneakers to be part of the gang.
In April, college kids arrive, prices escalate, parties go late into the night. Pier 19 will be booked solid and some libertine will hang a bra on the shark’s front tooth.
That will make a Texas size story, but, for now, this post is all imagination waiting for reality to catch up.
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