On the 14-hour drive
When I was a little kid, casinos seemed like magical wonderlands straight out of Disney. The cha-chinging of the slot machines, the sound of coins filling cups, the flashing lights, the patterns on the gaudy carpet swirling together in my mind.
Mississippi has always been one of those places that I refer to as home. I was born there and lived there for a decent part of my early elementary school education.
I was raised on four-way stops and train tracks, moving billboards and car dealerships.
I learned my colors and states by the colors on license plates. Entire days of my youth were spent between Mississippi and North Carolina, Missouri and North Carolina, Mississippi and Missouri. From an early age I knew “red” meant stop and “green” meant go.
It’s a shame the gulf coast didn’t learn that. Now it’s as if they’re stuck on yellow, afraid to move forward.
All lights were green before Katrina, with the coast developing into a serious tourist destination with casinos, hotels, stores, and of course, the beach.
But now, even four years later, the coastline is barren.
The coastline
It is the epitome of humans versus nature, and nature seems to have won, at least for the time being.
Granted, there are new casinos being built up. They changed the laws so that casinos can be built on land now. While we were there, it was during the off-season for tourists but I still met people from Mobile and Pensacola.
Yet there are so many stairs that lead to nowhere. People seem afraid to take another chance on challenging nature. Down the coast, there used to be huge, grand old houses with giant oaks in their front yards. The trees remain, but the houses are gone. There’s nothing but “For Sale” signs and political advertisements in most of the empty lots.
Mile after mile, you can see empty land with empty streets covered in overgrown weeds, with fire hydrants every so often, a remnant from when this land, these lots, were probably worth millions. Now they can hardly give the land away.
IslandView--one of the new casinos
And why should you invest in the same land where you’ve already lost so much?
I went to Mississippi to visit my brother and his wife, who have their first child on the way. It was nice visiting them, but what struck me was the coast itself. It was weird that after four years not that much has changed. Granted, the land away from the water is being developed like crazy with new shopping centers popping up everywhere. But the land by the gulf lies empty, unchanged.
When I was younger, I used to want to own one of those big, old houses right on the gulf. It’s still hard to believe that they’re not there anymore and might never be rebuilt.
Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.
