This is my post for #freewriters Thursday prompt cityscape hosted by 
Is this what my town will become? A cityscape of wall to wall buildings.
I am afraid that I am not alone, anyone who was born in a small town knows the feelings that I have about my town and how it has grown. I do not like it and now wonder if this is how my parents felt and maybe even their parents felt this way, too.
I look back to the times that my Dad was born and how this town was a thriving fishing town. I can remember one of my Aunts complaining about how the river was ruined when they outlawed black mojarra seines. These seines were dragged by hand and collected what we call rolling grass, she said this cleaned the bottom of the river. The seines were banned back in the 50s or 60s. She thought the river was ruined back then. I wonder what she would say about the shape it is in now.
Our town mainly consisted of a 5-mile stretch that went along the river, if it was not along the river or close to it, then it was some off the wall business or homes.
This was the Crab House it is on the north end of town, they processed blue crabs, I am not sure how many women they employed but they would work all day picking the meat out of the crabs. About 2 weeks ago my husband ran into one of the old time crabbers and he was telling my husband how people do not believe him when he says that he used to catch over 1500 pounds of crabs in a day. My husband told him, yea, and didn't ya'll have to pull half of your traps out of the water because you caught too many crabs for the market to handle? The old timer agreed saying he had forgotten about having to do that. It is now someone's home......end of 5 minutes but continued.
Heading south about 1/2 mile was Judahs Fish House. It is the first place that I fished with my husband. We had wanted to fish for Semblers but when my husband asked and wanted to fish the row skiffs that the fish house owned, he was told that a woman should not be fishing, so this is why we went to Judahs. It was sold and is now a vacant lot waiting on someone with deep pockets to buy the land.
Another mile down the road was Archie Smiths, which was run by Viola Judah, Her Father started the fish house in 1932, he left it to his daughter Miss Viola, many years later Miss Viola married Coolidge Judah but she lived here and he lived at Judahs until the double hurricanes destroyed the fish house. The fish house is gone and there is talk of them tearing down the house, which is on the Register of Historic Places. I am sure that one day there will be high rise apartments or another restaurant on this property.
Archie Smiths Fish House before the hurricanes.
Archie Smiths after the first hurricane. The 2nd storm took the house's back porch, kitchen, and this little building.
The 2nd hurricane was only weeks after the first one, it took the ice machines and part of the house. The boat was our clam boat. We took it to a place in the river called Hurricane Hole, we tied it in all directions. It rode out the storms with only losing the roof and doors on the table. Oh, we also lost our anchor, the rope broke, it was a good thing we had double ropes on everything.
This is or was Mays Marina and fish house, it is now apartments and a fancy restaurant. It is next door to Archie Smiths.
Semblers Fish House is now another restaurant, it is 2 miles from Mays.
Everything has changed along the river, I bet if I was to go night fishing, I would not know where I am at. We used to know what lights went with what buildings. This helped to guide us in the dark. To think of it, this past fall I was on the Big Flatt looking at the west shore and had a hard time figuring out what I was looking at and where it was located. It was a new condo building.
Writing this post has brought me all emotions. The one I will hang onto is, I am happy that I know what it was like. All of these people who have moved to this cityscape of a town have no idea of what it was like. They think this is paradise, they have no clue.
photos are mine