Ransomed

When I think of my brother John, one word that repeatedly comes to mind is "intrepid." He's a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy: tow a buddy's truck out of the mud? Sure. Rebuild a marine diesel transmission? Why not? Get in a meth lab operator's face and then take him to jail? Done that.

One thing I really didn't expect him to try his hand at is history. History, after all, is what our sister does with that fancy master's degree from New York University.

We're a family of amateurs, though -- amateur paleontologists, amateur marine biologists, amateur literary critics, amateur botanists and amateur rock-and-roll reporters, to name a few of our avocations.

Now my brother can add amateur historian to that list.

There is, in Redfish Bay, a crescent of sand and shell less than a mile from Hampton's Landing marina in Aransas Pass. I know it as a pretty good place to fish, especially in winter when the protected inside waters are gin-clear and trout lurk in the deep seagrass beds.

John was more interested in the old shellcrete and cement ruins on the island, many now crumbling into the bay on the seaward side. Initial explorations turned-up a treasure trove of antique bottles, many dating to the 1920s.

My brother got curious, and spent hours on the Internet, searching in vain for information about the history of the place. When he came up empty, he and his wife Stephanie trekked over to La Retama Library in Corpus Christi and started spinning microfiche.

Sure 'nuff, in the archives of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, he found scattered references to a pre-war clubhouse that was a favored party spot (and there are scads of old pint bottles out there), city park plans that never materialized and fleeting hints of folks who actually lived there until a hurricane undid them.

John's research is ongoing, but he was kind enough to give us a tour last weekend. The dog and kids swam, and we picked up a couple of pretty cool old bottles.

Growing up in Rockport, it was easy to believe that civilization has only a tenuous foothold in the area -- that our stay there is only half a century old. No surprise, since tides and wind work relentlessly to erase and bury the signs of our presence at the southern edge of America.

But there are plenty of clues out there, covered in sand and water, sometimes just below the surface.