There is a local couple who every lover of the Texas Coast should get to know. If not them personally, then by way of the gifts their talents have given us.
In 1993 after a thirty year career of teaching and mentoring biology students at Victoria College, Wayne “Doc” McAlister with his wife Martha embarked on a new life, a life on Matagorda Island. Intending to spend just five years they fell under the spell of the island and stayed for ten. Hosting visiting groups and through the environmental education program they developed, they infused the throngs with enthusiasm, wonder and knowledge of the island plants, critters, winds, waves, sand, sea & sky; the conglomerate of natural processes that is the island.
Published in 2004, Life on Matagorda Island takes us into their habitation of this “undeveloped ribbon of sand lying off the central Texas coast”. With Doc’s eloquent, exacting prose and Martha’s unadorned drawings, this gift swells the heart of those who love this jewel of the gulf coast as they share with us the macro and micro cosmos of our barrier island.
The potholed road takes advantage of the linear topography of the island as it follows the slight rise that marks the inland edge of the marsh. Ahead of me Matagorda stretched in a slight southeasterly arc to a vanishing point in the hazy distance. Except for the road and an occasional line of posts that marked cross-fences, the vista appeared untouched by human hands. Neatly detached from the substance and turmoil of the mainland, virgin, unperturbed, suspended in time – an untouchable island universe reposed in all its natural splendor. I could not help but borrow from the vernacular of the astronomers who view the marvel of the galaxies. Dare I gaze upon it, let alone touch it?
But Doc’s first love was that of the Guadalupe River. Born beside it, imprinting on it, bonding with it from source to effluence, from bank to bank through decades of exploration, inspection, dissection, study and observation Doc shares his passion and the rivers beguiling charms with us in another gift, Paddling the Guadalupe.
I have floated every bend, daydreamed through all the meanders, negotiated every swift water, paddled every reservoir, hauled over every portage this river has to offer – every one at least four times, some many more. I have camped along the Guadalupe from top to bottom in good weather and bad. I have run this stream when the water was so limpid the fish had nowhere to hide and when it was so thick and ugly that I could hear its load of silt grating on the bottom of the canoe. I have staggered along miles of riverbed when there was not enough water to float the Naiad, hauled canoe and gear across the quaking treachery of log jams, and dashed down -stream on a rising flood threatening to smash me to smithereens. I have been on the Guadalupe in the heavy doldrums of August when the sound of the cicadas in the willows seemed about to split my head, and I have shivered my way downstream with my breath misting the air while a blue norther froze my stern. I have run the Guadalupe in high exuberance and when I was so exhausted and dejected that I wanted to quit.
By sharing his lifetime’s experience and the many features of the river Doc draws us coastal cousins closer to this aquatic grandparent, the source of freshwater without which our bay system would not exist.
These books are just two of the Texas treasures wrapped nicely cover to cover filled with delightful adventure and effusive information. Other gifts by the McAlisters include A Naturalist’s Guide Matagorda Island and Guidebook to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. All must reads for any resident or visitor to the Coastal Bend. Most exciting for those of us already hooked on the McAlister’s magic is a sneak peek at Doc’s upcoming book Don’t Let the Bullsnakes Bite. The first chapter of this eBook which is “about my Grampa, with a retelling of a few of the horrific bedtime stories he told, from his inventive imagination, to entranced grandsons” and is available free on Amazon.
As your enthusiasm and reverence for these sages grow, you will want to meet them and you will have that opportunity on Saturday, September 19 when the Friends of the Port O’Connor Library will host Dinner with Texas Authors. The McAlisters, along with several other Texas authors, will be on hand to chat and swap stories of our common aquatic connections be it Matagorda Island, the Guadalupe River or any natural wonder in between. Tickets are only $25 per person and can be purchased in advance from www.FriendsofPortOConnorLibrary.org, The Treasure Chest and at First National Bank in Port O’Connor.
Article provided by Brigid Berger, Texas Master Naturalist Mid-Coast Chapter
