Happy Warriors start off on their Port O’Connor Fishing Trip, Saturday, May 17th.

A good day’s catch!

Greetings Warrior’s Weekend,

I wanted to personally thank you for an amazing weekend.

I’m a Veteran and an Army Reserve soldier from Iowa who is currently deployed to Fort Hood.

At the conclusion of our trip, they passed out white envelops on our bus that contained letters from school children. I’m assuming they are from the Victoria area. We took these letters and made a “Wall of Honor”.

Everyone has enjoyed this experience and it’s all because of the wonderful program that you provided.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!
LTC Kevin Gamble

One of three sand sculptures
that were made to honor our Military
on Warrior’s Weekend, May 17 & 18

Dear friends,

Thank all of you for the best time in my life! I’ve never been honored as a veteran before, and then y’all come and make me feel like a real human being! I’ve met the most wonderful people ever, had the most loving welcome, I’ve ever experienced. You folks flew me in from Oregon. Well, Oregon has nothing at all like this. Your whole network of communities has a generous and loving spirit of goodness only our Lord could place upon their hearts. Here I am nothing, another cripple, but there in South Texas I felt the Spirit moving in people’s hearts and also renewed my faith in humanity. I know most are lost, especially here. If I could, I would gladly sell my home here and buy one there, where I know people won’t look down on me because of all my disabilities. It stirred my heart so much, to see a flag dedicated to me, I wept and knelt at the large cross there and felt the Lord giving me peace I’ve never had in all the years I’ve been a combat disabled Marine Veteran. I have so much to say thank you for, to you folks. You essentially saved me. I lost hope that people cared, but I think that’s because up here they hate veterans. But thankfully I hooked up with the Marine’s Wounded Warrior Regiment and Gunnnery Sgt. Close hooked me up with Gunnery Sgt. Sanchez and Gunnery Sgt. Bonstetter to facilitate my attending this event.

I could write a book on my experiences, they were so many awesome moments. When you ran out of boat captains and put out a call to all captains and people actually responded! Amazing love and generosity! My boat captains, Branson and Stacey Jecker, were some fantastic people. Like I said I can go on and on.

I met a new friend and we are going to stay in touch and, God willing, we will meet again at next year’s Warriors Weekend, if you will have me. I hope you do. It’s been the most wonderful time in my life, the only other being meeting my wife of 21 years! And those handmade cards from the children is really touching my heart.

I feel so blessed to have met all the people I did.

May the Lord bless all of you and keep you safe and blessed always
.
Bless you! All of you!

Meet Timothy Allen, Jr. and Timothy Allen, Sr.

Having both served in the Army, this father and son were enjoying themselves at Warrior Weekend 2019! Timothy, Sr. served 25 years, had nine deployments, and was a paratrooper par excellence.. a “Master Blaster Jump Master.” He has a 100 per cent disability due to a heart condition, bad knees, bad back, and PTSD.

Tim, Jr. was able to serve four years and was discharged because of a knee injury.

-Tamua DeForest

Clint hosted this group of Warriors for a fun day on the Island.

Staying Busy On The Island

Greetings from the island everyone. I hope that all of you are doing well and had a great Mother’s Day with mom last month, either being able to visit with her in person, or enjoying a heavenly visit. Corky and I went across the bay that early Sunday morning, and Mom had her kids with her in church, including my sister, Darla, who made the trip from California. We all had a nice lunch together and visited, and then the next day we celebrated the birthday of my sister, Sherry. It was a very nice Mother’s Day.

I also hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful Fathers Day with your dad this past Sunday, whether it was in person, or speaking to him in a heavenly way. I am so thankful to still have my dad, Henry, with me and to be able to visit and spend time with him. To all the dads in heaven, thank you for watching over your loved ones, you are greatly missed.

Last month I braved the onslaught of people, and ventured in to attend the POC 7th annual Crawfish Festival. It was fun seeing all the decorated crawfish boiling team booths and how much work and passion they put into this event. There was a great crowd there with lots of good food and drinks, and of course delicious crawfish. The POC Chamber of Commerce does a wonderful job organizing this event, and it continues to grow every year.

I also went across the bay very early Easter Sunday morning to attend the Sunrise Service on Front Beach. There was a great turnout and the weather was nice, making for a very beautiful sunrise over Matagorda Bay.

My Spring cleaning around the yard is just about done, just a few more odd and ends to gather and haul to the dump. In a very painful way, I was reminded that you should always wear closed toe footwear when cleaning and hauling things outside. While throwing an old section of fencing onto my little trailer to haul off, the fencing caught under my big right toenail, ripping the toenail upwards and separating it from my toe. . . ouch! Thank goodness I keep plenty of peroxide, neosporin and large heavy duty bandaids on hand. Just one of those things that you gotta be careful about.

My tomato plants are finally in the ground and hopefully enjoying all of this rain we have been having lately. I’m looking forward to fried green ones and vine ripened red ones in a few months. Not much better than a homegrown tomato on a BLT.
The chickens and guineas are doing just fine. After their winter layoff, the 15 hens are laying 12-14 eggs every day, and I’m getting three guinea eggs just about every day as well.

My boxer, Corky, is also doing great. He will be 3 years old this month, and he has been such great company for me out here, and thank goodness my cat, Jetty, has learned to tolerate him. Corky loves this lifestyle, running on the beach and chasing the seagulls and playing in the surf. I could not have asked for a better disposition in an island dog out here with me. I truly believe that Barnacle guided me to find Corky, knowing that he would bring me happiness.

Summer is definitely upon us it seems. Other than a nice little cool front that provided a reprieve a few weeks ago, the heat and humidity on the island have been brutal. I try to do my outside chores and yard mowing before noon on these hot days, and have to make myself wear a cap, otherwise my forehead takes the brunt of the sunburn.

The 13th annual Warrior Weekend took place in POC on May 17-19 last month. This is a wonderful event that honors our veterans that have served and/or are currently serving in the military. I got a call that Saturday morning saying that more boats were needed, as many of the boat captains that had signed up did not show up to take the warriors fishing, leaving them waiting on the dock. . . something that is inexcusable! I grabbed my wallet and Costas and headed across the bay, and brought back four warriors to spend the day on the island and beach, and they loved every minute of it. I was proud to be able to help out and meet these wonderful and appreciative people. . thank you for your service!

I decided to give apple trees a try on the island. I chose three of the lowest required chill hour trees that I could find, as apple trees require a certain amount of “chill hours”, temps between 32-45 degrees during the winter months, in order to blossom and produce apples. The varieties I chose were Anna, Dorsett Golden and Tropic Sweet, all requiring between 100-200 chill hours. I planted them in 25 gallon tubs and I’m hoping for the best.

Well that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and have a wonderful day.

For a lot of people in Port O’Connor, POCO BUENO was just another fishing tournament for the super rich with huge boats and a lot of money! This would have been its fiftieth year! It had all the fancy parties and some of the biggest weigh-ins we had ever seen. It was a full week of a full town with all that comes alongside that – full restaurants, Speedy Stop brimming over, and yes, much more traffic.
When I moved here in 1995, I had never heard of POCO BUENO. The first I heard of it was a request from someone to go and help glean fish for some organization that helped feed needy people. Even since I was in high school, I have given my lfe to helping people, so this was right down my street! I had no idea of the size of a marlin or tuna or even the size of the “row boats” that I had read about in “The Old Man and the Sea.” The book version made the boat appear to be larger than the marlin, but I am sure I have seen reality.

In 1996, we were approached about taking the responsibility over for gleaning the fish. It was a huge undertaking and we did not have adequate help. With our inexperience and with a lack of proper equipment, we struggled each year to provide fresh fish for needy people. It was not long before we had many volunteers and everything we needed to make the task much easier. Yes, there have been Friday and Saturday evenings when we were filleting fish and putting away gleaned food from the steam tables until after midnight and still keeping up with Sunday services. We have had many who have come to the Chapel and were so tired from the long hours that they may have missed a few notes and a few stories from my message. But, the focus has always been on not allowing any food or fish go to waste!

None of our efforts would have been possible if it were not for the generosity of the Fondren family. Several years ago I got to interview the senior Mr. Fondren at his Port O’Connor home. As we sat on his porch on the Intracoastal Waterway, he told me of the beginnings. He explained that he and some of his closest friends wanted to provide an invitational tournament that would bring business and stimulate the economy of Port O’Connor. In the beginning, Mrs. Fondren cooked hamburgers for the evening meals. Everyone was expected to take care of their own catch. They had additional games and allowed the townspeople to enter these games – like rope walking. He admitted that a few fellows would occasionally “get out of hand,” but the scope of the tournament was to just have a good time.

As more and  more people became aware of the great time those who entered the POCO BUENO tournament were having, they wanted to join in the festivities. It was all had at the Alligator Head compound until it just simply outgrew the facilities. The weigh-in was moved to the Fishing Center and people would gather early and stay late to catch a glimpse of the catch, hoping to see the “Biggest Fish”! The Friday night weigh-in would last until midnight, and people would mingle around the scales for a breathtaking event of a large boat bearing a huge fish coming to set a new record.

We have never tired to keep record of all the tournaments nor the winning boats and their captains, but I am sure that every single person in the winner’s circle remember the fish, what time it was caught, and its exact weight. What I do recall vividly are the fishermen who would bring just one fish to weigh. When asked to explain why they would stand in the long line to simply bring in one fish, we would be told that “my one fish will help feed a single meal for a needy family and that is what I think this tournament is all about!”

Last year, our record shows that at least 4,182 pounds of fish was donated to the Chapel from this one tournament. We have always estimated that each fish would have at least 1/2 of its weight in eatable food. Since we believe a meal to be about 1/2 pounds per person, we say that POCO BUENO fed over 4,000 people this past year! How could a small congregation from the Chapel ever provide enough food to feed 4,000 people – it took Jesus finding  a boy’s lunch to feed that many, and we consider that a miracle!

Fisherman’s Chapel has always felt the same miracle year after year! Yes, we did not “The Divine” supplement a fish fry, but our hard working, dedicated workers, with strength from our Lord, and an enormous desire to help needy families accomplished such a feat year after year!
We will miss POCO BUENO at the Chapel and we pledge our continued love and prayers to the Fondren family, who got us started in the fish gleaning ministry. We serve several tournaments each year and sincerely appreciate all of our friends who volunteer again and again and, of course, the fishermen who work hard to catch the fish that are donated to us!