Tom Whitehurst

Sunday, September 24, 2000

The seawall and a loving grandfather

Of all the things I love about Corpus Christi, the seawall tops my list, though not for the obvious reasons.
   It's pretty, it protects us from storm surge and it ruined my grandfather's business. What's to love about that? Read on.
   In the 10 years that I had the pleasure of knowing him, my Greek immigrant grandfather, John Govatos, was the well-known, well-liked owner of the popular Nixon Café on the ground floor of what is now Wilson Plaza, right about where the federal bankruptcy court is now.
   Often, he and my grandmother would take me to the T-heads or to McGee Beach, two of the seawall's connected features. The trips to the T-heads usually were ploys to coax me to eat. I was painfully skinny, which seemed to cause them great concern, and they would take me there to feed the seagulls, stuffing bread in my mouth as I tossed bread in the air.
   A happy place
   The seawall seemed a happy place for him, and certainly was for me. It would be years after his death before I found out that the seawall had ruined his previous restaurant, the Pier Café. He had told me stories about the Pier Café, but never about its demise.
   As the name suggested, the Pier Café was on a pier, where Water and Peoples streets intersect. Before the seawall was built, the shoreline began at Water Street. The Pier Café was well known to locals and tourists as the place to eat and hobnob.
   It had a great run, from the mid-1920s until work started on the seawall in 1939. By that time, my grandfather was pushing 50 and was a new father - late in a career and early into a new set of family responsibilities.
   No complaints
   Based on my discussions with family members, I doubt that it occurred to my grandfather to lobby against the seawall, in defense of the Pier Café. And he was no stranger to politics. He fed all the politicians, and some future ones, including a gangly young aide to U.S. Rep. Robert Kleberg by the name of Lyndon Johnson.
   Also, to my knowledge, he never complained about the seawall. My grandmother doesn't remember him complaining about it. Storm protection came first, she said.
   Photographs of my grandfather as a young man show him with a stern expression, out of character with the man I knew, but reflective of the photographic custom of those times. Photos of him from the period when business at the Pier Café was fizzling show him smiling proudly, with his new baby daughter and his wife half his age. The smile was no façade.
   As near as my relatives can remember, he welcomed the seawall as progress, vital to his community and to the safety of his family. And he certainly didn't let it stop him. As the seawall displaced the Pier Café from the waterfront, his Nixon Café replaced it as a favorite place to eat.
   Other families have been known to go into decline because their home, farm or business was displaced by a new dam or highway overpass. Oftentimes, the generation that was displaced passes on its bitterness to the next.
   And so I am doubly grateful for the seawall and for the example my grandfather set. He welcomed change, adapted to it and prospered.
   Like many Corpus Christi residents, I've watched fireworks from the steps of the seawall, taken leisurely walks along it, jogged and bicycled on it, and watched the sun rise and set. I've seen the historic photos of the seawall under construction and been reminded of what my community can accomplish.
   And often, I've been reminded of my grandfather, smiling.
  
  

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