A Lasting Memory
In the late 1940s I am a toddler too young even for kindergarden. My mother and father motor the family to Grand Isle. Memories of the
trip are as pristine as the pre-oil island was in those days. The most vivid is my first, but not the last, dolphin encounter. My older brothers, then about 12 years old, excitedly call my attention to the beach, "Look! Look! Bootsie-- Dolphins!" And indeed, there they were. Four large shadows inside and paralleling the breaking surf. It is much more than the pure joy in my brothers'voices that embeds this experience. It is,rather, the distinct recognition that I am experiencing the feeling of a privileged viewing. Over the following years this mystical attachment to the natural world becomes validated over and over as I relive the exact same feeling in sunrises, sunsets, solar/lunar eclipses, wildlife photography, biological studies, travel, more dolphin meetings and in sharing environmental activism with others who understand the very basic human need to connect with the privilege of ecological oneness. Martial Broussard 2 Feb. 2019 Lafayette LA
