“I crab every day. I grew up crabbing with my mom and aunt. I like being in the bay and meeting people and the crabbing is really good. I go to one of the fishermen and ask them for bait and I put it in the crab trap and check it every few days. Sometimes I cook the crabs and sometimes I give them away. The crabs have come back after the oil spill. This year they are jumping in the bucket. I wish my boys were crabbers. I have lived all over the world and found there is a world here on this pier.”

“My husband was a defense attache in the Army and we have just returned in July after living around the world for 15 years. Our last assignment was in Paris for four years. We lived in Kazakhstan, Germany, Belgium, Croatia and more. In a lot of ways coming back to Fairhope feels like coming back to summer camp for big kids. We appreciate the big world, but we appreciate this small world that touches on a really big here. I can’t get over the people I have met here.I call them pilgrims of the pier. I work for the Archdiocese of Mobile. I am a canon lawyer. It is a specialized field that works in the legal system of the Catholic church. I look at annulments of marriages and everything the Catholic church touches in society. I have a masters degree in theology.”

“What advice to you give?”

“Marry smart. Marrying for love is good, but it doesn’t replace marrying smart. You have to change together. Marriage is tough work and it is not for amateurs. It is not a given. Every day you have to recommit to being married to this day. Kids and finances and chores are hard on a marriage. Small things add up to the big stuff. It takes more than love to get through a marriage. It is being committed and getting it done. Making little people into big people is one of the hardest things you will do in your life.”