You’ve seen them on U.S. 70 on Friday afternoon. Their cars/trucks/lunar excursion modules are loaded down with skis, bicycles, fishing poles and enough Bud Light to fill the Grand Canyon. Where are these lemmings going?
Why the beach, of course.
The beach is a wonderful place. Where else can you do irrevocable damage to your skin, get eaten by a shark, poked by dumped hypodermic needles and get sand lodged in areas where only soap and or the loving hands of a trained physician dare to tread?
Don’t forget the $10 parking, the Rhodes Scholars who let their dogs roam the beach without a leash and the family with the 13 children who walks across several acres of wide open sand to set up camp to within a credit card’s width of your blanket.
I’m a fan of the ocean air and the sound of the waves crashing against the surf. I used to be a fan of swimming in the ocean until I bumped into something with a large fin on its back a few years ago. It was probably a dolphin, but methinks where they go, their less amiable neighbors go as well. I’ve eaten some pretty good food in my day, so I’m afraid I’m too delicious for shark infested waters.
My girth has decreased slightly since my last trip to the beach, but I’m still not where I’d like to be. On a positive note, no overzealous marine biology majors tried to push me back into the ocean this time. The Wife wore the same bathing suit she bought on our honeymoon 16 years and two children ago, and she looked great. A well-meaning Carteret County police officer asked her if she was with me of her own free will.
A little early morning tiff over the pronunciation of the word “coupon” (it’s coo-pon, not kew-pon) had me worried that The Wife might claim she was abducted to get back at me. Thankfully, she decided to confess she was with me of her own accord, although I don’t know why she had to whisper it while pulling her purple cap over her beautiful hazel eyes.
Since there wasn’t a military school on the East Coast that would take them, we decided to take Tax Deductions 1 and 2 to the beach. I guess you could say they both deserved a little vacation. TD No. 1 had a good year at school and has been progressing nicely with piano lessons, while TD No. 2 has rounded the corner on potty training and hasn’t started a fire in the living room in nearly two months.
The Wife has the beach thing down to a science. Aside from the requisite plastic bucket full of sand toys, everything we need is in one bag. There is nothing more sad than watching a grown man try to carry a cooler, surf board, blanket, TV, volleyball net and air mattress across burning hot sand that doesn’t care if said man got drunk the night before and left his flip-flops in an Applebee’s bathroom in Portsmouth.
We staked claim to a little square of sand about 2 feet from the point where the tide was hitting the beach. I assumed (wrongly) that no one would come along and try to set up camp the 2-feet of sand between our blanket and the crashing waves.
The TDs loved playing in the ocean. TD No. 2 — the youngest and least afraid of anything — repeatedly tried to run past me and out to the shrimp boats on the horizon. Even though the rolling wall of water dwarfed her, she apparently only saw it as a minor nuisance that stood between her and a career as a mermaid.
A couple of times, I intentionally let a wave bounce her around a little in hope that it would quell her lust for sea exploration. The snout full of salt water did give her pause, but after a few seconds, she corralled a wayward porpoise, hopped on its back like Clayton Moore and asked it to take her to whoever was throwing all the water at her.
TD No. 1 is an avid sea shell collector. I noticed her hands were full of shells, so I offered to keep them in my bathing suit pockets. After a few hours of her bringing her treasures to me, both pockets on my bathing suit were filled with a collection of smooth and jagged sea shells. It looked as if I was trying to smuggle Mickey Mouse out of the country in my shorts.
After an hour or so, I took the TDs for a walk to give The Wife a few minutes to sunbathe in peace. During our walk, I noticed the beach was filled with little girls ranging in age from 4 to 6, each of them squealing at a high pitch whenever a drop of water hit them. It sounded as if everyone on the beach was making tea.
When we returned from the walk, The Wife took the TDs and I was able to stretch out on the blanket and catch a few rays. About two minutes into it, I felt the sun disappear. I looked up to find three people trying to set up in the aforementioned 2-foot area of sand between us and the ocean.
“Would you mind setting up a little to the left, please?” I asked.
“Why?” said a very sturdy woman with leathery skin and a cigarette perched between her drought-reenactment lips.
“Because there’s about 70 miles of beach to the left and I don’t see why you have to get directly between us and our view of the water that’s just 2 feet away,” I said. “As much as I’d enjoy watching that beach chair you got with Pall Mall points try to support your ample frame without buckling, I’d rather be able to see my wife and kids play in the water.”
“Well, the beach is open to everyone,” she said.
“You’re right, it is,” I replied. “Hey, isn’t that Lou Rawls over there?”
While the woman who would be Cannon looked away, I pulled our blanket forward to end this war of eastern aggression.
The sturdy woman was accompanied by what appeared to be her sister and a man who could have been her husband, brother or parole officer. He was a slight man who was obviously just along for the ride.
“Honey, we don’t have to sit right in front of them — just move 3 feet to the left and be done with it,” he said.
Although she grumbled in some sort of language only parolees understand, she plopped down in her chair. Her skin was already of the burnt, leathery variety. My theory is she was trying to burn out the cancer cells in her epidermis with more sun.
A few hours later as the family and I headed to the car, I noticed the policeman who’d mistaken me for a kidnapper earlier in the day was still on patrol. I waved him over and pointed out the Bride of Ben & Jerry who tried to steal our spot on the beach.
“Officer, you see that Barcalounger over there smoking a cigarette? She’s been collecting baby turtles all day and is hiding them in her beach bag,” I whispered.
The officer thanked me for the tip, gave me an honorary policeman’s badge and went over to investigate.
“She’s taken that bag out to her car a few times today,” I yelled to him. “You might want to check her car, too.”
With that, we headed over to the picnic area and enjoyed a glorious peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunch. As that thing that tried to steal our spot was frisked and her car torn apart by wildlife officials, I decided the beach wasn’t such a bad place after all.
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase books, music and homemade turtle wax at jondawson.com.