Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul (8 page)
“We should have brought a bucket. Why didn't we think of that?” I asked, while trying to balance all the shells in my left hand.
He giggled after looking at the overflowing pile. “If we find a whole one, we won't need all of those pieces anymore. That'll make it easier to carry.”
We continued down the beach toward the end of the island. At a patch of larger rocks, we stopped to scour the area for more treasure. With one foot on a large rock and the other in the shallow water, I searched.
Suddenly, I heard Eric ask again from the flat beach area, “Is this one?”
I turned and looked down at his open hand, expecting to see another piece like the others. My eyes grew big and my mouth might have fallen open. “Oh, my gosh, Eric. You found one. You found a whole sand dollar!”
His blue eyes danced with excitement, and he smiled like it was Christmas. He showed me where he found it, and then we studied it carefully. The grayish-brown wafer fit perfectly on my palm. Packed sand covered most of its star design on the top, leaving only four outside slits and one inner slit visible, but to us it was absolutely perfect.
I handed it back to him. “It's hard to find a whole one because they break so easily. That's why this is such a treasure you've found.”
He pushed his hand with the sand dollar toward me. “You can have it.”
He did it to me again. Tears welled in my eyes. I swallowed hard. “No, honey, thank you, but you found it. You should keep it.”
After a few more rounds of trying, he relented. “Okay, I'll help you find another one.”
I smiled, knowing the odds of finding another one were slimmer than finding the first one. He insisted on carrying the treasure, being careful not to crush it. I made sure to tell every other shell seeker we came across about his discovery. He proudly held out his hand with the sand dollar for everyone to see. My shy little guy even answered the same question again and again for the impressed adults.
“I just found it on top of a pile of shells,” he declared.
As we put on our shoes to go back for breakfast, Eric said, “You can leave those other pieces of sand dollars somewhere. Another person might find them and think they found a great treasure like I did.”
I left them there, thinking about my son's treasure and the one he was leaving for others to find. Suddenly my shell-seeking desire seemed insignificant. Walking with his sandy hand in mine, I knew that sharing that morning with him was a far greater treasure than any whole sand dollar ever could be.
Paula F. Blevins
A
ll that is good in man lies in youthful feeling
and mature thought.
Joseph Joubert
It all began with the leopard bathing suit. We lived in an apartment that always seemed too small for the four of us in our family. I was not happy in the high school I attended nor in the neighborhood where I lived. And at that time in my life, I was not happy with myself most of all. I was shy and unsure. I did not like my body or my face.
Until I reached the beach, that is. Every summer, with what little money we had, we would rent a room at the shore. In that room would be my brother and I, Mother, and Father. There was always one of us on a cot somewhere in a corner. But it was worth it allâsharing bathrooms with people we never knew before, listening to intimate conversations through the walls, and trying to get along in a community kitchen.
None of that mattered when I reached the beach. This particular summer, I had bought a one-piece leopard bathing suit. It seemed to feel comfortable on my body the moment I tried it on. It gave me curves I never knew I owned. I had long blonde hair at the time and wore on one arm a gold bracelet that clung not to my wrist, but halfway up my arm. The effect was dramatic.
Nowhere else could I be this daring but on the beach. In my mind, I dropped the personality that proved disappointing in the winter and acquired one that surprised even me. She arrived on the scene each summer as a mystery to everyone around her.
She was brave and daring and
coy and seductive. The gold bracelet announced all of this, along
with the leopard bathing suit.
There were many boys who admired what was in the suit. Of course they did not know a shy girl also lived there. Every moment was cherished on the beach. The blankets spread out around usâthe radios propped up, the posing and primping and sunbathing with a generous collection of young men arriving and leaving the blankets. We lived our fantasy, at fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen years old, having left our real lives behind. Only on the beach could we become anything we dared. The moment we stepped on the sand, we were transformed for the summer.
There were romantic meetings beneath the boardwalk, promises made and broken, beach parties beneath the stars, with long walks and long talks. We always sat in the same place, as if a spot of beach were reserved for us. And sometimes, even in the rain, we would be there, covered by our blankets. On the last weekend of summer, we would cry as if our hearts were broken. They were. For all of us knew that we would have to return to the realness of our lives and wait patiently until next summer.
Only a few days ago, some fifty-five summers later, a man surprised me with a visit. We had not seen each other for many years. We talked of past summers, of our shared memories of the beach and then he said, “I'll never forget that leopard bathing suit and that gold bracelet on your arm.” And then he laughed. “You wouldn't have that bathing suit around, would you?”
I did not tell him, but of course I did. It was invisible to his eyes and others, but I was wearing the leopard bathing suit as always. Every summer.
Harriet May Savitz
“You get to a certain age, and, last year's swimsuit is good enough!”
Reprinted by permission of Stephanie Piro.
©
2005 Stephanie Piro.
T
hose who say you can't take it with you never
saw a car packed for a vacation trip.
Unknown
Every hot summer Sunday of my childhood we headed for the beach in Dad's Oldsmobile.
Mom would start cooking the “picnic” at 5 AM. She would make fried chicken, corn beef sliced in thick slabs, several pounds of homemade potato salad, fresh tomatoes sweet and ripe from our neighbor's garden, and peaches and plums lovingly chosen one at a time by Auntie Bella, along with Devil Dogs and Snickers “for extra energy,” Mom said. A dozen hard-boiled eggs just in case. Everything got tenderly packed into two round, metal Scotch-plaid coolers, the latest thing.
Dad backed the Olds up to the back porch door, its chrome hood ornament, wide whitewalls, and soft gray curves still sparkling from a new wash. Between mouthfuls of Cheerios, we helped him carry out chairs, blankets, straw bags filled with towels and clothes, and the orange-and-green-striped umbrella with one corner bent up from a previous gust. Everything was methodically loaded into the open trunk and topped off with two huge black inner tubes. Dad said he had a “system.” And truth be told, if Mom had asked him to pack the swing set, he could have made it fit.
Finally he loaded us, like a human crossword puzzleâ Mom, Dad, and Auntie, single layer up frontâmy brother, sister, and I, with a friend for each, double layer in the backâand the two coolers tightly impacted under our legs, and we were off!
The Olds rolled down the driveway out of the yard, and soon we were passing through downtown and onto the main highway. Everyone was chatting in a state of high excitement. At the halfway point we stopped for our picnic in a grove of tall pines that smelled wonderful. Mom always said that fresh air made you hungry, as she proudly passed out endless servings of food to her starving baby birds. And then it was off to the beach.
When we arrived, the grown-ups set up the chairs and blankets while the kids raced for the water. Time floated between sand and sea on our salty air playground. Once in a while Mom would insist that my sister was turning blue and called her out of the water. She would sit, teeth chattering, wrapped in several large striped beach towels, just her red curly hair sticking out like a burning bush. Then back in the water she would go, with Mom pleading after her to put on suntan lotion. By late afternoon and many cries of “just one more swim,” it was time to head for home.
Traffic was slow as we strained our eyes for the orange roof of the Howard Johnson's take-out stand. Finally we rolled to a stop on the gravel parking lot and raced to save a picnic table. Dad would get in line and return loaded down with bent cardboard holders full of hot dogs, burgers, fries, and drinks. Gone in a blink, he would then get back in line, with six helpers, for ice cream cones. Sometimes he made a third trip when a scoop got accidentally licked onto the ground.
As we sang rounds going home, Dad would sail the Olds into the final rotary. My sister, brother, and I would give each other secret looks as he went once completely around, twice completely aroundâtipping and squealing, we would yell, “Again, Daddy, again,” and with Mom and Auntie Bella begging him to stop, the captain of that happy ship would sail us around one more time.
It was a perfect day!
Avis Drucker
“And here's the towels, and some books and magazines and food and . . . whoops, the kitchen sink!
Forgot I packed it!”
Reprinted by permission of Stephanie Piro.
©
2004 Stephanie Piro.
I have no excuse. It was one of those mornings when the sunshine shimmers through the window like a thousand pixie sun dancers and all things seem possible. We were going on a six-hour, round-trip, one-day excursion with the family.
We woke up the teenagers, walked the dog, fed the cats, woke up the teenagers again, piled a few necessities (pillows, blankets, books, games, food, drinks, two changes of clothing and shoes to match, enough electronic equipment to overload the capacitors in Silicon Valley) in the family high-mileage, fuel-efficient Conestoga, woke up the teenagers again, and an hour and a half after our new idea was born, jumped in the car and drove to the corner for breakfast.
“Tell me again why we're doing this?” said Kid Number One, fourteen years old. Nothing makes sense to him except Biggie Fries and Crazy Taxi.
“It's a family thing. We're going to Charleston. We'll have fun.”
“I can have fun here.” Kid One thinks fun spurts from his PlayStation controller like water from a SuperSoaker.
“We're going to the beach. There are girls.”
“Girls are dumb.”
“Says the kid who keeps the past ten years'
Sports
Illustrated
swimsuit issues in a safety deposit box under his bed?”
Kid One ponders this security breach while he peels open the wrapper on his third biscuit.
Kid Two comes to life at the mention of the beach. “Do I have to wear my swim trunks?” he whines. “They give me a supersized wedgie.” Kid Two is twelve, but qualifies as a teenager because he could capture first place in a worldwide pouting contest using just one lip. He is breakfasting on French fries because he doesn't eat anything that has crust.
“Well, you can't wear your shorts because if they get wet they'll drop another six inches below your waist and bind your knees together. You'll cause the beach patrol to issue a warning, and you'll scare the fish. Whales have beached themselves over less stress.”