Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul (11 page)

We are a large family. When my siblings and I were young, Dad was the one who took us to the beach. He sat in the car and watched as we frolicked in the shallows. Mom stayed home to ensure we had a hot meal when we returned. Perhaps Mom was happy for the few moments of alone time at home in the kitchen, as was Dad, alone in the car.

On this day, their grown children, with children of our own, treat them to dinner on the beach. Dad fishes off the dock, never swaying from his pleasantries. And, for once, Mom forgets about making dinner.

It is a day of memories, a day never to be forgotten.

My three children are in the photo, and Dad is in the background, as are two of my sisters and their children, but everyone who gazes at the poorly developed photo is drawn inexplicably to Mom's smile. In the photo, her face is raised up to the sky. To the sun or to our Creator, she alone knows. Her eyes are closed.

I remember how warm it was that day and how she had squinted up at me, shielding her eyes with both hands.

“Are my legs getting red?” she'd asked.

My eyes brim with unshed tears as I remember the feel of her skin on the palm of my hand. Hot. The scalding tears run down my face. How I wish I could touch her one more time.

“No, Mom,” I replied. “But better put some sunscreen on before you get a burn.” Reluctantly, she'd sat up, the peaceful smile disappearing, and rolled her pant legs down, again.

“Save it for the kids,” she said, her eyes scanning the group of children splashing in and out of the water. The whisper of a smile touched her lips as she watched for a long, wistful moment. With a sigh, she rose from the chair and moved toward the car where the coolers awaited.

“Maybe we should get lunch going,” she said as she opened the first cooler.

Now it is my turn to smile. Mom was not ready to relinquish dinner duties, after all. On a whim, I turn my face heavenward and close my eyes. I draw a deep breath and search for the special place Mom found that afternoon. It comes to me easily. Without pomp or ceremony, there she is, smiling again. Tears squeeze from beneath my closed lids, and I fervently pray that anyone who might come upon me at this moment will say my smile reminds them of Mom's smile, that day on the beach so long ago. Tender, sweet, unassuming—and despite our loss it was peaceful.

Helen Kay Polaski

My Shining Star

Barbra Streisand once sang, “Memories, light the corners of my mind.” Many of my happiest memories—as a child, a teenager, an adult—revolve around time spent at the beach. I grew up in North Carolina, home to some of the most beautiful beaches on the Atlantic Ocean.

I remember vividly the summer of 1969. My daughter, Tracey, was six weeks old, and we joined my parents and siblings at Moorehead City, NC. My daddy was horrified to see me “strutting” down the beach in a bikini, so soon after giving birth to his first grandchild! I often watch the old movies from that vacation—my favorite scene is the one of Daddy leaning up against the pier smoking his Salem cigarette. When I zoomed in on him, he looked right into the camera and, with a half-smile on his face, gave me that special wink—that only my daddy could give. He died four years later, at the incredibly young age of fifty-four. Years later Tracey put music to that old movie, and when Daddy appears on the screen, “Time in a Bottle” is playing. The tears rolling down my face feel like the tide rolling to the shore.

From then on, my husband and I took Tracey and our son, Stan, to the Outer Banks in North Carolina every summer. My younger brother, Rick, and his wife, Barbara, would often join us, and he and I would spend countless hours on the beach reliving our happy childhood memories.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996, and after numerous surgeries, we decided to buy our own home in the Outer Banks.

I work in a high-powered corporate environment and fight daily rush-hour traffic in the Washington, D.C., area, but when I cross the bridge into the Outer Banks, the stress rolling off my shoulders feels like the tide rolling out to sea.

Our beach house quickly became the family gathering spot for special occasions. My mom, who just passed away at age eighty-eight, had many precious times there, surrounded by her five children and their families. If laughter, music, and happiness could bring down a house, our beach house would have become a pile of lumber a long time ago! Daddy may not be there in body— but I know that when I look up in the sky at night, there is one very special star looking down on me, and “he” is giving me that same special wink. I am pretty sure that he has a constant smile on his face, particularly because now that I'm fifty-nine, those bikinis are history!

Susan Allsbrook Darke

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
After nine years of commuting back and
forth from work to beach and beach to work, we have put our home
in Virginia on the market, and are moving to—guess where?—
THE OUTER BANKS, or “OBX” to us locals!

(Now I will be able to see my own personal “Winking Daddy
Star” every night for the rest of my life!)

Harry and George

A
nimals share with us the privilege of having a
soul.

Pythagoras

The day after Christmas, my sister and I started looking forward to the fifteenth of June. That was the day our parents loaded up the cars and we moved to a ramshackle cottage on the bay for the rest of the summer. It was a child's idea of heaven on earth: late nights fishing on the wharf, barefoot days in bathing suits and boats, and meals on a big screened porch under lazy ceiling fans. Every summer seemed better than the last—until the summer we lost George.

George and his brother, Harry, were golden retrievers. You never saw one without the other, whether they were crashing through tall saw grass or chasing bait-stealing herons off neighboring wharves. When they did get separated, Harry would bark until George found him. We all loved those dogs like they were our own, but they really belonged to an old salt known to everyone as the Captain.

One afternoon during this particular summer, Harry and George laid down for a nap under some hydrangea bushes. After an hour or so, Harry woke up, but George didn't. All of the children, most of the mothers, and even a few of the fathers could be seen sniffling back the tears when they heard Harry barking for his brother. The Captain was almost as pitiful as Harry, who finally gave up barking altogether. But the worst of it was that when he quit barking, he also stopped eating. He wouldn't touch dog food, ignored his favorite doggie treats, even turned his nose up at a cheeseburger.

We were so worried that on the fifth night of Harry's fast, as we ate our supper of fried speckled trout, corn steaming on the cob, and fresh tomatoes, I asked Mama what to do. She said to pray for an angel to help Harry.

That night I lay in bed under the slumber-inducing, back-and-forth breeze of an oscillating fan and pondered Harry's plight. I was pretty sure that angels only dealt with people, and I had certainly never heard of them involving themselves in dogs' problems. But just in case, I prayed myself to sleep.

The next morning after breakfast Mama gave me a sausage with instructions to take it to Harry. I found him and the Captain sitting on the end of their wharf. I waved the sausage under Harry's nose, but he didn't blink.
There's
never an angel around when you need one,
I thought. Harry got up and started toward the house. His huge head was so low it almost dragged on the wharf boards, and I could tell he was weak from not eating. The Captain shook his old head and sighed.

A sudden splash made us turn out of habit to see what kind of fish it was. But the smiling face of a dolphin broke the dark water, and even the Captain had to smile back at her. The dolphin made a little dolphin squeak. A deep growl made me look up toward the house. Harry was on the deck, his ears all perked up. The dolphin rolled and splashed like they do, then did something you see trained dolphins do, but rarely get to see done by your average bay dolphin.
Whoosh!
Up she went like a rocket, silver and shining against the blue of summer sky. The Captain and I were clapping and cheering we were so overcome with the sight. The next thing I knew, Harry came flying down the wharf, barking his big golden head off. When he was finally quiet, the dolphin looked the dog straight in the eye, said something in Dolphin, and swam away.

In the excitement, I had dropped Mama's sausage. Harry gobbled it up. The Captain and I took him back to the house and fed him a giant bowl of dog food, then loaded him up with doggie treats.

The next morning Harry was waiting, and sure enough, the dolphin came by. She blew air out of the top of her shining gray head and smiled her dolphin smile. Harry began to bark like he had the day before and got a quick dolphin reply. Then off she went, the smiling silver rocket.

From then on, for as long as I can remember, the dolphin stopped by to see Harry every day. My sister decided that this qualified the dolphin as a pet and decided to name her Fishy. But I had a better name. I called her Angel.

Margaret P. Cunningham

Summers at Rockaway Beach

G
oodness is uneventful. It does not flash; it
glows.

David Grayson

If you spend any length of time at the beach you acquire stories. But the beach is not a story; it's an experience. Time at the beach affects people's lives. My dad affected people's lives at the beach.

In the late sixties and early seventies my dad would take his vacation during the month of August because the waters off of Rockaway Beach, in New York, would finally warm up. We would spend anywhere from three to five days a week on the beach. We would never go on the weekends or on a holiday because of how crowded it was, but we would go most days during the week. My dad would take me, my older brothers (Gene by twelve years and Eddie by six years), and one or two of their friends.

It was funny. Dad told everyone he would take other kids on the block, but they had organized it themselves. They had to make sure everyone had a turn, and the rule was “no fighting” or neither person would go to the beach.

One day the battery on the car was dead.

“Sorry, boys, no beach today. I'll get a battery this afternoon, and we will go to the beach tomorrow,” said Dad.

One of the boys sitting on the front steps to the house, with his towel and lunch in tow, said, “Mr. Mac, does that mean we lose our turn, or does everyone get pushed back a day?”

Dad turned around and saw the look on this kid's face and went right away to get a new battery and head to the beach. “Better late to the beach than not going at all,” he said.

We got to the beach by ten in the morning. My dad was very fair-skinned and liked to arrive early. We would float, swim, and “ride the waves,” our phrase for body surfing. Around twelve or twelve-thirty, Dad called us out of the water. He set us up with sandwiches, chips or cookies, and ice tea. He told us we could play cards or catch with a rubber ball. He then went in the water and swam from 121st Street to 98th Street and walked back. During the walk back he passed many of the kids from the neighborhood. He knew more about who was doing what from those walks on the beach. Many times some of the kids walked and talked with him for a while. It never seemed to fail; he always knew what was happening in the neighborhood.

Now this probably does not seem all that special. But here is how the beach affects lives. We had all grown up, and my mom and dad had retired. One of the boys came back to the block to visit his mother and father, and he had his infant daughter with him. My mom and dad were so happy to see him and his baby girl. As he walked out of the house, the young man said, “This is the man I'll think about when I teach you to swim.” His voice cracked with emotion as he quickly walked out of the house. I asked my dad if he heard what he said. He said no, but I think he did.

A few years later my dad passed away. The same man could not bring himself to come to my dad's funeral. But he was waiting. The funeral procession drove by the house once before heading off to the cemetery. There he was, waiting. He ran with the procession, down the block, like a child racing his parent's car. He stopped, and I could see tears on his face.

You never know who or what affects people's lives. But I know the beach had a lasting impact on at least a few lives.

Patrick McDonnell

Oysterfest in Rockport, Texas

The trip to the beach had been a long one—and difficult and hilarious and warm and lonely—and I cried the whole way there. Now it was over. So much was over. A lifetime spent and done, and now the future seemed reflected in the dark sea at our feet.

Standing on the beach, waiting in the night, thankful that we had survived—our marriage, our love—to become something we never imagined; the sound of waves lapping the shore, searching endlessly for wounds new and old, anxious to apply its salty balm in painful but effective healing.

We shivered there on the beach, where we thought no one else would be, but we were not alone. Others had traveled there too, to watch the stars and await the promised celebration, their voices drifting toward us with the wind. Now we watched the boat lights in the bay, wondering if they were part of the show, and how long would we have to wait for the fireworks to begin.