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Down the Shore

Our trip to the beach today did not start well. To begin with, I was up until 3 a.m. this morning finishing my latest set of sample pages for the Press. They are due on Friday, and when I told Tab I'd finish them on Thursday night, he said I was crazy. "You'll be too tired after the beach trip," he argued. And I realized he probably was right. So I finished them last night and woke up tired today after getting less than four hours sleep.

Then, Tab was in a grouchy mood this morning. Crabby Tabby, I call him when he's like this. He didn't really want to make this trip, not being a beach person himself. His family never went to the beach when he was growing up; to him it seems like a waste of time.

I, on the other hand, have many happy childhood memories of going "down the shore" (as we say here in New Jersey), and I want my sons to have the same. I was appalled when I realized this year that Daniel had reached the age of 6 without ever having seen the ocean. My uncle and aunt rent a house on Long Beach Island for two weeks every summer, and we've had a standing invitation to visit them for years. This summer, finally, we are taking advantage of that offer.

Driving down to the coast with a sullen husband and fractious, whiny kids, I tried to remember why I thought this was a good idea.

My mood lifted as we got closer to the shore. The light has a special quality near the ocean, brighter but more diffuse. As we crossed the causeway onto the island, the smell of salt water in the air and the sounds of seagulls squawking made me smile with anticipation.

Long Beach Island is a barrier island off the mid-coast of New Jersey, north of Atlantic City and south of Seaside. It is eighteen miles long and about a half mile to a mile wide. It's neither as glitzy nor as tacky as many of the Jersey shore communities. When I was growing up, my family used to rent a house near Barnegat Light at the southern tip of LBI.

Aunt Sheila and Uncle Jim's house is in Beach Haven, on the northern side of the island. After admiring the view from their second-story deck (they are only one house away from the ocean), we gathered our stuff and headed for the beach.

It was fun to watch the boys as we crested the dune. They stopped and looked about with wild surmise. "I'm not going in there," Stephen declared, staring at the ocean. Daniel, however, was immediately attracted to the water's edge. Although he didn't want to go in deep, he liked standing where the waves hit and rushed over his legs up to his thighs. He laughed whenever he got knocked down and pushed around by the waves.

As soon as I'd helped set up our spot with beach umbrellas and folding chairs, I headed for the water. I waded out past where the waves were breaking, stepping as lightly as I could on the broken shells that covered the ocean floor. There was a steep drop-off: one moment the water was hip high, but at my next step the water was over my shoulders. I haven't been in the ocean for more than twenty years, but the sense of weightlessness was exactly as I'd remembered. I liked to watch the waves roll in towards me and, just as they approached, bend my knees and leap, letting the swell lift me over the wave. I felt as graceful as a ballerina in my watery dance.

The surf was moderately rough today, too rough for the boys. Stephen, contrary to his earlier words, did let me carry him out into the water and hold him as we jumped over the waves together. Daniel spent most of the day at the water's edge playing tag with the incoming waves.

Stephen and Matthew enjoyed digging for sea shells and filling their pails with wet sand to form sandcastles. Instead of using a bucket to collect sea water, Matthew would squat at the water's edge holding a shovel face up along the sand and wait for the incoming wave to rush over it. Then he'd carefully carry his few drops of water in the shovel back to his sand projects.

I spent some time sitting under the umbrella and talking to Sheila. Tab, who finds it impossible just to sit and do nothing, roamed around taking pictures of the boys. Later he walked back to the house and retrieved the videocamera to tape us.

The tide came in around 2 p.m. By this time the previously hot, sunny day had turned cloudy and cool. A half hour later rain started to fall, a few drops at first but progressively heavier. We thought about waiting it out, but then we heard thunder and decided we'd better leave.

Back at Jim and Sheila's house, we washed the boys off in the outside shower to remove as much sand as we could, an onerous job since the sand had collected in every nook and cranny. We dressed upstairs and then visited with my aunt and uncle while the storm raged outside. Cozy and dry inside, we watched the lightning flashes and torrential rains, while gusty winds rattled the window panes. Jim and Sheila teased us, saying that our unprecedented visit must have been the cause of the storm since they never usually have rain on their vacation.

We ate an early dinner of spaghetti with them, then we headed home after the rain stopped. The cross streets were flooded, making it difficult to get to the main road; however, as soon as we crossed the causeway onto the mainland, we realized it had not rained at all there.

The boys had a wonderful day. We'd managed to keep them covered up enough with sunscreen, T-shirts, and hats so that they didn't get any sunburn. I, however, missed significant portions of my back and shoulders when applying sunscreen to myself. Those patches are now bright pink and painful. Still, despite the omnipresent sand and my sunburn, we all agreed we'd had a lot of fun. Even Tab admitted that it had been a good idea.

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