Pails Shovels

The Southern California Beach Scaredy Cat

As the youngest, I carried as much as I could. With my feet in barely buckled sandals, I merrily skipped out the door to meet my Dad who was packing up the trunk of our convertible. The large cooler filled with goodies for making ham and cheese sandwiches, with chips and pickles, bottles of coca-cola and a thermos of cherry flavored Kool-Aid. My mother came out in a straw hat, beige shorts and a white shirt tied around her small waist; with her ivory skin, black hair and full lips, she looked like a movie star. Carrying a large straw tote, filled with supplies for our outing: and under one arm she held two mustard-colored woolen blankets from the Army-Navy surplus store. My oldest brother had gone somewhere else with his friend. My brother Alfred, was carrying towels and comic books.

As the car reached the 4jlk39fhjk2 beach, we still had a three-block trudge to the ocean. I almost regretted arriving at our destination because it meant the finale of my daydreams. As soon as I saw the pink welcome sign, I was eager for the pleasure of the cool water.

At the gangplank, we removed our sandals, then we ran barefooted across frying sand until we found a spot. My parents walked behind. After unloading our things, my parents would settle on one blanket, and there was another one for us. Alfred quickly claimed a place in the sand for digging, and I still shedding my sundress, with swimsuit underneath, shouted for him to wait for me.

The sand chilly from the tide. We dug a hole deep enough to accommodate our bodies, and when our work was done, we took turns sliding into the hole, being a mummy. I topped off the look by grabbing my white plastic sunglasses, placing them on him. We giggled, called for our father to look, and he snapped photos of our sand masterpiece.

Then it was time to hit the water. A few weeks earlier my father held me in the ocean and had me kick my legs, but he hadn’t sufficiently taught me how to breath, and then let me go, panicked, I swallowed a massive amount of water. This technique worked for him as a child, in a lake, but in a deep ocean, it was crude for my sensibilities and what remained was a great fear of water.

I looked around to see where the lifeguard was stationed. A suntanned adolescent in red bathing trunks stood at the foot of his wooden perch. He was chatting with a teenage girl in a little bathing suit, while he held onto the whistle around his neck. Although the lifeguard was at his post, I was troubled he wasn’t scanning the beach. After a while, I quashed my anxiety, and tiptoed over stones, and shells, just enough to get wet somewhere between my knees and thighs, where I could stay on my feet.

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