Every time the weather warms up even just a few degrees, most of my friends
immediately start talking about going to the beach.
When I was a teen, my friend Alice (who had her driver’s license and a
brand new Mustang) and I hung out at the beach every chance we got. But as I
grew older, the seashore began to progressively lose its appeal to me.
It’s not that I don’t like the ocean or a cool sea breeze, especially on a
hot summer day. It’s just that at times, it’s pretty difficult to find either
one at New Hampshire’s public beaches. The last time I went to Hampton,
the beach was so crowded, it made Times Square on New Year’s Eve look like an
intimate gathering.
I remember how my husband and I, after driving around for an hour just to
find a parking spot, then had to search for another hour before we finally
located a postage-stamp sized space on the sand and wedged our towels into it. I
sat down and began to rub sunscreen on my right leg, which wasn’t easy,
considering I had only about an inch of elbow room. Then, as I applied the
lotion to my other leg, I suddenly realized I couldn't feel anything...my leg
had gone completely numb.
“Ohmigod!” I cried out to my husband. “I’ve lost the feeling in my leg!”
“That’s MY leg you’re rubbing!” he said.
“Thank goodness!” I breathed. “I thought I needed a shave.”
Eating also was a challenge on the crowded beach. One time, just as I
unwrapped a tuna sandwich, a bunch of kids came running by and kicked up sand
all over it. When I grumbled about it to the friend I was with, she laughed and
said, “Well, now you have a genuine SAND-wich!”
Nobody likes a smart aleck.
Swimming never was my favorite pastime at Hampton Beach either. Let’s
face it, the water there is so cold, anyone who stays in it for longer than
five minutes runs the risk of having his or her body donated to a cryonics
lab. And the beach sand is so hot, only fire walkers can tolerate it. I
always feared, after walking across it, that when I stuck my burning feet into
the icy water, a huge cloud of steam would rise up like Old Faithful and
temporarily blind me.
I still have to laugh when the local meteorologists try to make the water
sound inviting. “It’s a scorching 105 degrees out there today. But if you
head on over to Hampton Beach, you can enjoy a water temperature that's a
refreshing 42 degrees!”
Refreshing? For whom...walruses?
But by far, the worst part of the beach is the rotten-egg smell of the
salt marshes at low tide. The first time my husband and I caught a whiff
of one in the breeze, we didn’t know what it was. We ended up casting
accusing glances at a group of people standing near us.
“I’ll bet they went to one of those all-you-can-eat baked-bean suppers at
the local church last night,” I muttered to my husband.
The one thing I always did enjoy about the beach, however, was the roller
coaster at Salisbury Beach. Every time we went to Hampton, we took a side
trip to Salisbury, just up the road a few miles, for the sole purpose of riding
the coaster there. It was an old wooden monstrosity, so weather-beaten, it
actually swayed and creaked whenever a strong breeze hit it. And it
wasn't uncommon to see a a few nails lying on the ground near it, where they
probably had popped out of the decaying wood.
Still, I loved it.
The part of the ride I enjoyed the most was when the coaster paused at the
top of that first hill...just before it took the big vertical plunge. From
that height, there was such an endless, breathtaking view of the ocean, I swear
I actually could see Queen Elizabeth waving at us from her balcony at
Buckingham Palace.
So I was devastated to return to Salisbury one summer, only to discover a flat, empty area where the coaster previously had stood. I was told it had been torn down to make room for a kiddies’ amusement park, but to this day, I still believe what really happened was the last nail holding the coaster together finally popped out one night and reduced it to a giant heap of rubble.
For as long as I can remember, the one thing beaches always seem to have inspired is romance. I can’t count how many of the centerfolds in Playboy Magazine or the contestants on those dating shows on TV have listed “long walks on the beach” as one of their biggest turn-ons.
I guess they’ve never taken a long walk by a salt marsh during low tide.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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