A Day at the Beach

So this week at school I'm teaching the 9th graders how to write a personal narrative. Since they have to write one, I figured I'd write one as well. The assignment is to write about a particular moment in your life that sticks out, something that was unique and memorable to you. So I wrote about a time that I had at LBI, a day which I remember vividly as one of the best of my life (as are most of the days I have spent at LBI due to the utter relaxation of the trip). So here goes...

All was silent as I was immersed in my dreams, until I reached that sudden point of uninterrupted sleep when you arrive at the cliff and have to make the decision whether or not to jump off. The faintness of the waves in the distance, the clinking of cups and silverware and quiet voices emanating from the kitchen, and the smell of fried eggs, morning dew and beach sand all met me as I opened my eyes.

I walked from the living room to the kitchen and through the house, passing members of my family, all looking relaxed but a tad dismayed. Then it struck me like a bolt of lightning. The pitter-patter of the raindrops trickling onto the roof and the cement steps in front of the house. I gazed out the window to find the dreariest day of our vacation in Long Beach Island thus far, and was immediately stricken with the same dismay I had waded through when passing my kith and kin in the kitchen.

“No use in setting up a beach head today,” I muttered to my Dad.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Uncle Don, coming out of his room, bathing suit pulled so far up his chest you’d think it was a bib. He waltzed into the living room, grabbing a towel and beach chair along the way.

“Uncle Andy, you got the binos?” Uncle Don said to my Dad.

“You got it, Uncle Don.”

I couldn’t believe their dedication, but didn’t want to show my surprise for fear of being called out. As I opened the door to follow them to the beach, the rain died down a bit, but my skepticism remained.

We walked up to the beach, stepping lightly onto the wet sand, as if our feet were baker’s hands molding cookie dough. We set down our chairs and blankets in a straight line along the beach, parallel with the Atlantic Ocean horizon. As we were sitting, the clouds rolled in deeper and the air became damper. Then, the rain drops started up again. The storm, we admitted, was not just going to pass without a fight. So, we rallied the troops and returned to the house, bummed and a bit wet.

Cousin Kyle, who is older than me by one year and a day, suggested when we got back to the house that we watch a movie.

“Let’s put in Old School or Anchorman, some crazy Will Ferrell movie.” Kyle wanted to watch one of these because of his amazing ability to memorize lines from movies and spit them out verbatim.

I responded, “Eh, I’d rather do something outside. We are at the beach, aren’t we?”

We cousins, there were about six of us older ones, got together to brainstorm a plan for the day. As we were picking each other’s brains, the rain seemed to have died down, but it was still overcast and cloudy, and the air was still cool from the rain, the same feeling you’d get from the air that smacks you in the face after opening a freezer on a hot summer day.

Since it wasn’t raining anymore, our options expanded to more outdoor activities.

“Let’s go to Pier 18,” suggested Cousin Colleen, Kyle’s sister, in an almost-predictable plea to shop at the only mall on the island.

“That’s boring!” we male cousins bellowed out at her request.

“Well what are your amazing ideas?” Colleen retorted.

“How about a game of mini-golf,” Cousin Matt chimed in. Cousin Matt, the big, burly guy with a big heart in the white T-shirt, who used to terrorize me when we were kids, isn’t really my cousin; Matt is actually Kyle & Colleen’s cousin on Uncle Don’s side of the family. But down the shore, we’re all family, regardless of bloodlines and genetic semantics.

“That’s a great idea!” I chimed in for the first time in this debate. “And we can bring the kids along too; the parents would like that one.” You see, our family beach house was actually two beach houses right next to each other, with five different families staying underneath the two roofs. The five different families are made up of 10 adults and 13 kids total, with guests floating in and out of the houses throughout the week.

So, Mr. T’s 36-hole mini-golf was the destination as we set off, about 10 of us “kids” (a term that is used lightly and which spans from the ages of 15 to 26), packed into the “gunships,” a more threatening name for Uncle Don’s and Uncle Eddie’s minivans. We bustled through those 36 holes, paying no mind to scores or Mr. T’s rules and regulations, goofing off every chance we got.

Two hours later, when we finished all 36 holes, it was about one in the afternoon and we were starved. The gunships set off for Dom’s Drive-In along Long Beach Boulevard in the town of Brant Beach for some delicious cheesesteaks.

Since gorging ourselves at Dom’s was top priority, none of us noticed the weather’s improvement until we stepped outside into the scorching New Jersey sun, stomachs full and ready to get back onto the hot sand and cool saltwater.

As we pulled out of Dom’s, the sun shining above us, the familiar chords to the Beach Boys “California Girls” filled the gunship, and all ten of us set off towards the house, singing along with what would have earlier been considered our siren song, but was now cause for celebration among family.

When we got back to the house, we found it deserted; surely everyone was up at the beach, enjoying what turned out to be a most beautiful day. We quickly changed into our bathing suits, grabbed towels and chairs, and marched up to the beach front. Sure enough, there was our established beach-head for the day: a line of chairs stretching the entire Jersey coast, filled with people who were all my family, people with whom I would love to spend a beautiful day at the beach. And that’s exactly what we did: sit at the beach for the rest of the day, under a cloudless sky, enjoying each other’s warm company and the carefree relaxation that only comes when you’re sitting on the beach with the ones you love in the wake of a storm, on what turned out to be the most beautiful day of 2005.