The girlfriend and I and a few friends of both of ours had come down to the beach for a couple of days, to relax a little, and celebrate Independence Day. The rest of the crew had settled into the cabin we rented, and had begun listening to music and drinking cocktails. I intended to do very much the same. But one thing I always have to do when I first arrive at the beach – as soon as possible – is reconnect with the beach itself … re-introduce myself to the wind, and sand, and waves, and ocean. I told the others to go ahead and start mixing drinks (which, actually, they had already started doing), and I’d be with them shortly – I just needed some fresh air.
My girlfriend, Lea, is still fairly new, but she is going to be a good one, I think. She pretty much likes to be anywhere I am, bless her. But she already knows there are certain times it is better to let me alone for a little while, and that this was one of them. More than probably most people, I require – in fact, thrive on – my alone time.
So there I was, walking barefoot along the edge of the water, in a pair of canvas shorts and a Bob Marley Legend T-shirt, flip-flops in hand. I was walking alone, but the beach was by no means empty. A lot of people had showed up for the Fourth, and there were people drinking and listening to music and shooting fireworks and even a few bonfires.
Most people are laid back and friendly at the beach, probably more than in their everyday lives. Hell, I am pretty sure that is what draws many back down there, again and again. Anyway, a reasonable looking guy walking down the beach alone has zero chance of getting very far before being invited by one stranger or group of strangers or another to have a cold one, to stop and listen to some music, even to sit by the bonfire a bit, and join in the fun. I had several invitations on my walk that night, and I accepted every one. My intention was to go with the flow. Very much like body surfing … I intended to let the wave catch me and pick me up, to let the unique energy of the Bolivar Peninsula guide me and carry me along that night on my walk. I am sure most beaches have their energy, but Bolivar is special … partly because I have spent a large chunk of my childhood and adult life there, sure. But the place is special, anyway. Took a direct fucking hit from Hurricane Ike, and looked like a bombed out beach on some no-name WWII South Pacific atoll. Left for deader than fucking dead. Lost forever. Gone.
And within two years, one would hardly have known there was any hurricane at all. The houses and businesses came back, the people came back, and the unique energy of the place came back, too. If you do not believe in miracles, neither did I. Until I witnessed this one, first hand.
As I walked along, after having stopped to talk and drink with a couple of different groups partying down on the beach, it occurred to me I had been doing this very thing I was doing now – just drifting, waiting for the Crystal Beach culture to pick me up and carry me along – for nearly 40 years. Amazing. So many good times, and an endless supply of stories and anecdotes and just slips of memories.
After an hour or so of doing my thing down on the beach, I headed back up to the cabin. By the time I arrived, it appeared several rounds of drinks had already been gone through. I poured myself some Early Times over ice, and dumped in a couple of ounces of water to smooth it out. Then I went and sat by Lea on the sofa, and began to ease my way into the ongoing revelry.
***************
I don’t want to feel this way another day, it’s killing me
I don’t want to be the one you try to mess around
I could never see the reason in the way you looked at me
Baby, you’re the one I want, so come on, ’cause I need you now
Say you will
Say you’ll stay with me tonight, girl
You won’t be sorry …
I was 22 or 23 years old, sitting out on the open part of the deck/veranda that wrapped around three sides of the beach cabin, with Diane, my girlfriend. We had been out there for awhile. It was night time, maybe close to midnight, maybe after. Who knows? We’d been partying that day for hours and hours, since noon, at least. In fact, there was a party still going on at a beach house down the way – some friends of ours – and we had been there earlier. But an hour or so prior she and I had decided to come back to our cabin.
The deck on that cabin was excellent for stretching out on at night, and looking at the sky. We had dragged a couple of chaise-lounge lawn chairs out there, and had been laying back, watching intently for shooting stars. We’d only seen a couple. In late summer, August and September, one could see hundreds in just a couple of hours. But it was early July, and the action was slow.
I had turned on the stereo, and a song Diane really liked came on (“Say You Will”, by Blanket of Secrecy). She reached over and put her arms around my neck. Just then, something really bright flashed by in the sky. We both turned in time to see something large and bright and moving at a very high rate of speed streak low across the shoreline and go several miles out over the ocean, before crashing into the water with a splash, leaving a brief afterglow.
“What was that?!” my girl asked.
“I don’t know, Jesus! But hey, can you hand me another beer?”
Diane reached over and unhesitatingly plunged her hand into the ice and melted ice water in the cooler on the other side of her chair, and pulled out a cold Miller Lite, and handed it across to me. I loved that girl passionately, for a lot of reasons. Just one of them was the way she handed me a cold beer.
Her song had ended, but she pushed the volume even higher when the next song came on, some dweeb Englishman singing about being blinded by science. But it had a good beat, I guess. It got my girl all worked up, that’s for sure. Which, in turn, got me worked up.
We quickly forgot about the celestial anomaly we saw that night. A UFO crashing spectacularly into the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Galveston/Crystal Beach was one thing. My baby, Diane, getting herself all worked up over some Thomas Dolby song was something else entirely. We quickly retired to the privacy of the beach cabin to enjoy each other in the way people have been enjoying each other since all the way back in the olden days, back to when Adam and Eve used to get it on, in that sub-Saharan savannah back in Africa, where we all come from.
If the sun refused to shine***************
I don’t mind
I don’t mind,
If the mountains fell in the sea,
Let it be
It ain’t me …
Lea looked at me and laughed. She has the most beautiful smile, and I spend a lot of my time trying, in various ways, to elicit it. Just because I get off on it so much. Luckily, it is pretty easy for me to do – for some reason, she thinks I am hilarious. I reached out to the coffee table in front of us and picked up my drink, and took a sizable sip of sweet Kentucky bourbon mixed with a little Ozarka water, and some ice. It felt so good going down, it gave me a bit of a shiver. Just then Lea kissed me in the ear; and when I smiled, our friends laughed.
It was nothing, really. Just a random moment, in a random cabin, on a random road, on a random night. Down at Crystal Beach.
Crystal Beach – the magical place where both kids and grownups come to play, and laugh, and feel good, and just let the beach culture wash them over, and – at least for a little while – carry them away. One day, when I grow up, if I ever do … I want to move down there.
And then stay.
maggie and milly and molly and may<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
;
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