The Beach House

I was fortunate in childhood that we had a beach house in the family. I got to thinking about it as an indirect result of Mother's Day. The gulf between the two things is wide, but I do tend to make leaps in thinking like that routinely, as acquaintances will attest. We went to that beach house often during summers. The memories of my experiences there are some of the fondest I can call upon, and I do so often. There were good times and bad, but I count them all as genuinely formative and truly cherish them.

The house was a modest one, but was warm and inviting. My father and his father built it with their own hands back when there was almost nothing out there and the land was within the means of a college instructor. Because it was built back then, it was much closer to the water than anything built after regulations got more stringent. A light on the back porch did nonetheless have to abide by laws protecting the sea turtles. They get confused by white lights, which I guess look to them like the moon or something.

I might have spent more time there had it been close, but I grew up in Arizona and it was over at Crescent Beach, which was south of Saint Augustine, Florida. Crescent Beach would seem to suit me well. It's a public beach, and I count myself as a populist. In spite of that, it has known luminaries such as Tom Petty and Steve Spurrier, and I must confess that I consider myself exceptional. We would drive out from Gainesville, pass through Palatka, and turn off the highway onto a dirt driveway better hidden than the Bat Cave. It was so overgrown, I think it could only accommodate a vehicle of modest size at best.

I often think of the food. We picked up things like Key limes and boiled peanuts on the way, and I still love them. Finding good Key lime pie is hard out here, and finding boiled peanuts of any grade is about impossible. One time we tried out an outlet store where I got a bunch of Moon Pies. Another day, a fishing ship came close to shore, and we bought some of their catch. During the bloody process of killing and cleaning them on the deck by the outdoor shower, I pleaded tearfully to spare them and keep them as pets. I concede now it was an impractical request.

As I said, it was a modest place, with simple amenities. There were three bedrooms as I recall, one bathroom, a small kitchen and an expansive living room marked by a large freestanding fireplace. There was a black and white tv with poor reception and no cable connection. Dad would go out and pick up a newspaper most mornings. It would have been either the Gainesville Sun or the paper in St. Augustine. Most of my life, there was about only one thing to do there, and that was partake of the beach.

Much of each day was spent from a little camp set up by the water. You got some chairs and whatever else, and trooped out past where the cars drove back and forth. The sand burned like a fire except when made wet by high tide, and harbored shells and pinching crustaceans that one had to be wary of. I can still feel the way it crunched when dry, and the way it would give up its moisture under the weight of my feet when wet. Sometimes we would walk up and down the beach for miles. Sometimes we would stay up on the porch. If it wasn't either of those things, it was probably the intercoastal waterway across the highway. It was just a basic road- I think it was two lanes. We would walk over to see the fiddler crabs, which kept to themselves there, and watch sailing vessels pass back and forth.

The place changed and we added some things as it became primarily a rental. Customers evidently expected color TV and cable. It was a peculiar thing to go around the place and see little signs warning us about rules. We haven't got the place anymore, and I guess the original building is gone by this time. There are probably just photographs, videos and memories. The videos and pictures tended to depict damage from the latest storm and were for the purposes of advising on repairs. I wish I could go there this summer, but will have to made do with Santa Monica Beach out here.