Beach

The Beckoning Beach

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on March 22, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

As seagull calls echo across the empty beach, I revel in the fitful sunshine that warms my face in spite of stiff March winds. While the calendar turns slowly toward spring, the melodies of summer can be heard just underneath the breeze. If I try hard enough, the sounds of a youth spent at these shores bubbles to the fore: “Robert Francis Walsh, you get out of that water right now or so help me God…”

My mom never needed to finish those kinds of sentences, and she certainly never needed God’s help to carry out a punishment. However, it was always a chore to get her youngest boy out of Long Island Sound while the sun was still up. Growing up in a family with seven kids, the beach offered the space and privacy that a house crammed with nine people could not. People in large families realize that “privacy” is a relative thing, especially when the only room with a lock on it is the bathroom (and even that can be easily opened with a nail file).  Privacy was the ability to lose myself amid the laughing and screaming of hundreds of other kids at the beach.

While Long Island Sound was never known for its cleanliness when I was growing up, it was an oasis for me. Because the media made more of the occasional sewage overflow than was justified, swimming twenty yards out was truly a solitary experience. Most beach-goers only took quick dips and then raced up to the shack to shower off. Floating contentedly in the frigid, salty water by the buoys while the lifeguards tried to whistle me in, this was only place in the world where I felt truly alone. It was easy (and fun) to ignore the whistles of the frantic lifeguards from the shore when feeling a calm that I could never experience at home. As a result, I was rarely in a rush to leave.

Maximizing my beach time was a study in delicate escalation. Because of the size of our family, a trip to the beach involved planning one might expect when storming the beaches of Normandy. Gathering our things to go home was worse. My mom could spend an hour gathering her kids, collecting trash, packing up the cooler, balls, and floats while drying out her kids, shaking out the towels and shoes, and trudging back to the car… where the final shaking, drying, and packing into the car would begin.

In a family our size, however, it was easy to stay out of sight until the last moment. Inevitably, my mom would notice that I was missing, and the game would begin. Any child who struggles to stay in the water “just a little bit longer” ends up attempting it in four stages. In the interest of any of our younger readers who might need some pointers, I’ll outline them here. Stage One involves temporary deafness: face away from the shore and make a show of splashing around a lot—this will lend credence to your story when you later claim that you didn’t hear your mom screaming like a banshee at you from fifteen yards away. If she’s tired, she’ll give up and send someone else out to get you. Congratulations: you just bought yourself another five to ten minutes. If not, you’ll arrive at Stage Two.

At this stage, you realize she’s not going away. It’s best to turn and feign surprise, as if to say, “Oh, were you talking to me?”  Acknowledge that you understand her and that you’re coming in. This must be done swiftly, as she will stay and wait for you if she gets too upset. As soon as she turns her back, slowly bounce and float your way toward shore. This is often good for at least another ten minutes. Moving to the side instead of toward shore will ensure that you are at least in a different spot each time your mom sees you… the illusion of progress is often enough to appease the over-burdened mother. If not, you must act quickly!

Stage Three is the moment of truth; if played improperly, you will have a very long car ride home. If your mom realizes that you are simply ten yards down the shoreline instead of shaking the sand from your swimsuit, you have to play your trump card. “I lost my ear plug!” you yell, looking worriedly at the water around you. It’s not what you lose: it could be a ring, a Frisbee, a Spiderman action figure… just make sure you don’t go out there empty-handed.

Stage Four, like DEFCON 2, is an escalation that should never occur. Stage Four is when you simply reply, “No.” Your choices are very limited here, unless your parents are naïve enough to bribe you back to shore. If this is the case, you probably don’t even have to bother with the first three stages. If not, you either start swimming toward Long Island in the hope of starting a new life, or you swim back to the beach to await your sentence. If you were in my family, you had a better shot at survival if you tried for Port Jefferson.

Even as the chill air brings me back to the present, I feel the pull of this wonderful body of water. No matter how old I get, I appreciate the beauty of the Sound as warm weather approaches. My hearing has gotten worse as I’ve gotten older, but even I can hear the pleas from my wife as she stands on shore and tries to get me to swim in. “Robert Francis Walsh, you get out of that water right now or so help me God…”

Continue ReadingThe Beckoning Beach

“Clinging to Summer”

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on November 11, 2010, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

The water is surprisingly warm as it laps against a desolate shore stripped naked of the lifeguard chairs and beachgoers of July and August. Groups of seagulls have reclaimed the sands, their heads facing into the stiff November wind that colors the Sound with whitecaps. The sailboats of summer sit shrink-wrapped on the shore, replaced by kite-surfers entombed in wet suits, feasting on the autumn gusts that whip up waves rarely seen outside March.

All of us have different ways that we try to hold on to summer, but for me, there is something magical about Stratford beaches in the fall. There is a quiet that doesn’t really exist in any other part of town, an idyllic pocket free of the white noise of the Merritt or I-95. One can hear the sputtering of plane engines as they land at Sikorsky, the click of the skateboard wheels on the ramps in the parking lot, and the ping of a well-connected drive off the tee of Short Beach Golf Course.

Others cling to other remnants of summer, such as the bird watching resurgence among the grasslands of the Lordship area.  In August, bird watchers hoping for a peek at a rare white-tailed kite at Point Stratford were treated to a sighting of a rare brown pelican at the same time. Foliage fans walk through the trails of Roosevelt Forest, the only town-owned forest in Connecticut, and take in the breathtaking palette of colors that hang from the trees and crunch underfoot.

August also provided further foundation for the cyclists and hikers of autumn. Continued progress on the ambitious plan for the Housatonic Valley Association’s Greenway along the Housatonic River has allowed those traveling by bike or by foot to enjoy the beauty of the river safe from traffic. Eventually expected to stretch from its headwaters in Massachusetts to its mouth in Stratford, a group called the East Coast Greenway wants the Sikorsky Bridge bike trail to become part of a link that will connect to a railroad line in Milford before it goes through Silver Sands State Park, up to New Haven, onto the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, then through Simsbury, Hartford, East Hartford, Bolton, and Willimantic before continuing eastward to Providence and beyond. They hope to establish a bike trail extending 3,000 miles from Quebec to the tip of the Florida Keys, with two hundred miles of the East Coast Greenway to run through Connecticut.

Even with all these ways to enjoy a piece of summer long after the temperature drops, I’m still a sucker for the quiet of the beach when the weather turns. My beach blanket wrapped around me instead of under me, there’s no other place in Stratford that lends itself to such tranquility. Few of my neighbors take advantage of this getaway in their own backyard: an occasional family might brave the cold for a quick Christmas card picture, one or two intrepid dog owners sneak their dogs onto the beach in defiance of ridiculous off-season pet laws. For the most part, however, the beach is my own private patio overlooking Long Island Sound.

For the rest of the season, though, you’re all invited to join me. There’s room for everybody, but bring your own blanket.

Continue Reading“Clinging to Summer”