The Edge

When I lived in Tennessee I missed being near the edge of the country. Tennessee boasts some fine geography including the Smoky Mountains, Reelfoot Lake, and several rivers, but eight hours to the nearest beach is just too far for me. 

Living in New England, my friends and I could make a quick decision and in an hour or so be at either the ocean or the mountains. With proximity like that, it is possible to wake up, look outside at the weather, and depart on an adventure.

That’s what happened today. Gal pal Nancy and I had soft plans for her next to last day in town -- we planned to do something, but hadn’t determined what. A few days earlier, we considered shopping, but I lucked out and she went on Sunday while I was deep in the excitement of getting new tires, which left Monday wide open for entertainment.

In the morning we confirmed we were still both available and interested in doing something. We just needed to figure out what. The potential ideas included shopping, a museum, tattoos or psychic readings (for which we lacked appointments). Or the beach.

Yes, the beach. In December. In New England.

It was sunny and 60 degrees out (just a few days after six inches of snow), and dammit, it was possible. We drove to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, even though there are many other options. Hampton is the default when we say “the beach.” Any other beaches are specified by name.

We took the longer, back roads route through some quaint New England towns and landed at the beach on a blue sky day. In December, there is plenty of parking at the beach and the pay stations were wrapped and covered for the off-season.

We drove down some of the side streets packed side by side with rental beach houses, trying to remember which rentals we and our friends stayed in during a very eventful beach week many moons ago, right after we’d graduated from high school. Then we parked the car in one of the gazillion empty parking places and walked on the beach. It was low tide and there were lots of shells.There were a few people on the beach with metal detectors and a few dogs and mostly it was beautifully deserted and quiet.

While we were walking, I said, “I want to find a sand dollar.” As a kid, I had a sea shell collection including many sand dollars found at York Beach, Maine in high school and my 20s. Unfortunately, it was a casualty of a divorce in my 30s when I moved and forgot the jar full of shells on a shelf. In decades of going to Hampton, I’d never found a sand dollar there. And wouldn’t you know it, not two minutes after my declaration, there was a sand dollar laying in the sand. Talk about asking and receiving.

We took pictures of us in the wind. There is a photo from thirty-odd years ago on the same beach, on what we had desperately wanted to be a “lay on the beach” day. That day was cold and windy and in the photo we’re bundled up in sweat shirts and beach towels with no hope of gaining any sort of tan.

And after an hour at Hampton Beach, we left. We had visited, seen, reminisced, and taken photos.

Our next quest was lunch. That proved tricky. The only open place at Hampton was an independent  take-out pizza place with no seating. We agreed on no chain restaurants, and a preference for burgers, pizza, seafood, or Korean food. Nancy knew of a Korean restaurant in Ayer, and as we approached the parking lot I kidded, “Watch it be closed on Mondays.” Sure enough, it was. I was starting to feel a little bit psychic. But there is a pizza and greek food restaurant up the street from the Korean place, where we had gyros and Tri Sum chips.

It was a great day to be at the edge of the country -- weird warm New England weather, the beach, a sand dollar, a locally-owned lunch spot with local chips, and a longtime friend.

Walks on the Beach

One June not too long ago, my mom, sister and I rented a house at York Beach, Maine for a week. We’ve been to York Beach countless times before, first at a tent in a nearby campground for a week at a time, year after year when I was a kid. As adults, we all stayed for a few days in a hotel across from the street from the beach. But this was the first time we had an entire house for our comfort.

The rental house was three stories tall. From the top floor, which featured a pool table and futons, we could see over the tops of the neighboring houses and see the ocean. There was a footpath from the neighborhood to the rocky end of the beach, which was great for morning and evening strolls with the dogs.

I was anxious to see how my dogs would react to the beach. They came to live with me when I lived in Tennessee, and the few times we walked along the Cumberland River, the two dogs had different reactions to the water. Moose tried to charge down the boat ramp and explore the river, while Winston had no interest in it at all. The ocean was going to be a whole new adventure.

In York during the summer season, dogs were allowed on the beach in the early morning. Accompanied by various combinations of one, two, or all three nieces, depending on the day, I would take the dogs to the beach. Other dogs were running off leash, chasing discs and balls, chasing the waves, and swimming. In keeping with my Hollywood-inspired notion of dogs and beaches, these other dogs (and their humans) looked like they were having fun.

In spite of my efforts to teach them, my dogs don’t seem to know how to play. Although Moose is a champion of consuming any and all fabric or plastic toys (in their entirety), neither dog has grasped the concept of fetching, catching, or returning an item, so I didn’t bother to bring toys to the beach. It was us and the leashes and the great oceanic outdoors. Because I wasn’t sure how they’d react during their first time at the ocean, I kept them on the leashes. We walked near the rocks and over the rocks and down towards the water. Or more accurately, I dragged them to the water. They stepped in the shallowest skim of water and were not impressed. They tried to drag me away from it.

Moose and Winston not really enjoying the beach.

One morning later in the week, I let them off the leashes when we were on the beach, and they ran. Not like I thought they would, though. They did not frolic happily on the beach. They did not explore the water. The second the leashes were detached, they turned and sprinted at top speed away from the water, across the sand, and up the stairs to the sidewalk, with my nieces and me chasing after them. These dogs had spoken, and they said they wanted no part of this beach business. Luckily, some people who were just arriving at the beach stopped my fleeing canines on the sidewalk at the top of the staircase.

Afterwards, every time we approached the little wooden footbridge on the path to the beach, Moose would make himself immobile by tensing up all four of his legs and bracing himself. It’s one of his favorite tactics at home. He whips himself into a frenzy of excitement upon seeing his leash, then after about twenty feet of walking, suddenly decides he doesn’t want to go walking after all. I have never determined what in our neighborhood (if anything) has him periodically boycotting our walk, but on our Maine vacation it seemed pretty clear it was dread of the beach.