Straight No Chaser

Who the Hell Is Pia? I Mean, Hail Pia, and So Forth

we did myrtle beach for about four summers, when my brother and i were young enough that beaches were interchangeable. myrtle beach, cape cod, martha's vineyard the outer banks--all had sand and water; all were, hence, the same.

looking back at the pictures, i can see the differences. on myrtle beach we wore stride rite sandals and one-size-fits-all tie-dyed t-shirts over psychedelic swimsuits. in cape cod and martha's vineyard it was all cape cod/martha's vineyard paraphernalia, all the time. on the outer banks, sundresses and little sunsuits in all kinds of corny pastels. my mother always liked for us to dress the part.

in the myrtle beach pictures, which are the oldest, we generally match, chad and i, and he's always too young to care how hokey that is, and we smile like the sandy boardwalk on which we sit is the cup of god's right hand. i've always got a handful of shells and chad wields a plastic shovel, both of us surprised in the middle of actual play.

i was queen, or overlady, of those beaches. ninety percent of chad's knowledge base came direct from me, at the time, and i told him all kinds of whimsical lies about mermaids, sirens, voyagers at sea. he begged to be taken in and we bounced with the waves. sandcastles, sometimes.

i am having the damnedest time figuring out when i became so completely terrified of the ocean. of vast blue spaces that look like the ocean. of the sky, when it's cloudless and oceanlike. of whales and depths and the mariana trench, shudder. i can't get within twenty-five feet of the tide, now, without minor panic attacks. i'd never have survived on keiki.

still, as i was just telling spidey, the idea of the midwest is even scarier--landlocked with no escape in the event of emergency. death death death!