Playing bi-state beach blanket bingo
I’m walking my dog down our lonely road in Newtown when a driver pulls over to ask directions. “Is there a beach around here?” The Pup and I were just pondering how to end this column about beaches. Then this guy arrives to serve as start and finish.
The driver and I stare at each other for a moment. He’s probably wondering why this would be a difficult question. Meanwhile, I’m contextualizing. Thirty miles from the nearest sand along Long Island Sound might seem like “around here” to someone from, say, South Dakota.
“Um, sorry,” I finally reply. “You probably saw the lake around the corner. There’s no beach.”
We’ll loop back to that in 625 words.
Yes, I’m being a tad strict with my “beach” definition. Having lived near a shoreline most of my life, I confess to mourning its absence since moving from Stamford a couple years ago. So does The Kid. He also misses city life, so we drive two hours with Mom to visit a friend in Queens, New York, for a one-day vacation at America’s largest urban beach.
“Don’t look, it’s a surprise,” he warns before dawn’s early light. My eyes are still closed, so this game works for me.
But I am surprised, as he is making sandwiches for the first time in his eight years. He also crams blankets, a pop-up tent, umbrella, chairs and a bucket of beach toys into the trunk of our Honda Civic.
The Civic briefly surrenders a couple miles into the trip when the plastic undercarriage splash shield sags after popping a button. Not to be thwarted, I perform meatball surgery with zip ties.
One of the many wonders of Rockaway Beach is that it is free. The only price is the walk of shame in lugging said blankets, tent, umbrella, chairs, bucket and cooler from a space in front of a neighborhood house.
“They refer to people like you as being ‘Down for the Day,’ ” our friend says of her neighbors. She says some carry so much they resemble the Grinch tilting in his overstuffed sled.
The Kid and I further dress the part by wearing Hawaiian shirts. I make a silent pledge to don a Ramones “Rockaway Beach” T-shirt should we ever return to Hawaii.
Choosing a spot on the beach during the pandemic reminds me
of movie-goers shuffling for the best seat in the Avon’s smaller theater in Stamford. A woman on the horizon settles into her spot. A family parks on her left, apparently too close for comfort. So she does the crab crawl to the right. A couple lands and traps her on the other side.
Beach policy calls for masks when not in the water, with parks staff offering them as needed. While social distancing is respected, people clearly dread bringing home a mask tan even more than COVID. As a nudge to passersby, I make masks from napkins and put them on a couple of Barbie dolls that were stowaways in the bucket of toys. It is a dud, as a pack of nearby high schoolers squeeze together for a self-declared “moment-in-time” selfie. If there’s any age group to maintain social distancing from right now, it’s recently retired high schoolers.
My fellow day tripper, meanwhile, pretends to charge the waters like the Beatles running from girls at the opening of “A Hard Day’s Night” (he’s been binging), poses as “Mr. Narwhal” rising from the Arctic waters in “Elf,” and rolls in the sand to do his impersonation of a cinnamon doughnut.
As always, I am able to mine curative powers from the ocean. Rather than rub salt to sting wounds, the salt water is a magical elixir of healing properties. It cures the toothache in my heel, the poison ivy in my soul and clears sinuses clogged with anxiety.
It also is a chance to consider the NOMB (Not on My Beach) issue from the other end of the periscope. The matter of New Yorkers storming beaches is a hot topic in Stamford right now, and has always sizzled in Greenwich. I get it, but have never been able to get past the elemental reasoning that the waterfront should be available to everyone.
So, here we are, Connecticut Yankees putting the flip-flop on the other foot. I learn that the Rockaway neighbors like to forego their driveways in favor of street parking to block out space invaders. It’s like Shippan with street smarts.
Rather than rub salt to sting wounds, the salt water is a magical elixir of healing properties. It cures the toothache in my heel, the poison ivy in my soul and clears sinuses clogged with anxiety.
So, 625 words and a day later, we’re back in Newtown trying to advise steamy travelers in search of sand. I recommend nearby hiking trails, only to read disappointment in their faces.
“I can understand,” I offer sympathetically. “We used to live in Stamford and miss the beaches.”
“Oh, we came from Stamford,” they reply.
I guess we’re all going against the tide.