Just being back from the beach and Facebook Memories reminded me that 10 years ago today, my parents visited us in NC, and I took them to the beach. – HH
I never saw the ocean until I was 18 and in Boot Camp, which did not lend itself to introspective gazing. We didn’t have money for vacations when I was a child, and when Dad did take time off, we drove 8 hours to visit my mom’s father outside Dallas.
Mom grew up in Southern California, and my grandfather loved deep-sea fishing – Mom has all sorts of memories of surfing and waves and Santa Monica Pier and all of that. But that had been more than 55 years ago.
Dad had grown up exactly where I had, but with less money. His time in the Air Force sent him over the Pacific, but that too had been over 50 years ago.
Since I left home, Dad’s work had taken him to the Gulf of Mexico quite a bit, and Mom would sometimes arrange her schedule to go with him, and several times they timed it to take the grandkids as well, so they all had saltwater memories together.
And while I love the Gulf of Mexico, it is a sad, pale, quiet, and still imitation of the open ocean, with neither waves nor surf.
So anyway, on this day in 2016, we had nothing planned, and it was a Saturday, and it was beautiful, so we drove to the ocean, just 3 hours away, with the parents, and we ate at one of our favorite restaurants, and I watched my momma’s eyes take in the surf for the first time since she was 16, and Daddy had at least three different cameras with him, and we stood on Johnny Mercer Pier at Wrightsville Beach for what seemed like forever as the wind whipped our hair, and I quietly wept on the way home because it was such a perfect day.