AT THE BEACH, Part 2

Some of you may remember that the causeway bridge to LBI wasn’t as “smooth sailing” as it is today (when the traffic is moving, of course). There was a time when there was a series of clippity, cloppity wooden bridges coming out of Manahawkin over to the island. I remember riding in the backseat of the family car (a 1946 two-tone green Plymouth sedan—a used car—our family always had used cars) and being awakened by the sound of crossing the bridges and getting excited about what lie just ahead.

      I would stare out the car window at all the fascinating sights like old rundown shacks in the marsh areas around the bay, and imagine what it must be like to live there and wake up every morning to the wonderful aroma of swampy salt air. I would start telling my parents what I wanted to do on the beach that day, and ask if we could get ice cream from the Good Humor truck when it came around ringing its child-beckoning bell (they were noncommittal about that). I would think about what new kind of tin bucket and shovel I might get at the extravagant cost of 25 cents. (I saw a couple of those in an antique store on the island a few years back going for the price of $350 each.)

        All in all, a beach day on LBI was as if there was no other place in the world for a day.  There have been many times that I have wished I could travel back in time and experience that feeling of excitement and anticipation that was so mind and heart-filling—a sense of joy that only children know because they’re not caught up with everything else going on in the world or thinking about some responsibility to be met that weights heavy on a person’s heart.

        Too bad, really. I know that it would be weird for us adults to act like children or to think of ourselves or the world as innocent. We know better than that. On the other hand, I have a feeling that sometimes we are too adult-like in the sense that we deny the importance allowing ourselves childlike moments.

        I have vowed to myself in these retirement years, after 44 years of being in the ministry that I’m going try to regain that sense of wonder that I once knew, staring out the back window of our 46 Plymouth, in spite of the fact that I am quite aware of how imperfect I am and the world is. Most certainly I do not intend to totally enter a world of make believe, but I do think that I think that it's possible to let go of our preoccupation with the grown-up world of worries and woes, and even if just for a moment or a day, allow ourselves the healing privilege of childllike joy.

     I'll let you know how I make out with that, but maybe you could let me know how you're doing with it too.