It's back! Summer, that is, if only for a day or two before the colder/darker weather settles in. The warmth is well-timed, too, given it's the long weekend, suggesting we may get some serious crowds in town. Maybe even at the beach ...
I ran into a guy (a friend of my brother T) who's here over Columbus Day for just that purpose: to go to the beach. More specifically, to teach his girlfriend's four kids to surf. The lessons began yesterday. He had them all wetsuited-up and braving the waves at Sachuest. Not that there was much surf yesterday — there wasn't — but it was perfect for his/their purposes.
I asked where they went specifically. Surfers' End?
"Nope," this friend of T's said. "We were at Mom's."
Now I may be partial to that precise spot at Second Beach — last walkway at the St. George's end of the main parking lot and slightly more west from there — where I've frequently met friends, especially other moms, on occasion. But I never knew it was called "Mom's." How did that escape me? No clue, but learning something new about Second Beach reminded me of seeing something new at First Beach a week or so ago ...
I'd walked down on a chilly-ish day — I remember it was chilly as I remember rolling up my pant legs after getting caught inadvertently by a wave — and saw something weird at a distance. A blob of little birds moving en masse down near the outflowing beside the ABC. Little birds like that usually run around, in & out with the waves, right? As if they don't want to get their feet wet? (I find them endlessly amusing.) This time, though, they were sticking closely together. They also were hopping rather than running. It was more like popping, actually; it reminded me of popcorn, the motion being more up & down than in any purposeful direction. I got closer still and realized they could do naught but hop/pop/whatever, as nearly all of them were standing on one leg. Was this a different breed from what we usually get at the beach? Were they sticking together because they were afraid of something? Is it just that they had cold feet?
Again, no clue. But that got me thinking about feet. And legs — how weird (and useful!) they are. How different they are, too. How you see so many sizes, shapes & colors of legs at the beach. Black, tan, pink, yellow, blue. Yes, blue, and not from the cold. Apparently, we've had some unusual, blue-legged visitors in town lately: two-and-a-half pair (a.k.a. five) American avocet. I'm not much of a birder, but I read about them in the paper. And when I tried to get an up close & personal look at them — all the while wondering what happened to the sixth one — is when I got caught off-guard by the wave ...
