LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Out |
by Fay Jacobs |
Memorializing Memorial Day
Can you be absentminded without being a professor? I'm either professorially challenged or in the early stages of old timer's disease. Bonnie thinks I'm working too hard, which is a nice way of saying I should play golf with her more. But absentminded me had the proverbial rude awakening last week when I got both the coffee beans and the Rice Crispies out of the cabinet and proceeded to pour Snap, Crackle and Pop into the coffee grinder. Now there was a mess. Crispie Coffee is not a blend I'd like to see at Coffee Mill. I used to remember dozens of phone numbers by rote and my entire annual calendar could stay in my head without my ever missing an appointment or double booking. Now, not only do I need a wall calendar, a Blackberry, and a ream of post-it notes on the fridge, but I get more e-mail from me than from anyone else. Every time I think of something I have to do I e-mail myself lest the task slip my mind. Actually, saying that a thought slips my mind is generous. Thoughts get sucked out of my brain so fast it's like there's an Oreck on my head. I felt better last night at dinner when a conversation among peers led to a planned get together. Three of us whipped out our personal communication devices to send ourselves marching orders. I used to worry about laundering money. Not drug cartel money laundering but the kind where you leave your cash and credit cards in your pocket and send it through the spin cycle. That was bad enough but now I worry I could leave my phone in my pants and wash out my whole summer. Working on the theory that part of my befuddlement might actually be caused by the stress of overwork, I pledged to have a work-free Memorial Day Weekend. Mostly. I say mostly, because if you are reading this between June 1 and 13, you'll understand that the deadline for it was Memorial Day Weekend. So it's Sunday morning May 27, and I'm jotting these thoughts before a day out on the water. Sunday evening, May 27 It was a glorious boat ride. In the first place, it was someone else's boat, which is the very best kind. While at times I ache for the beautiful boat I used to have, I can't imagine the torture of filling up its 103 gallon gas tank with today's gas prices. And a tank used to get us only to the Cape May Lobster House and back. Today, that would mean gold-filled crustaceans. But our buddies have a fishing boat, with an outboard and far more sensible gas consumption than my late, lamented floating condo had. We "did the circuit," which is our kind of party. No half naked muscle boys. Our circuit is a trip across Rehoboth Bay, down Indian River, out into the ocean, a cruise along the shore past Dewey and Rehoboth, around Cape Henlopen, into the Lewes Canal and back again to Rehoboth Bay. It's a circumnavigation I've made dozens of times, often stopping to float off Gordon's Pond beach and ogle the pretty scenery. Today was no different as the beach was packed with an amazing assortment of wonderful women. But the boat captain brought me back from the brink of voyeurism to point out a different kind of scenerya pod of dolphins approaching the boat. In all the time I've been boating I have never been bobbing up and down amid pods of dolphins. The magnificent mammals surfaced, then dove all around us, swimming with the boat when we moved and giving us the first glimpse of their youngsterstiny fins and tails, popping in and out of the water between their parents. And speaking of youngsters, two energetic beachgoers we knew waved to us from the shore, where they sat with a pod of our friends. Quite by coincidence our on-board iPod (as compared to the in-water Dolphin Pod) blasted Don't Rock the Boat Baby and attracted attention. Our young friends, warm from the sun and noting that the boat was pretty close to shore, dove into the surf and started swimming out to meet us. I believe they committed to the task before realizing that the water temperature was a stupefying 58 degrees. Their limbs soon realized it, reducing these swimmers to gasping dog paddlers. We had to haul them in and warm them up. Ahh, youth. "Well, that was stupid," said one swimmer amid chattering teeth. I don't think she'd realized yet that she had to get back to shore. I would have just called the coast guard helicopter to haul me up in their rescue sling and dump me back out on the sand. But where these gals swam to our vessel, youthful exuberance trumping common sense, their plunge back into the water showed uncommon courage. Can you imagine knowing you were diving into 58 degree water and doing it anyway??? There's a reason that the Polar Bear swimmers fling themselves into the water and immediately leap out. Fortunately, our captain had nudged closer to shore and the breaking waves carried the swimmers in for an easier and quicker return trip. No less cold, though. By the way, the iPod had moved on to I Will Survive. Coincidence? Monday morning, Memorial Day I kept my promise of a work-free holiday weekend through cocktails and a lovely dinner out last night and today we are prepping for chicken on the barbie...slightly memory-challenged or not, this will be a memorable Memorial Day weekend for the friends and fun. I just wish that this Memorial Day wasn't also memorable because of those sad tributes on TVthe much-deserved stories of our soldiers and their families coping with the disasterous death count and maiming of George Bush's Iraq War. Some politicians and media types want us to forget the lessons of Vietnam. My generation, and hopefully those before and after us will never let our lack of support for a war be misconstrued as a lack of support for our troops. I keep repeating "Dissent is patriotic." The pundits want to accuse dissenters, once again, of abandoning support for our fighting men and women just because we oppose this quagmire the Bush Administration injected us into. I won't let them. I support the troops and I want to bring them home safely. I may be getting fuzzy-brained, but I will never, ever forget that in addition to the opening of the summer season, in addition to the outdoor activities and the hot dogs on the grill, Memorial Day honors those who fought and sacrificed for our countrywhether we agreed with the need for them to go to war or not. That's one message I won't have to e-mail to myself to remember. Meanwhile, I will try to remember not to pour my Rice Crispies into inappropriate orifices. Fay Jacobs is the author of As I Lay Fryinga Rehoboth Beach Memoir and Fried & TrueTales from Rehoboth Beach. Contact her at www.fayjacobs.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 17, No. 6 June 1, 2007 |