BEACH THOUGHTS

I woke up this morning with "beach thoughts", dreaming of the hot sun kissing my face, sand between my toes, and the sounds of sea gulls over my head. I love the beach which is kind of odd since I can't swim a lick and today the idea of putting on a swim suit sends shudders down my spine. It wasn't always like that. At one time, back in 1974 I actually looked great in my cute little navy polka-dotted one piece. Honeybuns and I took a little vacation to Tybee Island, GA that year and it was there we were first introduced to the pleasures of the ocean. I was SO cute and he was SO handsome! Aw, sweet memories. Well, most of them were sweet anyway. That first particular beach trip nearly ended in disaster. We were having a great time playing in the waves with our little yellow and red life raft. As the waves grew so did the fun. We'd push our way out and ride'em in to the shore. That continued for hours, such bliss! As the day worn on the waves got bigger and bigger. Being very ignorant of such things as "tide" we played on! At one point while floating farther and farther out to sea we both turned our eyes toward the horizon. Coming straight for us was a wall of water like we'd only seen on the pages of National Geographic! Honeybuns yelled out happily, "It's the BIG ONE!" That wave crashed over our heads and sent our bodies spinning, causing that unwelcome sensation of end over end. Inside that monster was pitch blackness and complete silence. I was amazed at the lack of any noise whatsoever, no children laughing, no sea gulls screeching, no shrimp boats chugging in the distance. Who knew? The power of the water continued to toss me around. Swirling, I held my breath and realized that this was it, I was going to die! Looking death in the face I knew it was only a few more moments until my lungs would fill with dirty, salty sea water. My body began aching for air as time stopped. Just as I began to suck in that instrument of death I felt something BIG grab my behind and I was lifted into pure sweet oxygen. The BIG ONE had tossed me up onto the beach positioning my face submerged in a small pool of water and my rear end was sticking straight up into the air. My body was free of that powerful wave but my face didn't know it. Honeybuns had spotted the BIG ONE, mooning half of Tybee Island, and came to my rescue. He was laughing hysterically, I was overcome with relief. Breathing felt so good! I call this my Jonah experience. The Atlantic Ocean had spit me out to live another day.