My relationship with the ocean and other bodies of water ...

I should start off with my relationship with the ocean; before Jim, there wasn’t one.
Jim grew up on the water; I grew up sitting on a beach looking at the surf. He never had to wear a ton of sun screen - I was coated. He maneuvered boats in the waterways of the Potomac River and Aquia Creek; I strategically placed my chair just out of reach from the surf to give the impression of enjoying the crashing waves. We were definitely not navigating with the same set of charts.


When I was little, in Kill Devil Hills, NC, dad told me the undertow would take me out past Avalon Pier then return me to shore miles down the beach. I connected that little nugget with watching fishermen catch sharks off the end of the pier; I was a solid ‘play in the surf’ kid.


My cousins from Gloucester County, Virginia, were always on the water. One Thanksgiving my hero-like-cousins, Gregory and Phillip, had to watch over us younger cousins. After a rousing game of yard darts, why that game went away- I still don’t know, the cousins decided to teach us something useful. They tied a jon boat to a tree, settle us into the boat with 14+ life jackets, and gently shoved us off the banks with a cheshire cat smile. The learning came next; they bellowed orders telling us how to pull ourselves back to safety through a muck of deadly stingin’ nettles. I was in awe of my country cousins, I was not about to show them my near paralyzing fear of those nettles.


Side note: The Gloucester cousins could talk me into anything! The tree swing over the swamp is for another time (Byron would yell, with that chuckle and that sunshine smile, ‘Motivation to stay on!” just as I jumped onto the swing). Gloucester would come back into my life when I met Jim Beck and his fraternity brothers: Chigger Carmine and Johnny Hogan.

      

      https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/   Aunt Nancy & Uncle Jerry's House in Gloucester, VA

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