733 A Perfect Day At the Beach

733 A Perfect Day At The Beach

Temperatures in the 90s. Again. Bright sunshine. A perfect day for the beach. Okay, let's get ready. First, bathing suits. (Check.) Then sunblock (Check.) Blanket. (Check) Umbrella (Check.) Small pail for making sand castles. (Check.) Small shovel to pack the sand down in the pail. (Check) Cash for the concession stand. (Check.) Full gas tank. (Check.)

Okay, here we go! Everyone into the car!

Oh. Wait. There IS no beach here. Or anywhere near here. No wonder we can't smell the salt air or the aroma of low tide. Knew there was something missing, just couldn't figure out what it was. There are a few lakes and even a swimming pool or two. And a dam. And a few streams. But that's just not the same. There's no salt. There's no sound of the waves. There are no waves at all let alone noisy ones. Nothing to mitigate the sound of blaring radios and whining children. No ocean air to mix into the aroma of a chintzy hotdog made of who knows what. Also no bikini babes, sculpted lifeguards or jellyfish. No gulls.

Well, it's not all bad. After all, no one bothered to put on the sunblock, which means no one has to scrape the oily greasy slimy stuff off the sink, the car seat, the steering wheel, the door handles, the garage door. No chance of contracting sunburn or worse. And you can get a mystery meat hotdog nearly anywhere.

With modern chemistry, you'd think they could duplicate the delicious smells of the beach in a spray can for home use. Whoever's first with that will be the darling of the beach land expatriates. Combine that with a white noise machine that pumps out the sound of crashing waves. Turn the air conditioner off and let the house heat up. And there you have the perfection of the shore without the bother. Or the sunburn. Or the radios. Or the whining children.

Now THERE's a perfect day at the beach.

Shrapnel:

--A Canadian relative blames his country's medical system for his having to wait three hours to see his skin cancer guy. C'mon down to New York, and see how long the wait is. And that's from a doc who doesn't take Medicare or any other insurance.

--Everyone has been yelping about the price of corn because so much is going into ethanol these days. So how do the local markets manage to sell it eight ears for two bucks? And it's good corn, too, not something the cattle or horses rejected.

--A quote from a Gen-U-Ine Kentucky Colonel about his place of employment on New York's Long Island, a small business situated on the grounds of a Thoroughbred racing stable: "This is the only country music radio station in America with real horsesh*t in the front yard." And he thought he'd escaped all that by moving north!

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010