An old post, reposted

I used to blog on MySpace. Interestingly, I wrote about the beach that I now live near. Below is an excerpt from that blog that still rings true to me...

Beach revel-a-thon Current mood:  awake If you read my post below, you know I went north to the beachiest beach in bc. Normally when I go to long beach (it should really be called log beach) ....(section removed for brevity)... This time I was there on BC Day Weekend, when not only are the tourists out in force, but so are the locals. It was actually hard to find parking at the beach. That was distressing, since I usually get an entire lot to myself...but I worried less about break ins. It's not like there is anything valuable in my van, but around about 1990 CHEK TV ran a news article on my kind of van (there are tons of them here) thatshowed you how to break into them!!  Well, since then owners of Yoda Vans get smartasses breaking our doorlocks just for kicks. I swear I'm gonna retrofit the damn thing with Mercedes locks one of these days...I digress. I have never seen that many people at that beach. You have to understand that long beach has a very slight gradient to it, so when the tide is out, the beach is massive. Like a plain of sand. And on this oversized soccer pitch there were clusters of people. Most obvious were the globs of surfers with their rental wetsuits and soft top longboards. Two kinds, there...gaggles of girls on a surf school adventure, sometimes with a few lanky emo boys in tow. They decorate their cars and play hopscotch or volleyball on the beach. The other kind is groups of redneck hockey boys who have, for a brief moment, forayed into the world of waves and home grown spirituality. The only part of it they get is the home-grown, and they sit in circles smoking in their wetsuits. None of them really surf. There are also locals and real surfers surfing, but they are in the water, not on the beach. They look at the posers and head straight for the water. Thus they become part of the water culture and the parking lot culture, but really regard the beach as an obstacle between themselves and the waves. On a busy day at Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, thousands of tourists that are NOT surfing or bodyboarding show up. Most of them in bathing suits even though they do not enter the water past their ankles. Knees if they are brave, though they laugh and point at kooks like me swimming without a wetsuit. But there was something that I realized when I was there. Beaches are for kids. Adults who are adults and have embraced being an adult do not belong on the beach. Watching kids on the beach is like seeing your pets with a box. Somehow, they can eke every fun part out naturally...running full tilt with a stick dragging it in the sand. Sitting in the shallow waves and ducking each one. Sand constructions and drip castles. Forts. Even skimboarding. Kids absolutely belong on the beach, and it speaks to the most elemental part of them. Unless an adult has a specific activity that requires the beach, they really have no idea how to enjoy themselves. What I saw on the beach really divided the beach-going adults into three types. (Yeah, I love classification...I should have gone into taxonomy or cladistics) The local adults we can lump and dismiss...they see the beach everyday, and to them it is a resource. Generally they are on their daily walk, or bike, or using the beach as a way to get home/work. They are cruising, and barely have time to favour you with a smile. Generally recognizable by deep tans, dogs, and a well-used look to their clothes (but not scruffy!) The next group is tourists who have travelled a really long way to be here...Germans, Japanese, Italians, Koreans, Chinese, or Mexican tourists. They feel the need to exploit the beach, and are DOING something...trying to fly a kite, making human pyramids (truly funny to watch), beachcombing, taking panoramic mosaic shots of the beach, videotaping, whatever. They are generally in family groups or tour groups, and they are happy and behaving like....well, like kids. They are there to be on the beach....they chose to go to the beach instead of the botanical garden or the golf course. The last group are the ones that kill me. They are the short-haul tourists. They drove here from their home. The vast majority are from Vancouver and Victoria or even from Alberta and Washington State. They have driven hours and hours with this destination in mind. They said "let's go to Long Beach," and packed their minivan or SUV or BMW with stuff, and made the long highway trip to the beach. THIS beach. And when they arrive, with their hotel booked and their park pass paid, they seem to expect something. They march out onto the beach, and survey the land...usually they will remark on how beautiful it is, followed by a complaint about the number of people. If it is deserted..."there are no people! Where is everybody??!?" If it has anyone on it, there are too many. They take a picture that they will later delete off their camera when they discover how boring a picture it is. Then they are at a total loss. They simply cannot let that kid part loose to enjoy the new environment. Not wanting to abandon their comfortable car (it is subconcious, they would bristle if you were to suggest it) they stray very little down the miles-long-beach. They walk in circles and kick the sand. Then they sit for ten minutes before they realize the sand is bothering them by blowing in their eyes and it really isn't as warm as they thought it would be. And then they leave. I have to admit I often arrive at the beach as an adult. It sometimes takes me a good half hour to relax and begin to see the possibilities. I think the parents who sit on the beach have the luxury of living vicariously through their children, as they build towers out of crab shells or make collapsing water channels. I suppose many of the adults who have little connection with the silly in themselves populate the resorts, where adult-oriented activities of fine dining, drinking, and cultivated appreciation of natural pulchritude are force-fed into their systems so that they can relax enough to have sex. Is that the cynicism in me speaking? Or am I jealous? Personally, I like the dusty grimy gritty camping expedition where the bulk of your cash goes to gas, and the natural pulchritude is free. Adventure manufactures itself for the adventurous. The food is dusty and requires little preparation. The drinking involves throwing odd things in the fire. And if there is sex to be had it is spontaneous and filled with discomfort like mosquitos and sharp rocks. Or cold. Hey, sorry. Did I say I was an adult back there? Yeah, I am prejudiced...and these fucking mosquito bites itch like hell.