MMTT4S - Hurricane Coping Advice, Part 1

Today is the official first day of summer, my favorite time of year. Maybe I'll have a chance to discuss some of the many reasons why I do so enjoy summertime at some point, but today I'm blowing dark clouds into our bright, sunny skies. Massive storm clouds all gathered up, looming, and rotating. Without further ado, I bid you...

Happy Hurricane Season!

From June 1st to November 30th, eastern and southern U.S. coastal residents have the great pleasure of existing in the official Atlantic Hurricane Season. For those who live or have property along the Eastern Seaboard or along the Gulf Coast, this time of year can be unnerving on occasion. Anxiety levels rise and fall like the tides. A watchful eye is subconsciously and intermittently kept on forecasts.

Image courtesy of www.nhc.noaa.gov

I remember listening to my grandfather's NOAA weather radio when we summered at his house, the Surf Pearl, in Surfside, SC.  Pappy, tan and shirtless, would sit at his spot at the dinner table and check the forecast regularly, and if a tropical depression formed out in the Atlantic, he'd bring out the tracking charts, pencils and rulers. Whenever that happened, I remember being scared and excited at the same time, and thinking, "This is pretty cool." It was cool...until we were chased inland and our summertime quarters declared off-limits. I recall helping my dad board up windows, affix a giant "x" with tape across sliding glass doors, and secure everything we could find that might get loose. Then we'd quickly pack up and head west, back to our ho-hum habitat away from the beach. It's a part of life on the coast.

Nowadays, technology has taken the "fun" out of tracking hurricanes. In the name of convenience and progress, all the work is done for us. No charts, pencils, rulers required. A battery-operated weather radio is still a smart possession, though. While I'm sure we're safer today, and damage and loss has been greatly reduced because of better technology, my child-like wonder and thrill has taken a hit. I felt like I was doing something back then, like I was a part of the process. Now, I just react to experts, trusting their research and predictions.

Dealing with the aftermath of destruction, in this case from hurricanes, can be tricky. Catastrophe can cause hopelessness, despair, anger, sorrow, pain. Do you mourn? Cry? Throw blame around? Give up? Pray? Curse? Do you relocate or rebuild? Do you lend a hand or take care of your own? It's difficult to know unless you experience it firsthand.

Image Courtesy of www.nnvl.noaa.gov

Jimmy Buffett offered up a song after Katrina devastated south Florida and Louisiana's Gulf Coast back in August of 2005. The catastrophic category 5 hurricane left a wake of death and destruction in its path. Homes, businesses, and lives were taken. Some areas simply washed away. When the nation struggled dealing with the devastation, Buffett sang his advice for coping in "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On."


I love this song. It's not one you'd hear in concert; It would be quite out of place accompanying a sea of sunburned, grass-skirt adorned, pain-free partyers bouncing beach balls and dropping in and out of makeshift conga lines. That's fine with me. While I do enjoy Buffett's standards, his "Songs You Know By Heart," many of my favorites are his more obscure, less anthemic offerings. This is one of those songs and it can be found on the album Take the Weather With You.

Basically, as the title suggests, Jimmy reminds us to not live in the past - it's "dead and gone," and instead, to live in the present. He introduces his idea with a clever anecdote about buying a watch that seemingly doesn't work. Surely he was duped. After all, it has no "numbers or moving hands." It only says "Now." He realizes that "this watch is never wrong," though, and it serves him well when considering how and when to move on - "the time is now." After all, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. To complete his counsel on handling tragedy, he suggests not trying to explain or shake it, but rather "nod your head," "bow your head," "breathe in, breathe out, move on."

Image courtesy of noobpreneur.com

I'm reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies, Castaway, in which Tom Hanks' character, Chuck Noland, describes his mindset after thinking he'd never see the love of his life again because he was shipwrecked on a deserted island, only to defy the odds to return home and find that he'd lost her all over again to another man. All alone on that island and learning he controlled nothing, he discovered that he simply had to stay alive, to keep breathing - and that is what he must continue doing after coming home and losing his girl all over again. He says he must "keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"

Truth.

Not bad advice, if you ask me.

If this is just a little too somber for your summer mood, we'll look at another option at dealing with hurricanes next time. Until then...breathe in, breathe out, move on.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

Kooky Over Heller's Book

My gypsy soul has yet again been awakened, set ablaze by a kindred spirit, calling me to break free of my quiet, veiled desperation, and to live extraordinarily. Rare is the book that so stirs the soul in such a way as this. For me, Peter Heller’s book Kook has powerfully and eloquently done just that.  

image courtesy of: http://www.peterheller.net

The narration is hilariously human and the writing is superb. The English teacher in me soon got past the (stylistically intentional) sentence fragments, and floated along on the beautifully refreshing current of language that courses throughout the book – flowing when appropriate, concise when necessary, and raw when applicable.

I was swallowed immediately by the story’s premise.

Situations and relationships convince the author to grow from “kook,” a surfers’ term for pathetic beginner - a level of proficiency many never surpass, to expert in less than a year’s span. The renowned adventure travel writer’s trek takes him from Denver to California and then southward down Mexico’s ever-changing shoreline. Friends old and new, become mentors, guiding Heller along his odyssey, introducing him to swells up and down the coast, and imparting their own brands of wisdom about surfing and life.

While some of his encounters seem beyond belief (roughhousing with a juvenile sea lion, witnessing a boulder of a man create his own wave and surf it…backwards…and on his head), Heller is real. He gets rolled, wipes out, and gloriously glides his way through an unforgettable adventure of love, self-realization, and surfing. Like me, he is both cognizant and ignorant of his own faults, awkwardly paddling through screw-ups and recoveries, to the very last page. Yet, somehow, like a tragic hero who is unaware of his tragic role, he succeeds. He wins. It’s certainly no blowout victory, but it leaves the reader with a prideful, knowing smile, and an ignited passion for knowledge, adventure, and love. And with a desire to read more of his works.

Thank you, Peter Heller, for giving me - a 49 year-old, briny-blooded kook and aspiring writer, who has a knack to wander at times - hope, a renewed spirit, and a beautiful read. And thanks to my brother, Keith, a fellow kook, who is much closer to surfing his way out of kookdom than I, for recommending and letting me borrow his copy.

Check it out here!

Rants from the Coastal Curmudgeon

The items that hold a higher ranking than “being at the beach” on my list of Things I Enjoy Most are few and, well, generally inappropriate for this blog. Suffice to say, though, that by adding “at the beach” to any of those same items thrusts them upward to a nearly incomprehensible level of enjoyment. It’s a true best-of-both-worlds situation for me. Reminds me of the Jimmy Buffett tune Smart Woman in a Real Short Skirt. No – more like sitting on a beach with my smart woman in a real short skirt listening to Jimmy Buffett sing the song by the same name. Wait…it’s really more like hanging out with my smart woman in a real short skirt and Jimmy on a South Pacific beach after a surfing session, playing guitars and singing Smart Woman in a Real Short Skirt. Oh, and Bob Marley is there. You get the picture.

Needless to say, there are very few things I enjoy more than being at the beach. Were it not for many of those who also travel to the beach, it would be Eden for me. For it is they who, on rare occasion, turn me into the Coastal Curmudgeon, the alias I will assume for this post.

Allow me to expound on these folks who, upon my most recent visit to my beloved Carolina coast, gave me pause to consider the interruptions they inflicted on my otherwise idyllic experience.

First, it is not appropriate nor acceptable to wear loosely laced high tops, baggy butt crack-showing, calf-length shorts, a wife-beater tank top undershirt, and a Major League flat-brimmed ball cap - with the brim at 5:00 - on the beach! It looks ridiculous in the mall. On the sand by the surf? Thoroughly idiotic. Try some board shorts. And if you must wear a shirt, you have options. Think loose and cool, or something with SPF protection. Headwear? Certainly. But keep in mind the words of my wise old grandfather-in-law – “I never seen a hat with the brim sewn on the back.” Oh yeah, trade in the heaps of cologne for a liberal application of sunscreen.

Speaking of apparel, let’s turn our attention to the ladies. Now, like most red-blooded males, I’m all for showing some skin. Bikinis are beautiful. If they fit. If you wear a size 18, don’t squish yourself into a 4. The saying, “If you got it – flaunt it” does not apply to fat, beer guts, rolls or hairy underarms. Is that a double standard? Damn skippy. We can’t pull off the magic you gals are able to create every day. There is a line, though. And I’ve seen some not only cross over that line but douse it in ranch dressing and cheese dip, roll all over it, wrap themselves in it,  try it on as a thong, then crush it underfoot, soak it in lighter fluid, set it ablaze, and eventually travel hundreds of miles past it.

I mentioned hairy underarms being taboo for the ladies. But where has the hair gone for the guys? Now this I kinda understand. If your woman likes a bare chest, then striving to please is not necessarily a bad thing. All I gotta say is it seems like there was a step in the evolutionary process that bypassed me in this area. If not, there is a whole lotta shaving going on. I find it laughable, and maybe a little sad, when I watch a dude go by with a silky smooth front torso and the back of a bear. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Looks silly, fellas. An all-or-nothing approach makes more sense. As for me, I’ll leave the waxing for my longboard.

This next complaint applies to the Garden City/Surfside beaches of South Carolina. If you don’t want to walk when you play golf on one of the Grand Strand’s many pristine golf courses, rent a golf cart. If you’d like to go from your rental house 5 blocks off the beach to the pier 4 miles away, take a road-worthy vehicle! Somehow, these 2 towns have seen it feasible to allow golf carts to travel on their busy streets. To make matters worse, those who drive these little misery-making machines refuse to move to the shoulder to allow the 24-vehicle build-up to pass. It’s as though they consider the streets to have been built for them. Bikers and joggers share the road and use common sense (usually), yielding to those machines made for tar and gravel travel. And many go at a higher rate of speed than the displaced duffers’ wagons. Town councils, can we not restrict golf carts to the secondary roads and require them to move over when safe? In the least, be considerate of those of us behind the wheel of a vehicle that can travel beyond 10 miles per hour. Otherwise, save the carts for use when driving a golf ball, like they were intended, not driving the rest of us slam nuts.

My final pet peeve deals with pets. Dogs are not humans. True, I prefer the friendship of a pooch to that of many a person I’ve known. But, if they are not allowed on a section of beach at certain times of the year, don’t take them out there. I can’t tell you how much I just love sifting through broken conchs, olives, and other assorted shells only to come across a pile of dog poop, in pristine condition, nonetheless. A wet nose of an overly friendly canine in my crotch makes maintaining the altitude of a kite somewhat difficult. Oh, and thanks for slobber-soaking that tennis ball my son and I were trying to toss about.

Mean-spirited? Maybe.

Uncompromising? Most likely.

Politically correct? Never.

You may hate me for what I said.

Haters gonna hate.

 

And Coastal Curmudgeons are gonna be crabby.

 

Be that as it may, I can’t wait to head back to my place in the sand.