Jersey shore
Every now and again I feel the ocean jones. You know what that is? It's what Herman Melville wrote about in the opening chapter of Moby Dick:
"But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand- miles of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?"
I'm no sailor, nor do I ever feel the desire to be one. But I can hardly stand to be land-locked for too long a period of time. I get to feeling like I have to go to the ocean. Not necessarily to swim in it, but to be near it, to hear it, to smell it, to put my feet in it, to taste it, to step in dead jellyfish and pick up stinky horseshoe crabs, to be pooped on by sea-birds... ah yes, the joys of the beach! Well, as the weather is getting warmer and warmer hear in Central PA, I'm feeling that ocean jones. Next week we're taking a couple days off and heading out to the Jersey Shore... no, it's not Cancun, but it's not the trash pile it used to be either. This is going to be quite a project, cramming the whole crew into our "blue bus" and driving 5-6 hours East until our tires get stuck in the sand, but that's what we're fixin' to do, and I'm looking forward to it. My wife's worried that some Greenpeace nuts are going to spot her on the beach and try to roll her back into the water, but I'm hoping to have her fears quelled by next week. I mean, come on, she's not THAT pregnant! ;)
