IT AIN'T DISNEY - Feb. 21, 2011

Our family never did anything too extravagant.  We never did a week at Disney or tour the Grand Canyon or anything of that sort.  At around age 5 when we lived in Roanoke, Virginia, I remember piling into the Valiant and riding to Natural Bridge outside Blacksburg.  Once we got there, we discovered there was a charge to actually see the bridge.  I did see an Indian chief on the front porch of the gift shop.  There may have been others inside the gift shop, but we didn’t go inside.  My dad told us at the time, “Next spring we’ll pack a picnic and come back up here.”  At around age 9, we drove the Bel Air one Sunday from our new home in Jacksonville, Florida to the Stephen Foster Memorial on the Suwanee River.  Once we got there, we discovered there was a charge to actually see the memorial.  My dad told us at the time, “Next spring we’ll pack a picnic and come back up here.”  

But I did grow up watching stuff – people mostly.  Almost every Sunday, we would go with my dad to the Pic ‘N Save, a huge discount drug store on Normandy Boulevard.  Those trips always started out the same.  My dad would say, “Let’s go to Pic ‘N Save and browse.”  Browse.  Mostly the only thing we bought there was a box of Hav-A-Tampas.  For Daddy.  My sister and I would just sit and watch the Pic ‘N Save shoppers and smell the popcorn from the popcorn cooker at the front of the store while our dad “browsed.”  But, to this day, I still enjoy just watching folks.  My sister says I’m a voyeur.  I say I’m interested in the human condition.  Hell.  She’s probably right.

To this day I’m not quite sure if the Natural Bridge, Stephen Foster, Pic ‘N Save Sundays were because my dad was a tight wad or because that’s just the way he was.  There wasn’t much money, to be sure.  But he was just kind of that way – never really caring too much about going the whole way.    

During the summers, we spent a great many Sundays at Jacksonville Beach.  The beach was free, but we never spread a blanket or put on our trunks or went for a swim.  And, of course, there were never picnics.  Occasionally we would eat Dairy Queen Brazier Burgers on the boardwalk.  And watch stuff.  Fun stuff.

The boardwalk was raised up above the sand and held into place by a six or seven foot cement retaining wall.  Between the wall and the shoreline were huge chunks of granite, imported from the North Carolina mountains to protect the boardwalk from hurricanes, nor'easters, and normal erosion.  At the same time, folks were allowed to drive and park their cars on the beach.  And, I’m not sure if it was legal at the time, but there was some heavy-duty beer-drinking going on by the beach visitors who drove and parked on the beach.

So as we sometimes ate our Brazier burgers, and as we sometimes ate nothing, we would watch.  Not the people like we did at the Pic ‘N Save.  We watched their cars.  At high tide.  Almost every Sunday we went there, we would see at least one car abandoned by its occupants who had wandered off to a bathroom or to find more brew.  Almost every Sunday those folks would return and try frantically to figure out how to keep the violent high tide waves from slamming, over and over again, their Chevy or Ford or Chrysler against the giant gray rocks.  Some of those folks actually were drunk enough to believe they could stop all of that.  

So it wasn’t Disney or the Grand Canyon.  And there were never Natural Bridge or Stephen Foster picnics.  But man – those boardwalk demolition derbies were something to really remember.

Click HERE to read "Get High" on The Lunar Report.

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Posted by David Moon at 2/21/2011 8:51 AM
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Life humor advice encouragement courage peoplefriends beach jacksonville relationship
 

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