Memories Tuesday

When we were young we spent vacations at the shore -- New Hampshire beaches, where the water was almost always too cold to go swimming, and where it always seemed to be raining, anyway; Rehoboth Beach, in Delaware, where we discovered salt water taffy, and salt and vinegar chips (french fries) and where I saw my first movie-in-a-movie-theatre (Star Wars) ; and our beloved New Jersey shore: Long Beach Island, the scene of so many of my coming-of-age moments. I was, in my own way, very much a Jersey Girl.

When we were really young, and not yet the strong swimmers we would become, but still longing to swim out into the deep, like all children want to the minute their feet hit the sandy beach -- my father would take us one by one, out past the breakers into the stiller waters of the deep, the fall off. We knew then that we couldn't stand if we wanted to, that we were completely dependent on Dad. Under us, around us, behind us -- all the dangers of the unseen, the unfathomable. Sharks. Jellyfish. Undertow. Shipwrecked dead guys that would suddenly come to life and grab your ankle. All of that lay beneath us, and we would float on the surface, both hands on Dad's shoulders, not having to do a single thing except follow him as he swam. Our bodies weightless, the sun on our shoulders, the smell and taste of the ocean everywhere. I have never felt safer and yet more scared, a delicious combination of trust and fear.

What I wouldn't give to let thirty years fall from my life, and become that eight-year-old again, just for one hot summer day.

I love you Dad! You were then -- and still are -- the best father I could ever have wished for.