Anticipation...

The parking lot at Ballston Beach is wide open but for one truck.  Sand spills out onto the pavement. Tiny laminated signs are stapled to fencing, poking up through the dunes, pleading with walkers to protect the fragile grass and monarch butterflies.

The timpani of the ocean on the other side quickens my pace over the windswept path to the great horizon, outlined by the changing turbulent color of the sea.  It is a vast and amazing site that never ceases to stun me with gratitude. 

I have not been on this beach since I was a young teenager. We loved the surf here, higher than any we had ever jumped around in before, toes grazing the ocean floor while the swell carried you high and deposited you three feet from your spot, pre-boogie board style.

The water remained about a foot high during the low tides, and we would lie down on your belly closer to shore, leaning on elbows or crawl out, catching the waves as they rumbled in, rolling down through the dips in the ocean floor every six feet or so, causing a diminishing effect before breaking up entirely on the shore line. 

The serenity of the solitary shore was a siren’s call to which the ocean responded moodily.  High tide was four hours away, but waves were tumbling in with the tide, faster and more ferocious than on other parts of the National Seashore.  This is what made Ballston one of our favorites, the unpredictable Mother Nature, the reason our parents warned us before going into the water “Respect the ocean… and watch the undertow”.

It was on this beach that the ancestors of these waves carried my brother Phil away.  He was just eight years old that June, the youngest in the crowd of children packed into the Volvo.  When we finally heard my sister say, “Where’s Phil?” my friend stood up from our little tidal pool, shaded her eyes and pointed out towards the sun.  His head was bobbing out there. Way, way out there. We cupped our hands together and yelled his name, but I don’t think he would have been able to hear us.

My older brother Frank and his friend Paul orchestrated a rescue, first running in the water as fast as they could and then hurling themselves into the swells, badly butterflying their way towards Phil. I think Mark Spitz was still quite popular then, as was his signature stroke.

It was low tide after all, but getting past that first round of waves was a heroic feat. After that, the three of them walked in to shore where we stood in a line watching. Our family friend, aptly named BIG JIM for his enormous size, puffed on his Newport 100s nervously and shouted at all of us. No one was exempt.   Big Jim & Mary were old family friends visiting us from Harrisburg, PA.  I don’t know how Jim drew the short straw, but he was here, looking after all of us on his own. We were nine children total, ranging in age from 8 to 16. 

For his own four, it was their first time ever to the ocean. By the time Frank, Paul and Phil hit beach, Jim shouted, “Don’t you ever do that again! Ever!” his voice boomed out, and he practically hurled us toward the car. Afternoon over.

That night, the four adults stood admonishing us, Jim with the threat of his belt, stomping up and down the stairs to show us just how upset he was. "I’m going to get the belt if that EVER happens again". At some point, my mother and Mary started laughing, covered their mouths, and slunk into the kitchen, leaving us kids crowded on the beaten up couch with my father and Jim pointing fingers, sweating and threatening “The Belt”.

At breakfast the next day, my mother sternly said to anyone who was in listening distance, “You will not take your eyes off of your father or Big Jim. You will not go out over your waist. You will hold on to your younger brother’s hand”.

But despite these explicit instructions and the threat of Jim’s enormous belt, Philip was swept out again.  That was the last time we came to Ballston… ever. 

I'm trying to remember where exactly we were, where the blanket and cooler of Schlitz was laid out, but it was over thirty years ago, and I cannot recall the spot. I only remember seeing Phil's head and his little hand waving at us, off on his seaward adventure.

There is no treasure to be found today, with the exception of a broken piece of a brown Labatt’s bottle and the shell of a Mylar balloon. The glass I toss back into the ocean. It is not soft and sanded down enough for a proper sea glass find. There, by the balloon trapped in the sand, small footprints lead off the beach, towards the high house on the northern side of the parking lot. A small voice is tossed down by the breeze as if to match the prints.

The beach is almost naked. No footprints save the child’s, no rocks, stones or shells either, just soft warm sand and high cliffs sheltering nesting plovers who quickly fly back and forth over the water, darting into invisible habitats. 

On the highest cliff, men are taking off the shutters of a house facing the southeast. It is the last week of April, and people are starting to open their houses for the summer. Restaurants, hotels, cabins, campgrounds and shops are all prepping for May 1st, with new coats of paint and annuals spilling out of wine cask planters. 

May, I believe, marks the beginning of the season. The temperature has dropped again to 50 degrees, but the sun belies the cold front, and the light has changed accordingly to an early summer sky, with a twilight stretching out past the eight o’clock hour. 

The depressions in the beach had changed during our walk, and natural berms were beginning to catch the tail end of the white foam before it stripped back to the sea.  The clouds were like a cartoon train has puffed them out.   You're always on a curve on the ocean side of Cape Cod, there is a mystery around the corner, and each beach is different, has it's own personality.