Golden Sands of Childhood

Created during the Ice Age, Cape Cod is our summer home. The flexed-arm shaped peninsula that juts out of the state of Massachusetts is a remnant of the retreat of the Lauren-tide Glacier. At the clenched hand of this arm the glacier left a wondrous beach area known as Race Point, a part of the Cape Cod National Seashore.

There are miles of golden sand and blue-green surf separated from the urban life of Provincetown by majestic sand dunes, with grass covered tresses and secret buried treasures. The golden sand is like an ancient chest filled with coins, brand new shiny ones and old, rusted ones; ink depleted tourist trap pens and brilliantly reflective sea glass; shells, rocks, and unique artisan jewelry from the local shops, items abandoned by beach goers that are ours to keep. "Finders keepers, losers weepers." Treasures. We are the pirates of Race Point, our Discovery Island.

Just after sunrise, while riding our bikes, we see two women making out in a clearing adjacent to the gray, cement winding path. They were spralled on a blanket, kissing and holding each other tightly. Like boyfriend and girlfriend. They stop when they see us. We ache to go home and question our mom about boyfriends and girlfriends…and girlfriends. But tell? No way! We'll never forget how vigorously she protested last year when the teacher suggested we read "Heather has Two Mommies."

Our first "health ed" class will surely unravel all the mysteries our parents are hesitant to explain. Or perhaps when cousin Andrew babysits on Saturday night, we will feign being tucked in bed yet sneak quietly down the stairs, spying on whoever comes over to snuggle with him on the leather sofa in the den, under the knitted red throw with the giant painted lighthouse. Sometimes it’s a girl and sometimes ...it’s a boy.

We ride very carefully on the ocean-side bike path. There are broken clam shells everywhere; purple and white swirled daggers planted there like land mines by rapacious seagulls. Seagulls like we draw in every art class when we are asked to conjure up a nature scene. Seagulls are so handsome on the outside, so integral to the beach milieu, with their pale orange beaks and whiter-than-white feathers; their vocalizations as synchronous to the beach as the cool refreshing air. But seagulls are like gangs. They descend upon unsuspecting clams lying in the water, whisking them away. The silly clams think they are lucky, chosen for some grand adventure only to be dropped on the hard cement, forced open by the impact, so the seagulls can pick at them and taunt them like bullies who steal lunch. We pick up the few shells that miraculously survive the seagulls assault unshattered, to take home and paint. We bring them to the water for rinsing and a partially eaten clam wobbles out! Did it move? Was it still living? One of our group grabs the mollusk and smashes it between two buckets to put it “out of its misery." With the largest bucket, we construct a sandcastle and bury the euthanized clam in a flimsy rounded pyramid sans immortality. Clams aren't as important as humans anyway. It is their destiny to be killed by predators. It’s nature's law.

The oldest woman in the world scares us more than toys "made in China". She wobbles down from her dune shack supported by a brown wooden cane, in her green printed head scarf and drab stretchy clothes to feed the seagulls stale breadcrumbs. As junior rangers, we are supposed to warn people about feeding the wild animals. Processed food is not good for them as the seagulls are born to hunt and kill clams, not gobble bread crumbs or french fries from the beat up Lobster Shack down the road. But we are not going to admonish her today because she smells. She lives in the dune shack that has no running water or electricity. In English class, we learned that those shacks had literary significance. Famous writers we will study in the future hibernated in those shacks to refine their craft; Eugene Oneill, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer. Maybe the old lady is really some sun-shriveled, wilted famous writer of horror stories.

We bury a letter addressed to "the people of China", which implores them to stop using lead in making toys. Our mom already confiscated our Polly Pocket Spa and some other Chinese made toys that weren't even on the danger list. We dig the hole deeper and deeper until the shortest of our group can stand in it without being seen. The note is carefully lain down and held in place by a pretty piece of green sea-glass before the hole is meticulously filled back up with the golden sand. We mark the spot with a black oval rock the size of a baseball. We surmise the note will take twelve months to descend enough, via the shifting plates within the earth's crust, to reach China below us. We shiver with excitement at the thought of coming back next summer to see if our note is answered; for it ends with the simple salutation of a pen-pal, Please write back. We have questions.