once upon a time...

Once upon a time…

There was a ramp attached to these pilings that this eagle now sits upon. Attached to the boat ramp, was a boat house that thrived. Hundreds of patrons a day visited this boat house and bought bait, rented boats, stocked up on supplies for hours or days upon the water. I spent 18 years of my life with my grandfather and family frequenting this boat house and walked the boards that made up the ramp that floated upon the water here.

At the other end of the beach was another boat house. The same activity occurred there as well. But not now.

Now, there is decay and damage from numerous storms of the recent past. Now, instead of lines of cars to visit, there are lines that say “do not cross: condemned property”. Since my childhood, families have left. There is little life on the beach now. Now, people have gobbled up this prime real estate and put up new homes with signs that say “private property’ and you have to scurry along past their property and piercing eyes if you linger too long.

The innocence of this beach is gone. The people that made this beach what it was in the past are gone—just like the boat ramp that was here not so long ago. There used to be continual beach fires in the evenings. Fireworks used to boom and blast throughout the year and seasons. Children played, laughed, dug holes, built sand castles, etc. No, not now. Greed has taken over.

I spent an entire day on this beach of my past. I looked right and left and saw no one. The laughter of my father, Sara, my grandparents and myself seemed to echo along the water. Boats no longer pass continually from East to West. There are hardly any more boats attached to the buoys along the shoreline as well.

Instead of enjoy this perfect piece of real estate, we as a whole want to own it. We want to call it ours. We want to look at the water, say we own the view and the piece of it—yet we forget to get sand between our toes. We forget to savor the salt water, walk on the tidal flats, hit rocks with a stick into the water. We just want to own things—we neglect to enjoy them.

Sometimes I get so mad at society and us as people. We take our kids for granted, our spouses, our short time on this planet, and in general—this planet. We never seem to be happy with what we have even though the only thing we can and will take with us in the end is only the memories of our time on this planet. We neglect the planet and our surroundings and are not leaving anything for our kids.

Things come and go in this world. And although the boat house and ramp are gone, the pilings still create for the perfect perch for this eagle and his/her mate. I have the memories and no longer need the boat house to sustain those memories. I just hope we are aware of our world in whole and that we leave something for our children to enjoy just as I enjoyed this beach and that boat house for 18 years.