Cocoa Beach was a great place to be a kid. We lived right on Highway A1A, running up and down the east coast. Dad called it “Sandspur Row”. You couldn’t walk barefoot through the crabgrass without stepping on sandspurs, little round balls with tiny sharp spikes all over them. Even with shoes and socks on, they’d stick to your socks and cuffs. You could blow them through soda straws, though. Some of the older boys did that. Somebody’s mom said you could put somebody’s eye out doing that, but we didn’t worry about it too much. Mac and Barbara Johnston were old friends of my parents and they owned a motel across the highway on the beach side. He also had an MG, which was a pretty big deal. One day their son, Latham, got hit by a car on the highway and they had to put a plate in his head. I thought that was pretty weird. I figured a saucer maybe, but a plate’s kind of big for your head. Later I saw him with the side of his head shaved and a big red scar, and his head did bulge out a little, but it looked more like a saucer – they just called it a plate. After that we had to be real careful crossing the highway. We had to hold hands. Going to the beach was the most fun. My Mom taught me how to swim by throwing me up and catching me in the big waves. The waves would start slow, get big real fast and then crash right on top of you. But my Mom showed me how to slip under the wave, swim through and pop out the other side while the wave crashed onto the beach. Then you had to look out for the next one. Whenever a big one came my Mom would shout, “It’s a lulu!”. The water was glassy green and foamy white and tasted salty and stung your eyes. I could open my eyes under water, but I didn’t like to swallow it. I swallowed quite a bit of it, though. The waves would lift you up so you could see all around and then drop you down on the sand. Instead of walking in the water, you just bounced along the sandy bottom and got lifted up by the waves. Sometimes you’d come down on a horseshoe crab, which was scary, because they could cut your foot. The worst of all was a Portuguese Man o’ War. They were big, yucky, purplish-pink jellyfish that floated around and stung like crazy if you ran into their long tentacles. Even if you found them washed up on the beach they could still sting you. I liked to poke them with a stick if I could find one long enough. They were real squishy. The horseshoe crabs would wash up, too, and if you flipped them over they couldn’t dig into the sand and hide unless they flipped themselves back over using their tail. So then you could break off their sharp tail for a dagger and leave them there to cook to death in the sun. Of course, Linda would flip them back over and they’d get away, but I’d still have the dagger. Late in the day sometimes Mr. Johnston would come down from the motel with a pail and a shovel and a sieve; not little kid’s ones, but real ones, and dig wet sand down by the water’s edge into the sieve and we’d take turns rinsing the sand out of the sieve and then there would be millions of tiny little gray coquina shells. We’d fill up the pail with shells and take them back to the motel and Mrs. Johnston would make soup out of them. When they were boiled they turned pink. It was pretty good soup, I guess. On the other side of our house from the beach was the Banana River. It’s not really a river, but a long, narrow lagoon. My Dad had a little sailboat and he taught me how to sail. If you wanted to go left, you had to push the tiller right and if you wanted to go right, you pushed the tiller left. He would set the sail while I held the tiller, then I’d take the line of the sail while he manned the tiller. Then, he’d let me take the tiller again. You had to be real careful trading places in such a small boat. My Dad tipped us over once, but we didn’t care. It was pretty easy to put it right again. Sailing was fun because you could see porpoises. If you got the wind in your sails, they’d swim along right out in front of you. They always seemed to be able to swim just a little bit faster than the boat. My Dad said they were riding the bow wave. It was fun to watch the pelicans and herons fishing, too. They had completely different fishing styles. The pelican would do a kind of belly-flop in the water and come up with a fish in its pouch. The heron would stalk the shallows on his long legs, peering into the water and then stab a fish with his long, sharp bill. You couldn’t get too close to the heron, but the pelican would sometimes flop down right next to you in the water and scare the livin’ bejeezus out of you!
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 08:56:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015