Stereotypes at the Beach

I had no beach to enjoy when I was growing up in the Indiana.  I continue to be surprised on hazy, humid days like we've had for a couple of weeks now, that sitting on the sand beside the ocean can be wonderfully refreshing.  Last week I enjoyed it too much without sun screen and got some burn.  Today I was prepared and no burn. Both times we watched a wind surfer, some distance out on the water.  It looks like so much fun although we both know we couldn't do it.  The person was very good, never took a spill, rode the moderate waves expertly; lovely to watch. 

Today the surf was fairly strong although yesterday when I walked by the beach it was a gentle rolling, almost quiet lapping. Rachel and I decided to walk beyond the public beach at the water's edge which is public although the houses beyond the public beach had exclusive right to the sandy area.  Great clumps of seaweed was being deposited by the surf, and a short distance down the beach a family seemed utterly uninterested as an very intent German shepherd  dug a hole that looked like he was  planning to dig all the way to China.  Further on we saw the wind surfer sitting with his back to us fixing something on the sail.  We had assumed the surfer was a young guy, maybe a teen, maybe early twenties.  We were wrong; he was a balding man probably in his forties or fifties (we couldn't see his face).   Another sterotype hits the dust -- or sand.  Then I remembered that a man who owned a company I worked for was an ardent wind surfer in his forties, perhaps he still is as he's pushing sixty.  The surfer, of course, might have turned out to be a woman -- time to think in politically correct terms.