Have been taught on or near or even by the ocean. From the time I was very small I’ve loved the beach, when I turned 13 my folks had started renting a summer bungalow in Far Rockaway, NY affectionately known as the “working man’s Riviera”. The bungalows were tiny, likely under 500 sq ft, most had 3 separate bedrooms, there was a small kitchen, an equally small living room, a bathroom with all the proper fixtures. It was not the inside that was the draw, it was the front porch and the rocking chairs and the courtyard where 95% of the non sleeping time was spent (and on the occasional brutally humid nights, where you slept as well). The bigger draw was the beach…open ocean, a few hundred yards away up a steep ramp to the boardwalk and down some fairly steep steps to the sand. Most of my years there any day without rain was taken up with somewhere between 8 and 12 hours on the beach and many of those hours in the water. Swimming, body surfing, eventually real surfing, touch (really tackle) football, and as we reached the magic 18, Colt 45 cans, Vodka and Fresca, and eventually some incredibly cheap (but potent) tequila. After a day on the sand, most early evenings were spent playing two hours of incredibly competitive paddle ball, followed by dinner (the working parents usually arrived home while we were playing paddle ball and dinner was almost always ready upon our return, of course we used the outdoor showers first to wash away the sand and sweat. Post dinner usually meant gathering on one porch or another, in the delightful rocking chairs, listening to music playing cards, sipping more beverages: “who needs coffee,?” my mother always used to ask when the venue was our porch (it was always a moveable feast),  thinking that would immediately sober us up [always a polite decline from everyone]. 9 pm always marked daily Fireworks from Playland about 60 blocks up the boardwalk, but visible up and down it’s entire length. More beverages, stories, philosophical exchanges while we tried to answer the question “Why the Universe?”  Now that we also all had cars, we would inevitably head out to Friendly’s for a Fribble  and fries (we were, after all, growing boys who had spent 8-12 hours of reasonably strenuous activity), and later on, some evenings would wrap up with some herbal treats, always stashed as the local constables came by (always making sure they signaled their approach well in advance <wink, wink>). As we got a bit older, we would then decide, mostly after midnight, to body surf backwards to look at the sky as we were being pounded by the waves [the idiocy of the immortal youth…though when Jaws came out we did stop that practice….for about a week….] Each day was a glorious reproduction of the previous day and it went on from mid June till the sorry of Labor Day when we all packed up and headed home for the winter. When we were driving, we would begin spending weekends from Mid May till the close of school so it got even better…though some nights were damn cold (there was no heat of any kind).

By now, you must be wondering about the title…well, I learned a lot during those times, more, I think, thank I ever learned in formal education. I learned to be self sufficient, I learned to deal with weather interruptions, I learned to be reliable since all our working parents left us in basically our own care and we cared for those younger. I learned to trust the ocean, to not be afraid of it, but at the same time to deeply respect its power and ferocity (well, not after midnight necessarily while in an altered state). I learned to look forward to what I enjoyed but to not hide from change. I learned to compete against and with people who were far better than I was at certain sports, but I also learned that the only way to get better was to play against those who were better. I learned that no matter how many times you fall off the board or off a wave that there will always be another and it’s not how many times you fall it’s how quickly you get back up. I learned that disappointment is something that’s going to happen. I learned that while I was not the luckiest guy on the beach with the girls, I was still ok and that at some point as Shirley Silverman always said “there’s a cover for every pot” and I’d find mine. Mostly what I learned was that there is nothing more soothing, restorative, uplifting, than the feel and smell of salt water and the sound of the ocean. 55 years up the line that’s still how I feel, I was lucky to have learned those lessons, to have had those experiences and they have been very helpful not only these past months, but in the past days…

While I’ve not been to the shore yet this year, I can state without any hesitation: “The cure for anything is salt water” That is the lesson I learned then, and a lesson I’ve never forgotten