Yesterday evening until dark, I sat with a book out on the beach as the tide was slowly going out, feeling a steady sea breeze, and taking time every now and then to really smell the fresh salt air off the ocean. I’d also take in bits and pieces of memories of the past with each draught of that air. Every time it was like a catalyst, a little doorway opening up to the past, however briefly and fleetingly.
I could see myself on a hot summer day when I was young, lying on the sand on a towel, wet from a swim in the ocean, feeling clean and fresh and troublefree. A dip in the ocean will do that to you. Also, I could picture myself taking a long walk to the cove by the lighthouse, breathing deeply of that same air just as I was doing last night as twilight approached.
In our 1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88, on the long trips from New Orleans to Folly Beach, SC, I would be daydreaming in the back seat, looking far out to sea and imagining the Carribbean, and a ship in the middle of the ocean, and what it would be like to be out there under the stars at night, under the influence of those tradewinds that I also imagined would be blowing steadily that night and cooling us as we soaked up the summer sun, admired our newly forming tans, and felt as carefree as we dreamed about on the way there.
On those long car trips, in addition to daydreaming and yearning to reach our beach destination, I’d always like to look out the window at the motels and motor courts we’d pass along the highway and in various towns and small cities at strategic tourist stopover points in the days before the interstates. Those were the motels that used to be so distinct and truly had character and personality. You know what I mean.
And it seems to me there was invariably one motel in the middle of Georgia or Alabama that was named The Tradewinds. And, since from an early age I used to pore over pictures of tropical islands and beaches in the Carribbean and Pacific, read about those faraway places, collect their stamps, and study maps in the encyclopedia, I knew, or thought I knew, what tradewinds were. They represented adventure, ocean travel, palm-studded beaches and turquoise water, so clear and exquisitely blue.
And so whenever I would see a Tradewinds Motel, I just knew it wouldn’t be long before we were at the beach — the whole family, Mom and Dad, me, my younger sister and brother, and my aunts. We would at last be spending a week of summer vacation bliss at our special paradise at the edge of the Atlantic.
Now, sitting there contemplatively, at the same spot 30 years later, time was as nothing. I was comfortably numb. Not happy, but not too sad, kind of in-between, pensive. All I know for sure is that in that brief interlude when I was sitting in my chair, I forgot all the horrible news of the day just ending. The negativity evaporated away like water that is left on a desert playa, and which disappears into the shimmering desert heat. Gone from my field of worry and anxiety, for the moment.
Online journal entry written on August 7, 1999
Updated on February 21, 2026
I’ve gone back and added some more details and memories to this journal essay. It’s now 56 years after the events of the vacation trips to the beach of my youth as described above with fond remembrance.
It is now the very beginning of Spring 2026. I still sit out on the beach, but not nearly as much I could considering I live only 10 miles away.
I’m almost 75, and I’ve lost most of my sense of smell and taste. I still breathe deeply of the fresh salt air blowing off the ocean, whenever I’m out there and remember to do so, especially near sunset when the wind often picks up. For old time’s sake, anyway because I can’t detect the unique salt air smell I used to love. In fact, I can only vaguely even remember it. Memories are all I have of when I was young, summer-tanned, and full of exciting thoughts about the endless present and future.
However, I don’t get too sad about lost youth anymore because I’m so far past those days of youth and middle age, of decades of work and looking for work, of success and failure. I have the luxury now of reminiscing about all of my life since it’s not too far from being over. You know this for sure when you finally get busy and update your will, as I did this past week.
Additionally, I don’t feel anything as intensely as I did when I was younger. That’s both a blessing and a curse, because when I walk on the beach now I enjoy it, and am deeply grateful for the opportunity to be there, but I don’t excitedly revel in the beauty and awesomeness of that vast ocean before me, extending out to the far horizon, and the powerful waves providing a sonorous, thundering backdrop as they crash ashore, full of the power and majesty I’ll always remember.
Life lived is now life appreciated with the accumulated wisdom of decades of being on this Earth, and surviving until now.
At the same time, since it’s been almost ten years since I retired from my job and career of 21 years, I have had a lot of fast-moving time to devote to thinking, writing and doing my photography books and projects. Life is as good as our thoughts make it. In old age, that’s a powerful lesson to have learned and put into practice.
Me at the beach in 1968, trying to act like I didn’t feel the sunburn on my back and shoulders.
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