It’s just crazy to tempt fate in the name of summer fun

It’s just crazy to tempt fate in the name of summer fun
                        

The ocean can kill you in so many ways. You could get sucked out to sea in a rip current. You could get stung by a jellyfish. You could get struck by lightning. You could get bitten in half by a shark. You could get smashed against a pier, a jetty or the sandy bottom. You could get washed out by a 12-foot-high rogue wave.

When I think about it, it’s just crazy to tempt fate in the name of summer fun, and yet folks back home in Ohio are busy planning vacations that will involve trips to the ocean, and that’s the way it’s always been.

Beaches are the busiest places on the coast now and will stay that way until well after Labor Day. Humans are drawn to the salty expanse like moths to fire, and it makes about as much sense.

Consider pitching a tent on the slope of an active volcano or paddling a canoe to the lip of Niagara Falls and letting gravity carry you down, down, down to your doom.

There are splashier ways to commit suicide, I suppose.

I’ve always ranked the way Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in the streets of Saigon as the best; I mean self-immolation as a means of protesting the South Vietnamese government’s clampdown on religious freedom is a tough act to follow.

What strikes me when I study the footage is the way those martyrs didn’t move a muscle as the flames consumed them. That took serious dedication. I flinch when a stray ember flies from the fire pit or I drop a nearly spent match near my sneakers.

But let’s get back to the beach. My wife and I have collected them like charms on a bracelet, having spent vacation time on Atlantic shores from Bar Harbor to Key West. True, we haven’t hit the Pacific yet, but we will. That’s what retirement’s all about, if I ever get there.

Speaking of survival skills, she and I were talking about this summer’s prospects and the likelihood that we would even venture very far into the ocean.

When your combined ages exceed Abraham Lincoln’s “four score and seven” by nearly half a century, it’s time to take stock and consider the wisdom of challenging the angry surf with nothing more than a Styrofoam boogie board and a broad smile.

“You could die out there,” my wife said.

“So could you,” I replied.

“No,” she said, “you’d save me.”

The dear girl, but she’s right.

The ocean is a threat, even when it’s a soothing presence. The smartest way to mitigate its endlessly punitive potential is to simply stay out of it, kind of like the lesson that Joshua, the computer in “War Games,” learns while trying to master tic-tac-toe. After running through thousands of permutation in a eye-dizzying montage, the machine says, “Strange game. The only way to win is not to play.”

And that’s one way of looking at the ocean. But there are others, and the thing they have in common is, well, common sense.

I love the ocean, but I survive with a healthy fear of it. We’re getting to the point in our lives that riding the waves for 15 or 20 minutes is more than enough to cool off and to slosh shore safely. The undertow can be a deceptive witch, and with rips you can find yourself in over your head — literally — in a matter of seconds.

That’s a scary thing for me because the tendency is to panic. I stand 6-5, and part of my responsibility is to make sure that my feet are always touching the sand. When they don’t and I see a line of waves heading in, I take my wife’s hand (or her boogie board) and start swimming swiftly, trying to frighten her.

Once I can touch again, I can usually laugh about it, but there’s always that niggling “what if” question lurking on the edge of my mind.

Most beaches down here have no lifeguards, and let’s face it: In the time it takes to drown, they might not have been able to react.

You may have read or heard about the 4-year-old boy who was swept out to sea as he and his mother walked along the shore at Kitty Hawk, not far, it turns out, from where my wife and I were married.

They were just strolling along, having fun and enjoying the beach, when a rogue wave crashed ashore, knocking them both down and putting them in the “suck zone,” that swirling maelstrom where the tide meets the undertow.

It can be very disorienting. Anyway, the mom regained her footing, but when she looked around for her son, it was too late. He was gone.

I can’t imagine that kind of pain. So take heed, faithful readers, and remember this: The ocean has no memory, and it does not care.

Mike Dewey can be emailed at CarolinemikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page.


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