An Introduction

“Al, meet the ocean. Ocean, this is Al.”

Well before I spent half my adulthood down the Jersey shore, I was introduced to the ocean at a very early age.

Before my parents married, my father was a lifeguard. That’s where my love of the ocean comes from.

It’s in my blood. Salt water runs through my veins.

As a child, my family would spend our beach days at Riis Park in Queens, NY.

Who even knew there was a beach in Queens?

Back then, I didn’t even know what Queens was.

My memories of those beach trips are like flash cards in my mind.

On these day trips, my mother would pack sandwiches for our lunch: Progresso Italian tuna packed in olive oil on white Wonder Bread, mixed with mayonnaise.

(Side note: Years later, my mother switched from Hellmann’s mayonnaise to Miracle Whip for a time, and I couldn’t eat tuna again for a year.)

Back to the sandwich.

I clearly remember my mother pulling the sandwich from the bag, unwrapping the wax paper (the sandwich cut into four squares), and handing one to me.

Two things stood out about that sandwich.

One was that the oil from the tuna soaked into the Wonder Bread and changed the color from white to a dull yellow.

And two, during the short trip from the lunch bag to my hand, somehow sand got into my sandwich. It would crunch against my teeth when I took a bite.

The other flash memory was how each day trip ended, when my mother changed my clothes. She would wrap me in a towel, pull off my wet swimsuit, and replace it with dry clothes.

Did I mention this was in the middle of the beach, surrounded by hundreds of sun worshiping strangers?

Well, it was.

There is, however, one memory I can still run in my mind like an 8-millimeter home movie.

My dad would take the three of us (my brother, my sister, and me) out about knee-deep (his knees, not ours) into the water. We’d hang off him when a wave came by and lifted us up.

One time, when the ocean was calm, I trekked back to shore. It wasn’t far, but I guess my little legs could not outrun the wave that stalked me.

One minute I was looking at the shoreline, and the next I was under water.

The stalking wave slapped my back, and my world immediately changed. I was tossed about like a sock in the dryer. There was no up or down, just round and round. I was surrounded by white foam, and oddly, I could still breathe inside the wave.

Before all was lost, my dad’s hand cut through the foam and pulled me up into the air.

He put me back on the safety of the dry sand, and I ran back to my mother.

I was young, but I learned one thing that day:

Never turn your back on the ocean.

As for my dad, once I was back with my mother, he turned around and ran back into the sea.

Once a lifeguard, always a lifeguard.