When I read that this week’s photo challenge was water, I didn’t spend a minute wondering where I would get my pictures. Living here in Virginia Beach, water is all around us. Hope you enjoy.
Sunrise over Virginia Beach. I use this as my blog header, but here is the full picture.
Flock seen from under a Virginia Beach fishing pier.
Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia Beach. Very peaceful place.
When I was a child, one of my favorite books was Maguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague.
Where Marguerite Henry wrote Misty of Chincoteague
It is about the wild ponies on Assateague Island and how the volunteer firemen in Chincoteague swim them across a small channel and herd them through town to auction some of them off every July in an event called Pony Penning. The purpose is to thin the herd and keep it healthy, and thousands of people inundate the tiny town of Chincoteague, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, to watch the affair and enjoy the festivities that follow.
Ever since I read that story when I was eight, I wanted to go to Pony Penning, but we lived in Connecticut, and Virginia seemed so very far away, I didn’t think I would ever get there. We moved to Philadelphia when I was pregnant with our third child, and my hopes of attending were stirred up again, only to be dashed two years later when we moved to San Antonio. Jump thirty years ahead, and here I am—living in Virginia, less than two hours from Chincoteague! We pass the turn-off to that little town every time we drive up the Eastern Shore to Connecticut or Boston. One time, on our way home from New England, we stopped for an hour to see if we could get a glimpse of the ponies, and they accommodated us by grazing right near the road. I was able to capture a couple of quick pictures.
Ponies we saw on our first visit
Since it was winter, all the little shops were closed, and we vowed to return in the summer.
Sunday we decided to do a scouting expedition to Chincoteague and check out what bed and breakfasts or hotels looked good, see the shops that would now be open for the season, and, of course, see my beloved ponies. We stopped at the entrance of the Assateague Wildlife Preserve to pay the entry fee, and my husband noticed that it was eight dollars to enter for the day, but only ten dollars for a lifetime pass to all the National Parks and Preserves in the country if you were sixty-two. My husband told the park ranger, a sweet young lady, that we wanted to purchase one of those passes. She asked him, “Are you sixty-two?” “No,” he responded quickly and forcefully, then stuck his thumb in my direction and said, “but she is.” “Wow!” said the young lady, looking sympathetically at me. “He threw you right under the bus, didn’t he!” My husband sheepishly apologized, but the smirk on his face made me doubt his sincerity.
We stopped at the visitors center to see a map of the trails and watched a short film on the ponies. The narrator said the poor creatures are constantly ravaged by biting flies and mosquitos. They showed quite a bit of footage of the ponies swatting the menacing bugs with their tails, or rubbing their hides raw against the rough bark of trees to give themselves some relief. None of that registered with us as we started on the trail that led to a scenic overlook. We parked our car near the start of the trail and entered the woods. Immediately, the mosquitos and flies started attacking us. My husband yelled, “Take off your cap and start swatting them.” I did as he said, but as soon as I chased them off one arm, they went for the other arm and my face and my legs. Nevertheless, it was better than not swatting them at all, and my arms quickly became exhausted from the flurry of activity. When my husband noticed the back of my shirt was a solid sheet of black insects, he began belting me with his hat to chase them off. “Do you want to turn around?” my husband asked. “No, I have to see my ponies!” I said. We continued through the forest on our way to the pasture, stopping for only a few seconds to watch in awe as two bald eagles screamed their way through the canopy of loblolly pines. After twenty agonizing minutes of pure torture, we arrived at the lookout. We stared out at the magnificent marsh, the magnificent empty marsh. No ponies. None. We waited, scanning the pasture, squinting to see if there was any movement in the distant trees. Nope.
Where are my ponies?
My husband and I looked at each other with the realization that we were going to have to return through the gauntlet. I launched myself once more into the woods, my husband trying to match my pace. “You back to power walking?” he asked. “No, I just want to get to the car with some of my flesh still intact.” We began our swatting act again. “I don’t know what hurts more,” I said to my husband. “The biting flies and mosquitos, or you beating me with your hat!”
We passed a bench on the trail, though why anyone would want to stop in that place, heaven only knows. It had an inscription on it in memory of someone named Art. “Here lies Art,” I said, “ who died while trying to escape the monster insects. If he’d only been quicker…” We picked up our pace. Passing another bench that was devoid of an inscription, my husband said, “This once is waiting for us. Here lies George and Susan whose bloodless bodies were found just inches from their car.” I wasn’t in a laughing mood.
We left the park shortly after and visited the shops and had a nice dinner at Bill’s.
Sweet little town of Chincoteague
But I was done with my dream of attending Pony Penning. I scratched all the way home. Well, maybe if we applied some heavy duty insect repellent or draped ourselves with mosquito netting we could…shut up! Just shut up! And pass the calamine lotion.
These look like evil ladybugs to me. What are they planning? Takeover of the world?
Barnacles on a log
Late yesterday afternoon, our area of Hampton Roads got pounded by a quickly moving storm that overtook us in a flash. One minute it seemed like a perfectly lovely day, a moment later, angry black clouds moved in, and in just minutes torrents of rain sliced the silence, and the winds whipped up to 73 miles per hour, ripping trees apart and hurling huge branches several houses away. Our house made it through with some damage to our front gutter but was otherwise unscathed. The neighbors on either side of us were not so lucky. A huge part of what had been a lovely and graceful river birch a few houses down had damaged the roof and completely torn down the gutter of the house on one side of us. On the other, a shutter was torn off, maybe by the branch whizzing by like a missile, or perhaps it was just the wind.
When it was finally safe to venture out, neighbors emerged to survey the damage. Much to my chagrin, the first words I heard from one neighbor were acrimonious words directed at the owners of the birch. They were angry because they felt the tree was a menace and should have been taken down. The owners of the birch had gone to great expense to have this tree pruned about a year or so ago and I thought the tree enriched the appearance of our side of the street. It matters not what I think. But it does matter what was said.
My husband and I started picking up pieces of the tree in our yard and moving them to a pile in the street. “Leave them there,” commanded another neighbor. “It was from their tree. Let them pick up the mess.” My husband and I looked at each other. Was this guy for real? This was no one’s fault; it was an act of nature. We weren’t in Texas anymore! “It’s not a problem,” my husband said as he kept piling up the debris. “It’s the neighborly thing to do.”
View from the river birch
The young neighbor whose tree it was came out and worked hard to remove the branches from his neighbors’ yards while those few neighbors around us stood and watched. When all the limbs were heaped in a pile on the curb, this young neighbor said to my husband and me, “Thanks for all your help.” I replied in a loud voice, “Of course. That’s what good neighbors do.”
Thanks to Bud of Older Eyes, I just received my first blogging award, The Versatile Blogger. At my stage in life, any award is a good award because it’s just nice to be noticed. So, thank you, Bud. Of course, if I’m truly to be thankful, I have to follow through with the requirements of this award:
1. Thank the blogger who gave the award and link to their blog. Done.
2. Share seven things about yourself. Hmmm. I don’t want to repeat things I’ve already said in my posts, but I don’t know if I can come up with seven interesting things. Here goes:
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers (and link to them). I echo Bud. If you are one of the “lucky” ones who receives this award, do not feel obligated to complete the whole circle like I am. Remember, this is my first blogging award, so I am still enjoying the newness of it. I enjoy your blogs immensely and respect you all as writers. Many of you would even be my friends if we lived in the same town and could actually hang out together or share a cup of Earl Grey and a chat.
Older Eyes (of course!) My Pajama Days Huffygirl’s Blog She’s a Maineiac The Simple Life of a Country Man’s Wife A Peine for Your Thoughts Growing Younger Each Day Julie Moore On Life Reeling in the Years Posky’s Blog Wordsxo Confessions of a Serial Swooper Lessons Learned from Experience Life in the Boomer Lane Word Nymph
4. Comment on their blogs to tell them of the award. I just did.
This post comes from a weekly memoir writing prompt provided by The Red Dress Club. This week’s RemembeRED prompt was to write about a game you played when you were young.
I wasn’t much of an outdoor game player when I was growing up. I wasn’t athletic, lacked coordination, and feared getting hurt. I detested softball in school and prayed the ball would come nowhere near me because I was sure it would either hit me on the noggin, or I would drop it and everyone would boo (maybe that’s why I was always picked last for a team!). But the one game I have fond memories of is SPUD. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s played with a red kickball and a slew of kids. Everyone gets a number and someone is designated as “it.” The person who is “it” throws the ball straight up in the air and calls a number. Everyone scatters except the person whose number is called. That person has to run and catch the ball and call SPUD. Everyone freezes, and the person with the ball may take three giant steps before throwing the ball and trying to hit another player. If he or she is successful, the victim gets the letter S. If he or she isn’t successful, the person who was “it” gets the letter S. The intended victim, whether tagged or not, now becomes “it” and the game continues. Once a person gets all four letters in SPUD, he or she is out. The game is over when only one person is left who does not have all the letters.
I invariably lost in this game for several reasons. First, I lived in a neighborhood of pretty athletic kids, and most of the girls were tomboys. I was the smallest, weakest, least coordinated of all of them. I couldn’t throw the ball very far. I was a slow runner. A very slow runner. And finally, everyone knew my number and called it over and over and over again, including my brother. I didn’t care. It wasn’t the game I really cared about so much. I had no illusions that maybe this time I wouldn’t be the first called out. I liked the game because I got to stay out late on a summer night with my brother. And there was nothing I liked better and no one I’d rather be with than him.
We usually played SPUD in the street in front of our house. We had a ton of kids in our neighborhood, and it wasn’t hard to round up a dozen or more. We’d start after dinner and keep playing as the light began to fade, moving under the streetlight when it got dark. Since I was usually out first, I had the luxury of sitting on the edge of our front lawn, watching the rest of the game without having to run and get sweaty, two things I was averse to. I’d capture lightening bugs in my hand, pull up grass and make it whistle, lie back and look at the stars, smell the summer scents of flowers and newly mown lawns. I was perfectly content. As it got close to ten o’clock, the witching hour for most of us, parents would holler their kid’s name, and gradually the game would wind down as fewer and fewer players were left. On more nights than not, my brother was the victorious one. But I was really the winner, because I got to spend a summer night playing SPUD with him. 
Friday I had the blues, so I headed to the shore, hoping to dispel my somber mood. I don’t know if you are anything like me, but I suspect I’m not alone in finding fault with just about everything when only one small thing starts that blue mood. I didn’t go to the busy Oceanfront but chose my secluded First Landing Beach where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. I sat in my beach chair looking at nine big tankers waiting to cross over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. One was so close to shore, it looked as if I could almost swim out to it. 
A navy ship of some kind was passing, going in the opposite direction. The sky, though deeply blue, was filled with a blanket of clouds that hid the sun, and I zipped my sweatshirt against the cool breeze. In front of my chair the sand was littered with shell fragments, mermaids’ purses, crab claws, and dried sea grasses and sea oats.
Then the magic of the sea took over. I started looking for seashells for my sister, Karen, to put in the jar I keep for her. My spirit lifted as I concentrated on finding something new or unexpected. Instead of filling my mind with things I was sad about or disappointed with, I focused on one small thing at a time. I found the jawbone of a fish with tiny teeth, a piece of a nautilus, barnacles on a log, stones smooth as glass. My eyes were drawn to a flock of pelicans skimming the surface of the water, and that’s when I saw something I’d never seen there before, though I know the Bay is full of them. I saw a skate in the shallows near the shore, right in front of me. I knew skates were plentiful from the number of mermaids’ purses scattered in the sand, but it was the first time I had seen one for myself in its natural habitat.
I would have missed it if I had sat pouting in my chair. I watched, fascinated, until the skate skated away, and then I continued my shell search with renewed enthusiasm. I found more and more treasures to fill my pockets, and every shell or stone became a blessing and my blessings were overflowing. Thank you again, dear sister, for sending me to the shore for another lesson. 
Skink with red face in my garden
Roses in my courtyard
Kite on the beach
We’ve been redecorating the guest bathroom, and since we live by the ocean, we picked a beach theme with walls a pale aqua, a seashell fabric shower curtain, and a wreath of sea urchins, starfish, and scallop shells. We needed a large picture to hang over the towel bars, but we didn’t want to spend a fortune, so we headed to Michaels and pawed through their collection of poster prints. They had the usual assortment of beach scenes: children building sand castles, quaint harbors with sailboats bobbing, old-fashioned women strolling on the beach with their parasols. Then my eye caught a sight that took my breath away. It was a picture of two white rockers on the porch of a beach house, the view as if the painter was inside, looking through the doorway to the porch, and beyond was the sea.
Zhen-Huan Lu's "Looking Over the Sea"
I’ve seen similar prints, but what made this one so special was the yellow Lab who was sitting just inside the door, looking out. It was my Abby Dog, (see Don’t Tell Me Dogs Don’t Have Souls) the way she looked when she was older, when the kids had grown up and moved out and there was just my dear husband and I left at home. I stared at that picture and created a whole scenario for it: My husband and I were in the house, making some lunch to bring out to the porch, and Abby Dog, not wanting to go outside without us, was waiting for us to come and sit on the porch with her. Then she would sit between us, perhaps putting her head on our laps to catch an occasional crumb that might fall. We would sit outside, enjoying the sea breeze, and spend a quiet Saturday afternoon with her.
Whoa! What was happening here? I stopped the fantasizing, chiding myself for my foolishness, and showed my husband the picture. “This is such a nice picture, and I think it’s the perfect size. What do you think?” He agreed that it was a great picture but thought it might be too large. We looked at other prints, but couldn’t make up our minds. Actually, I had already decided, but regretfully, didn’t press the issue. We went home empty-handed.
A week later, with half the bathroom completed and measurements of how big a picture that space over the towel bars could accommodate, we returned to Michaels and looked again for a print. I decided, if my Abby Dog picture was the right size, I would plead my case forcefully. I had to have that picture. We went to the place we had seen it the week before and searched, but it was gone. I was angry with myself for not letting my husband know how much I had wanted that print. I know he would have bought it for me. We looked for some other picture that would work, but my heart wasn’t in it, and nothing stood out as being the perfect one. We were ready to give up when we decided to search the bargain bin, and there in the heap of cast-off pictures was my Abby Dog print–for only five dollars! “That’s a no-brainer!” my husband said as he carried our pick to the cashier.
Now, if you’ve never had a dog, none of this will make any sense to you. You will not understand how some dogs steal your heart and keep a piece of it long after they are gone. You will not understand how you can miss them so much, even after seventeen years, that thinking about them brings a smile and tears. You will not understand how a five-dollar print has the power to evoke such strong memories, you actually create an entire story around it and put yourself in the scene, just so you can pretend you are spending more time with that sweet, sweet dog.
We will most likely never have another dog. We are getting on in years, we live in a townhouse now with a tiny courtyard, and we travel to visit our children and friends often enough that, if we had a dog, it would spend too much time in a kennel. Furthermore, I have no desire or patience to pick up after a dog anymore or worry about vet bills. Our dog days are over. But when our redecorating is finished and that picture is hanging on the wall, I know I will occasionally wander into that room, “sit” in that rocker, and let Abby Dog put her big head in my lap. Hang on, Abby. Mama’s coming!
Yesterday, a curious thing happened. I checked my site stats and saw that one of my old posts had just gotten seventeen hits. It was a post I had written back in February, and it wasn’t a particularly good post. Adequate, but not one of my best. Why would so many people choose to read a post from several months ago when yesterday’s post (Role Reversal) was so much better. In fact, it is one of my favorites.
The mystery deepened. I clicked on “Manage Comments” and received a comment from a blogger (The Simple Life of a Country Man’s Wife) who said she’d seen that old post on Freshly Pressed. In fact, it was through Freshly Pressed that she found my blog. She wrote her comment and went back to Freshly Pressed, and WHOOSH! I was gone. Seriously!
Now, if you’ve been Freshly Pressed, congratulations! I, on the other hand, have never been Freshly Pressed. I have longed for that moment, begged for that moment, drooled for that moment, and when it finally came, WordPress chose a crummy old post about a grandmother potty mouth when there were so many good ones they could have picked from, like Second Sight, or Love, Young and Old, or Why Don’t You Act Your Age? to name just a few. To add insult to injury, I never even got to see it before it disappeared.
WordPress, you owe me an apology! Do not toy with someone who is suffering from a declining amygdala (see yesterday’s post)! Common decency would dictate that you feature this post on Freshly Pressed and let it stay as long as the other recipients of that honor. What’s fair is fair.
Coming East 