You know what a perfect day is?
When you are vacationing at the beach, let's say, Ocean City, Maryland, in early August. In my mind, it is in the early 80's, when the world and Ocean City were much better. It was more of a sleepy Eastern Shore town back then until summer, when it would get crowded. Now everyone is there all the time, and it's way too crowded in the summer. And a bunch of scrubby-ass people on the boardwalk. We used to dress up a little for the boardwalk. Now scrubby people abound, looking like shit, half-naked but with terrible bodies.
Anyway, it's an August day, and you are in high school. A junior in high school. You get up early, go to the local gym at the beach with the peroxide-haired dude with the big upper body and little legs who struts around, the gym manager. You pay 10 bucks and get a great session in, squats and presses for multiple sets, and then go out back of the gym on the asphalt with gravel on it and you do some 20 yard sprints (you estimate the distance), sprints with short rests. The heat, even at 7 in the morning, is palpable. You can hear the locusts in the trees behind the gym where you are running. It's going to be a hot day. You love it. You stop back at the condo where you and your family is staying, and your girlfriend is staying there as well, and she is waiting for you when you get back and she is ready to go. Time to go to the beach. She's packed a white and blue Igloo cooler with lunch and drinks. You grab a couple of chairs and big beach towels. Your parents say that they are going fishing and to have a good time, guys. You two walk across side streets and Coastal Highway, and then you walk up the ramp on 9th Street with the Alaska Stand with your favorite hot dogs cooked on the grill to your right, across the boardwalk and onto the beach. The sand is hot, and you both are barefoot, of course. Nobody ever wore shoes to the beach back then. Everyone's feet were tougher. You walked the boardwalk barefoot. If the sand was burning you, you just moved quickly.
The ocean is blue,the waves are good, and there is a slight breeze. Not too much breeze, just a little. You and your girlfriend ride waves and run around, and then she opens the Igloo and, bless her heart, she has some Coca-Cola bottles and she hands you one and grins. It's ice cold, and you take a sip, and she has spiked the drink with Jack Daniels. You feel the slight buzz coming on, and the sun is warm,the waves are crashing, and kids are screaming and chasing each other into the water. You sit right down where the water comes up to the shore, up to your shins before it recedes. You watch people, and you look at the girls in bikinis, but you are wearing mirrored sunglasses, so your girlfriend can't tell what you are looking at.
After four hours or so, you pack up, still buzzing, feeling the sun in your chest and back. Everyone wanted to be tan back then; girls wore baby oil all over and tanning lotion. The smell, even today, reminds me of the beach.
You get back to the condo and you take showers and maybe a nap in the cool of the air conditioning. Then you get up, get dressed in a light button-down, khaki shorts, and Chuck Taylors. Your girl has on a sundress, and you both are wearing the sun that you acquired earlier that day.
You take the bus, only fifty cents to wherever you want, and it stops at Lombardi's Pizza. You order a cold draft Budweiser because you look old enough, and nobody gave a shit back then. Your girl has sweet tea, and then you order pizza and a few more beers, and the buzz has come back from earlier.
You walk out of the restaurant and you are full to the gills, but feeling oh so good. The trraffic in Coactal Highway is buzzing.
The bus takes you down from Sixty-Ninth Street to Fourteenth Streetn and right to the boardwalk. You walk some, to ninth street and decide to walk down the beach where it is really wide, and you and your girl sip on the mini bottles that she has in her purse. The ocean pounds, so formidable, at night especially.
The night ends with a walk along the boardwalk, stopping at times to sit on benches and people watch, and then you walk along the bay back to the condo, the water slapping against the sailboats and Chris Crafts.
