We've been home from Carpinteria for a week and Cristie says she'd head back for another week in the sand and sun tomorrow. I think I would too, though I suspect if she and I were to go without our kids and grand kids we'd get a little lonely. It was a great week, in a great campsite we'd like to try for again. We had Uncle Jim and his family there, Joanna and her kids for awhile, Chris Carter and his family, and five dogs. We missed Joe, Laurel, and Katie and her family. My sister and brother didn't make it so the drama factor was reduced significantly.

Some of the grandkids had fun playing on an unused lifeguard station until they got kicked off and that got me to reminiscing about my own career as a very young lifeguard at Carpinteria. I started at around ten years old as, well, a pretend lifeguard. I always thought the lifeguards looked so great in their faded red swimming trunks, tans, and bleached hair, especially on their arms and legs. So when the state beach built newer, bigger and better stands for their lifeguards, I decided to hire on at one of the older, shorter abandoned stands which stood about 20 yards from one of the newer ones.

I'd get there first thing in the morning ready for a busy day of saving, well ahead of my authentic neighbor guards. I would stay all day too, not daring to leave my post for fear I'd lose out on an opportunity to be a hero or worse, that some other kid would steal my nest. My brother Tom joined me for the first day or so but he never had the staying power I did and wandered off to much less glorious persuits, leaving me to scan the beach for swimmers in distress myself, which I preferred anyway. My ever concerned mother would send either my brother or one of my younger cousins with my lunch so I didn't starve.

Alas, during my weeks employ, as far as I could see there never was a need for rescue either by me or by my neighbors. Not even a riptide warning. But I was faithful to my duties nonetheless, talked shop with the other lifeguards, worked on my tan, and my red trunks got a little more faded. And I even enjoyed the welcome admiration of a couple of younger girls who happened by and hung around my tower for awhile. For a ten year old, what could be better than that?






Speaking of ten year olds, my oldest grandchild Abigail (who has just turned 11) wandered off one day on the beach and had several of us adults out looking for her. Turns out she was walking on the tar rocks a little ways down the beach, as evidenced by this pic taken by her mom. I've been going to Carpinteria since I was a kid and have seen my share of tar spotted feet in my day, but never in well over 50 years on this beach had I seen this much tar!