Runaways to Redbank Part III: Whiffle Ball and Pictures of Dirt

 Lest you think that yesterday's  entry indicated some inner loneliness or sliding into a funk, here's Runaway III. I love traveling alone, and this is partly why--the northern Jersey shore. And I am afraid there will be a Runaways to Redbank IV, because, well, there is my fiftieth birthday trip and the guy on the beach. And, did I ever get to Redbank for more than a pit stop? We'll see... I mean, there was the internationally know rock star, but where? And if I lump them all into one trip, oh well. Tough....

Please note, once again, any photos are included for fun here--they are from various easily accessible websites I found from googling the kind of pictures I wanted.  Except the patterns in the sand... those are mine. MINE I tell ya!

If you are new to my blog and have no clue what I'm talking about, and want to have a clue,  see  Runaway I  , and Rnaway II. This is  continuation of my two days ... (You may also find why I love traveling alone if you root around and find Deliverance I and II)

(And with this entry, I'll be on hiatus for a little while--and I do mean a little--to start a painting or two that have been haunting me for a week.)

Which Way Will She Wander?

I headed back north toward Red Bank from West Long Branch, NJ.  My dear, dear friend David (a professional drummer and brilliant computer scientist I'd known since I was 22) had told me about an old-fashioned music store called Jack's, that famous musicians from all over frequented. And there were what looked to be a wonderful natural foods place and a couple of artisan type shops...

Only there was also Sandy Hook. And it was a blustery, perfect day to walk another beach. Really. I mean, music store .... miniature Cape Cod.  Food store ...  marvelous sand bar formations. Gee. What won? And, of course, West Long Branch had offered such interesting characters, I felt as if I were on a roll. Sandy Hook it was.

The peninsula juts up quite a few miles  toward the city. You can park the car to the right of the road, to stand and facet the ocean, then simply turn around to see the bay. Remains of WWII missile sites hide in among dunes so old that they were more pure white hills with alien dwarfed forests laced by pure white paths to guide the way.  Unlike Cape Cod,Sandy Hook is too small for towns--there is just a military base at the tip. So for miles, all there was to see were bay, ocean, dunes and sky.

And living things, of course, including people.This time around, once again, the Jersey spirits had come out to play.

Barefoot Navigation...
It took perhaps ten minutes to get past the initial cluster of people. I do not move easily over dry sand. One little boy, perhaps ten, saw me lose my footing a little, cane notwithstanding, and offered me his arm, gentleman style. Just his open-faced smile steadied me. You know that kind of look they offer when the world has given them no reason to expect less in return? Well, I could not disappoint him and accepted his arm. When we reached packed sand, he bolted, barely saying good bye, as was right.

An obstacle course lay before me, however, that held potential for decapitation; unmanned fishing poles. The poles stood oh,  between 8 and 47 feet tall, stuck deeply into the sand, with nearly invisible lines angling into the sea. When monsters of the deep pulled, they bent to their own tune, performing a beautiful, if dangerous dance--but only when the fish were running. The dance was wild today, but no one seemed to care but me.

All the men belonging to the poles sat about fifteen feet back, sleeping or drinking their beer, occasionally glancing at the lines, or gawking over mirrored sunglasses at any stray woman who came by.  Let us simply say that today they did not even see me; there was a bikinied trio nearby and rumor had it they were about to turn over. I stared at the chorus line of bodies turned in their chairs, heads turned further still over right shoulders, beers halted in mid-route. They waited, breathless.  The women turned, the men smiled, the poles danced on.

Anyway, the navigation trick was to find the space where one could easily walk along the hardened surface of packed wet sand far enough from the water to avoid the lines, but close enough to the water to find interesting, well, stuff.  I couldn't look down, though, because I had to walk in such a zig zag path that I got a little dizzy.  (No, this was something beyond my normal state.) Finally I gave up, moving to the dry sand, which was far harder for me. Pulling each leg up, loaded with sand at every step very soon caused throbbing pain. Still that beat slicing an eye or worse.
 
I saw a dune and driftwood log and made for it. At this point, I realized the cane was slowing me down, so I pretended it was a baton and I was performing in the circus, and only dropped it four times. When I reached safety, with my accustomed grace, I fell more than sat down. "Ladies and gentleman," I said to my adoring crowd, undoubtedly moved by my twirling,  "with grace, she moves. Nay, verily like a doe doth she walk in the world."

OMG, a Family of Living Elves!
Unfortunately, a laugh from behind some scrub disturbed my soliloquy, and a small curly-headed gnome was giggling at me. I bowed to him and he scampered off toward the protected side of the dune. Through the brush  was a family on which I could spy so easily, it was sinful.  A dad, my 3 or 4-year-old sprite, and another little boy about my internal age--six or seven at most--were getting up from what looked like a feast. Both looked more like Garth Williams' illustrations than real boys, and, since nothing so far that day had felt much like my real life, that seemed just about right.

Dad wore khaki knee-length pants and a tank top,  with wide apart blue eyes on a face that was crowned with unruly, curly light hair. The boys had bright colored, droopy bathing trunks and the same hair. So far, so good. They had piled together the remains of the major food groups: fried chicken, potato salad, chips, cookies, cake, pie, soda, and--what was that? There among the plastic ruins: one Blue Willow china plate, precisely crossed with pistol-handled pewter knife and fork, one cobalt crystal wine glass, a folded sea blue cloth napkin and a silver bucket with a wine bottle in it.

They clearly belonged to Grandma: knee-length skirt, a long-sleeved white blouse with a peter pan color fastened at the neck with some sort of shiny pin. She was barefoot and turned before I quite saw her face, but she, too,  had short curls that could not and would not be tidied into submission.  Wild curls seemed an oxymoron on her. Dad was on his cell phone. Grandma was smoothing her blouse and patting herself as she started to clean up, occasionally seeming to yank her curls into submission. It did not work. The china and curls said Queen of the Fairies, but the clothes? Aha. 'Incognito,' I thought.

The thing about Jersey so far that sang to me, that sang clear down deep in my soul, was that exaggeration was redundant here.  The place was one walking, talking, lounging whopper of a fish story wherever I rested.

Sandy Hook Whiffle World Series Champion
"Grandma, let's play ball! C'mon Grandma, I won't pitch hard. PLLLLEEEEASE." The older elf had the family mass of honey hair that stuck out at all angles like new wood shavings, with one long bit he was perpetually swiping at. Dad snapped the phone, sat back on his heels, and smirked at his mother.

"Yeah, Mom. Show them how it's done," he said as the smirk widened into an outright grin. Suddenly he must have seen me watching and he kind of jerked his head as if to include me in on the joke. I simply smiled, relieved to be accepted, but at this point it would have been moot. I'd come to this theater and dammit, I was gonna see my show!

"Now, Daniel, I have not played ball since I was a child. I don't remember how." Grandma looked down, but she was facing me now and I'm sure her mouth was turned up at the corners. Her hair suddenly seemed to loosen and grow a bit. It had to be a fairy was lurking behind those buttoned down clothes. It showed in the curled toes. Perhaps I am mistaken; she was not that close.

"I'll show you how," the older one said.  "And we won't keep score. Tommy can be the base. Tommy go over there with your shovel and pail so Grandma will know where to run."

"Kay, Danny. I do that. Run to me, Gamma, okay? I have to dig now." And that was almost all we heard from Tommy. He squatted there with his pail and shovel, face focused and body contorted as only a small child can manage. I think he'd found a shell, or perhaps a magic stone.

Danny got an enormous bright red bat and electric blue whiffle ball from a  beach bag the size of Milwaukee. "Okay, now watch me, Grandma. You hold the bat like this and then you swing like this and hit the ball." He was so serious, he almost had a little scowl as he tossed the ball up and swung. He missed the first few times, but then connected. Unconcerned he said, "See? Just like that."

Grandma smiled and nodded. She untucked her blouse and practically glided toward the "playing field," rolling up her sleeves. She shook her head once and the curls grew some more ...  I felt myself sitting forward on my log, and I gripped the straight up stub of a branch beside me.

"Okay, so I won't stand too far away so you can hit the ball," Danny said, and moved perhaps two feet from his grandmother.

"Young man, I will hit YOU with the bat, instead of the ball and I do not think you'd care for that. I might hit YOU clear over the dune," she said, as serious as he. I liked her. I think I liked her a lot. The boys and their dad were clearly in the family of elves with those eyes, so my guess had to be right. This explained the clothes. She had to pass. I wondered at the strain it must have been. She was curiously at home with a bat.

Daniel danced as he backed up, yelling, "Grandma, COME ON."

"The more you yell, the slower I get, so you might as well stop, dear." Something in her voice ... He stopped. Immediately.

She stepped to the sea turtle plate, gently tapped it three times, and she and that bat were one. 'Uh-oh,' I thought. 'Danny, Danny, Danny.'

"Strike one, Grandma," he said. "It's okay. Just keep trying."

I glanced at her son and he was leaning back, smiling broadly. Tommy looked up a moment, but she wasn't running yet, and went back to his shovel, humming tunelessly, but very loud.

After strike two, I held my breath, but no. She gave the ball a tiny tap and trotted -- yes, trotted is the ONLY word -- toward first base. Danny tagged her out. "Too bad, Grandma.  Maybe next time."

He quickly struck out.

When Grandma had her next at bat, she smiled as sweetly as could be. I thought of that poem from childhood, "How doth the little crocodile" ... was that how it started? ... But it ended with " and welcomes little fishes in with gently smiling jaws." She motioned for Danny to move away, but instead he wound up like a pitcher. "Watch THIS one Grandma, then I'll pitch it nice to you, I promise." 

Oh, how Grandma connected. Danny ducked as the ball shot past his ear and it was still headed up when it flew far above Tommy's head. The wind caught it and it danced wildly in the air a moment before the downward arc. I clapped.  I cheered. I couldn't help it.  She turned once toward me, eyes crinkling at the corners, as wide apart as the rest, and gave a slight nod.

Dad was laughing as he went after the ball, Tommy jumped up and down and then ran in circles, Danny stood sort of clueless with lower lip beginning to grow, and Grandma?

She simply trotted to Tommy, picked him up and kissed him, whirling him around a few times, then trotted back toward turtle home, giving  it a little kick with her toe, long before Dad came back. She began to readjust her collar, then stopped, and she left her hair alone. She smiled broadly and opened her arms toward Danny.

He still seemed caught between his ego and pride in his grandma, on the verge of a dramatic pout.  His dad pat him on the head as he passed with the ball, and said, "Most valuable player, girls' softball, 1950-1954. Danny, she had a 310 batting average.  Your grandma is a star, kid."

The boy wheeled and glared at his grandma. "YOU CHEATED Grandma! You really cheated!"

"Yup" was all she said, smiling still.  Then she shrugged and turned to saunter back to the picnic ruins, when Danny ran and threw his arms around her waist from behind, burying his face in her back.

I know my cues; I picked up my stuff and moved on.You can safely spy on the Queen of the Fairies just so long ...

Pictures of Dirt
The fishing lines ended about five minutes further down the beach. I headed toward wet sand, and began to notice bits of interesting things that had been dragged in by the tide which was now receding. Without the poles I could look down, and I came on a formation that intrigued me and I started to snap pictures from every direction.

I loved the patterns in the sand that something else had made, and that lone stone in the middle. I walked all around trying to figure out how the tree pattern had been made when, not too far away, I heard it.

"Bernie. Bernie! Whaddyou think that woman is doing? Bernie, go ask her what she is doing. Bernie, do ya hear me? Guhwan! Ask her."

Now the Jersey accent's not quite Brooklyn, though it's close.  "Ing" ends with a hard 'g.'  And 'er'  is pronounced almost, but not quite like 'ar.' It is harsh, and almost bursts from the mouth." All in all, it is an amalgamation of the most distinctive parts of a New York and Philadelphia twang that jars one into full alert.

I do not believe there is any other sound so harsh as a Jersey woman yelling.

I looked up and there they were, the antithesis of sprites. Sitting in their folding, webbed chairs.  She was in a housecoat. The kind that have those metal snaps, short sleeves and are often in bold floral prints. For some reason, she had two pink rollers on the top of her head, with almost no hair left in them, so they sort of bounced in the breeze. (I bet she also had a bathing cap that had all those little colored bits of rubber sticking out on the top. You know, the kind that flutter with every move and are especially disconcerting in a pool aerobics class.) She also was wearing fuzzy pink mules, not sandals or flip flops. Her hair was bottle-black, which made her skin seem gray. I have no idea how old she was--somewhere between 55 and 93, I'd say.

Bernie was built like a bull. Sitting there, he seemed about as wide as he was tall, from the waist up. He had a very tan, very large and hard belly covered with gray fur, and his head was sort of a tanned bowling ball atop a neck that had tan lines in the creases. He was gripping a beer that was on his left knee. There was some sort of grayish lawn sparsely distributed on his head, with An Oscar the Grouch face--vaguely annoyed with bushy eyebrows that crossed his eyes in an unbroken line.


I tried not to stare because he was also wearing boxer shorts with large hearts that had faces on them. I tried. I really did try. I did not succeed. And I do believe my mouth was hanging open to boot.

"Miss!" he shouted, to appease his wife.

"Yes?" I jumped.

"Waddaya doin?" He did not move.

"I coulda done that, Bernie. Go talk to the woman, fergodsake."

"Shaddup, Gladys." Of COURSE it was Gladys. What else could it be? Gladys and Bernie go to the beach. I should have known.  This was pre-reality shows, or I would have looked for a camera crew.

"I am taking pictures here. There is a beautiful formation in the sand," I said, somewhat lamely.  I just knew the laughing heart shorts would stand up and...yup.  He got up, first bracing a hand on each knee as he straightened. Standing, he still seemed about almost as wide as he was tall. His legs were bowed and he was wearing tennis sneakers with holes so large his big toes stuck out to the knuckle. And the shorts screamed at me. I could hear them.  I looked down and away, but I could feel the giggle well up. I don't think he heard.

His sigh was audible from fifteen feet away. He lumbered to me and looked down.

"See how pretty that is?" I asked.

Bernie looked back up at me, his unibrow unevenly twisted. He was shorter than I.  He glanced down again and up. "You a photographer or something?" Again with the hard 'g."

"Noooo... But I like taking interesting pictures, that's all." He looked down and up again, simply shrugged, Jersey style, bigger than life.

He grunted and turned toward his wife. "Gladys, she's taking pictures of dirt!  She says they're interesting!"  And his arms opened wide and he managed to shrug his entire body. I swear in Jersey, shrugging is a dance form of its own.

"Taking pictures of dirt?"

"Yeah, that's what she's doing. Taking pictures of dirt. Where you from anyway?"

"Connecticut."

"Oh. Well, then, that explains it. Gladys, she's from Connecticut! That's why!"

Gladys nodded, ducked her head as she raised an arm and with a flourish of the hand, said, "There you go!"

He plodded back up toward his chair, silent but with open arms, palms up. She was nodding. I was done.

Character Overload.  (A little known, but somewhat scary syndrome. It involves an immediate need to rock back and forth while mumbling) Red Bank would have to wait. Debriefing time was needed. Besides that night David and I were heading for some place where it was wholly unlikely we'd run into any characters: a bar on open mike night, and he was in the back up band ...