I still have much to learn. Yesterday was our first full day at the beach, a place I feel umbilically connected to having grown up on the coast. At the Atlantic, I stepped out of my crocs and walked through the sugar-white sand to the cooler, darker and wetter sand. Noted everyone else kept their footwear on, a definite indication in my youth of tourists. Returned by the same route to my crocs and what a mistake! The hot sand on my wet feet soon turned to coals and I’m no East Indian mystic. Soon I jumped on a welcome tuft of dune grass (a no-no) which eased the pain but sinking into the sand it didn’t last. A SPRINT (at my tender age) to another less hardy tuft was more painful and less relieving so I had no choice but to bear it. I won’t make that mistake again except at night. After all, part of beach therapy is walking barefoot and feeling the sand between your toes.
My co-travelers are a mix. Their common bond is that they are high school classmates, live relatively close together and only function electronically. One is from Indonesia and his parents speak no English; One, a black from North Carolina; and my grandson who is the epitome of a mutt mixture of European with a couple of splashes of Native American. We headed to dinner at a restaurant of their choice. They clicked on various hand held devices, directing my driving. After about 20 minutes of making U turns in traffic that would put NYC and Atlanta to shame (because those urbanites are ALL here) on a three-block stretch of the main drag I felt like a scene from “M. Hole’s Holiday”. Evidently their tracking electronics couldn’t do better than mark the spot in the middle of the road. We tried a passer-by but they were more lost than we. I turned into one of the sea-to-shining-sea gated communities which have live guards because mere gates don’t slow urbanites. We SPOKE. He gave specific, simple directions. Of course, they were mortified to interact/interphase with a human being. Our confusion was short rested when the wait was 1.5 hours so we drove again and stopped at the next visible restaurant. I parked. They disappeared inside ignoring a snaking line of waiting would-be diners. Inside I located all but my grandson, hunger pangs eroding stomach linings. I went back to the line and asked the person in charge wait time for a party of four. She asked if we required Kid menus. No. Seated us stat. Still no grandson. Inquired of his friends flailing digitally on their hand-helds. “He has a table for us upstairs.” I looked up and saw no second level only a 20 feet long tomahawk Atlanta Braves’ logo suspended overhead. Grandson appeared soon annoyed to give up a table for 4 with drinks ordered. I inquired about “upstairs” and he looked at me baffled. His friend said his device showed him upstairs. Too hungry to continue the confusion, he only denied such and said it was only the other side of the restaurant. Seems the more communication devices “advance” the less we communicate.
