This is very funny:
I think it was Abraham Joshua Heschel — after he broke off with Reinhold Niebuhr and formed Jefferson Airplane — who observed that though the ancients counseled, “Know Thyself,” in 87 percent of actual cases, profound self-knowledge is not transforming. It's just disappointing.
And this is never more true than when the beach self takes over. There is a boardwalk game near where we vacation where you roll balls into holes to try to get your mechanical horse across a track faster than your 11 opponents. You pay a dollar a game and if you win you get a stuffed horse worth 75 cents. My beach self has played that game for 15 years, and I have never once gotten up without secretly wishing I was playing again.
In my heart, I'd be happy to play that game 11 hours a day at the cost of several thousand dollars, and the only thing preventing me is that the Slovakian girl behind the counter might conclude that American men are pathetic.
Though this is definitely a difference -- at least in my experience -- between East Coast "shores" and West Coast beaches. Very few beaches in California have boardwalks, or ski-ball, or stores that sell shirts like this one:
You go to the beach to...sit on the beach. Or possibly surf. That's the activity. The beach isn't cover for a whole lot of other activities that are generally considered gauche, but suddenly --and thankfully -- become acceptable when your shorts have internal netting.
