Plenty a honky don’t have any beach etiquette
“Listen here. You do that, and you'd better pack your bags. That’s it. I’m telling you.” I told Justine, wagging my index finger at her.
“But what if…”
“No ‘what ifs’.” I interrupted her. “You are out!”
Justine and I like to play the game “Would you have dated me if…?” Then we insert something objectionable like “Secretly being an internet troll” or ‘Liking parsley.”
Typically, there is nothing Justine can’t say or do. I will forever forgive her.
She can go to jail, and it doesn’t even have to be similar to Camp Cupcake, where Martha Stewart spent her sentence.
She can even ask me to take someone out or bury a body. Knowing Justine’s strong moral compass, that person probably deserves it, like those people eating pizza with a fork and a knife.
But there is a limit to everything.
For me, the one thing I could never forgive Justine for is using a full-body suit to go into the ocean. And I’m not talking about a full-body suit to go into shark-infested, torturing-cold waters like those here in Northern California that people claim to love so much.
I’m talking about a full-body suit to go into beautiful and warm Hawaiian waters.
That’s a crime against humanity, and if Justine was ever to commit it, either she or I would have to go.
Maybe I’d go; that way, she can keep all the mix-and-match furniture, and I can start fresh.
I consider myself a very easygoing kinda guy.
But I grew up on the Caribbean coast of Colombia on the Atlantic Ocean, and there is an unspoken etiquette for how to do the beach.
There is not a lot to it.
The beach is a place to commune with nature, so you come to it as you are or as close as you can get to who you are.
Sure.
Some guys take it a little too far and wear a Speedo or, as they call it in the area, “A tanga narizona,” (or a big nose thong) when they should be wearing a high-waisted belly wrap.
But even they do it better than those with suits and hats looking like sea mushrooms.
For all the jokes there are about people of color not liking to swim, I don’t know that a lot of white people know how to do the beach.
Sure. They can swim, but, man, they act like they’ve never been on a warm beach, and they violate all the etiquette.
They lather themselves in sunscreen.
Then they were big hats and glasses.
Then, they cover almost every inch possible with a suit.
Then whatever little bit of sun is exposed is covered in a second layer of mineral, can’t-be-washed off, it’s-killing-the-reef, sunscreen.
It is like they belong to a religion that prohibits any skin showing. It was as if it was impure to have skin in the ocean, and you needed to cover it all, or you’d go to hell. It’s like they are Catholics of the sea.
But they are just going into the ocean, which accepts everyone as they are.
No need to change.
When we talk of how people were in ancient times, we describe them as savages, but they didn’t fear the elements as much as we do.
Now. They are all scientists or play one on social media and instead wear attire short of tuxedos to be in the elements.
Then, they pass this waterproof baggage to their poor children.
The kids wear the hats, the full body suits, the sunscreen. And the contraptions made to make them float, and never know how floating, water, or love feels in your body.
My girls wear their bathing suits and scrunchies. My youngest doesn’t even like to wear a bathing suit. So she just has her swim diapers and traded her suit for a tiny boogie board.
So, while she is kicking around on the board, parents are hovering around their kids (older than my oldest), reminding them not to have fun on a keiki (children) beach.
It is a weird thing.
And there is very little I can do about it. There are just too many problems in the world, and I can’t solve them all.
But change starts at home, and if a full-body suit ever comes out in my house, I’m out of here.
