We have quite a few friends who live out in Surfside and, though it is not something I’m proud of, I find it difficult when we go their way to visit.  Try as I might, I can never get over the shock of arriving at ‘the beach’ and finding it clotted up with houses and streets.

Unbidden, an anxious feeling comes over me and I want to shout out, “Where are the dunes?  There should be sand dunes here!”

Obviously, I’m stuck in the days of my childhood – the days of hunting for sand dollars and gathering bark and hunkering down in the dunes out of the wind.  You could go out to the beach at almost any time of the year (except for clamming season) and be the only person in sight.  Trees were sparse but there were splotches of bright yellow verbena and, if you timed it right, wild strawberries that burst in your mouth like modern-day pop-rocks.

It doesn’t help much that my parents’ friend, Bon Bailey, was Surfside’s main developer and that they were enthusiastic about the entire project.  My dad, especially, had the ability to embrace the future and to see the possibilities and positive outcomes.  My mother, too, enjoyed seeing the changes time brought, although she fiercely honored the past and the memories of long ago.

I think I take after my grandmother with respect to change.  She often said that it was a good thing we couldn’t see the future.  Even so, I sometimes try to imagine what Oysterville will look like a hundred years hence.  Will it be a tiny ‘neighborhood’ surrounded by fancy vacation homes or RV Parks?  Or will it be reduced to a sign on the highway like Bruceport across the bay?

I recently ran across an old, faded photograph of Aunt Rye and Judy and Peter Heckes.  They were out at the Oysterville Approach and the sign said “Come Again.”  Don’t I wish…