I consider my childhood as having been one in a million. I don't know of kids these days as having the freedom to roam the woods and beaches like my cousins and I did. My parents were wise in choosing a place for us to grow up in that was out of the city and had all the freedom we needed to grow up away from the crime-ridden city life. And we took full advantage of roaming the woods and Puget Sound beaches to our heart's content without getting into trouble. One exception. While roaming the beach one day we lost track of time and got lost about a mile down the beach. We ended up swimming halfway home at the water's edge for the tide had come in. There were three of us and we ranged in age from six to nine so not old enough to make very wise decisions yet.

We lived next to a State Park and swam in the water at the park. It had an area that had a sandy portion and was really nice to walk on. It was not very crowded as not many people knew about the park. There was a hazard that we toyed with which gives an idea of not very wise choices. The water we swam in was Puget Sound and had a deep channel in the middle. So deep that submarines would come in through the area that we swam in to dock at the shipyard in Bremerton. Of course, we swam out to the edge so we could look down into the water and see the drop off. It was scary and dangerous. Of course, we never told our parents. There were a lot of large sea animals in that trench. A man living at the water's edge took a picture of an Orca breaching out of the water with a giant octopus wrapped around it. It made the front page of the paper.

My love for the water and beach combing came from my experiences in my childhood. I came to love the humid air on sunny days, and the crisp salty smell as I walked the beaches. Sometimes the salt hung in the air and would coat our hair and lashes. It was fun to laugh and run free those days. There was not much that washed up on the beaches in the sound. No fancy shells. We did find trash thrown in the water from ships. Old bottles and broken glass which had been worn down by the waves so that they had no sharp edges anymore. One day we came across a strange thing that looked like intestines outside of some creature. Of course, we fantasized that it was an alien and escorted it into the water. That was the best thing we could have done as we later found out that it was a type of sea cucumber, and it would have died if left out of the water, so we had saved its life.

My parents took us camping at many of the beaches in the Pacific Northwest. They were always rocky and abandoned so we wandered up and down the beach looking for anything that might have washed up on shore. No shells there either. One day we did find a bottle with a note in it. It had an address from a place in Canada, so I wrote to the girl for several years until we grew apart. Other than that, bottle we did not find anything that was of interest. Lots of driftwood that came in unusual shapes. Some we took home and stood in the garden.

After I had left home, I had two friends who built a sailboat and sailed from Florida to the Bahamas. They invited me to join them for a vacation and I spent two weeks on "Heaven's Door" with them. The first night there was a storm that dragged our boat out of the harbor in Nassau even with the anchor down. Two larger boats came to our rescue. No one slept that night. By morning the storm had passed, and we pulled anchor and started our trip. We sailed from Nassau, island hopping all the way down to Georgetown. I could have spent the rest of my life living on the water. I was in love with beach combing for shells, breathing in the fresh salt air, sleeping deeply for the first time in years. I was completely relaxed. While my friends snorkeled for fish, I gathered shells and walked naked all the way around the island which took about an hour. Of course, I put my suit back on before I got back to the boat.

I no longer live near the water, and I miss it with a passion. I am retired and unable to drive the distance that it takes to reach the ocean. I only have my memories and my dreams.