The Hiking Writer

When I was very young, barely in 1st or 2nd grade, I remember vividly my first obsession.

It wasn't Elvis. It wasn't Nixon. It wasn't the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or even Bobby Goldsboro. It was the icon of marine biology, the old man of the sea, my hero, Jacques Yves Cousteau.

My friends wanted to be firemen, or policemen, or doctors, or lawyers. Not me.

I wanted to be Cousteau. To swim among ze fishes of ze sea was my heart's greatest desire. He was so cool. He was so French. He filmed things I could only dream of in land-locked Louisville, Kentucky. "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" was the landmark television series that deeply effected my life. And in 1971, it lit a fire in my adolescent brain like nothing else. The episode was called "Octopus, Octopus" and it demonstrated the incredible intelligence of these bizarre creatures.

And I was hooked like a largemouth sucking down a nightcrawler.

The Summer of my 7th year on this Earth saw me in Venice, Florida for two weeks in July yet again. From the time I was two untill my mid-teens, I spent 2 weeks of every Summer in the same sunny vacation spot. And in this particular year, I got my first mask and snorkel.

And suddenly, I was he.

I never understood what wonder was until I stuck my head below the waves and began looking at all of the life below the surface. And that very first Summer of my revelation, I found 2 baby octopus in a tidepool. It was so freaking cool.

Olive snails, moon snails, sand fleas, needle fish, angel fish, hermit crabs, ink fish, tulip snails, butterfly rays, jack crevalle, sheepshead, blue crab, white crab, spider crab, starfish, sand dollars, coquinas, sunset clams, quahogs, sting rays, snook, snapper, ghost crabs, jelly fish, ladyfish, I saw them all

From that time until now, I love the ocean. Solace and peace have become synonymous with crashing waves and long stretches of beach. A snorkel and mask at a beach are the embodiment of a lost afternoon of joy, sunburned shoulders and becoming a 7 year old again. I drove my sisters and parents crazy those first few years with fish books I purchased and committed to memory, and relentlessly quizzed the family in the car on the way to Florida. ("Denise! What sharks bear live young?") Sharks became my milieu in Venice. You can find shark's teeth on the beach there, and that was worth the trip alone.

I'm still basically a 7 year old sometimes. But most especially when I have a mask, fins and a snorkel at any beach on the coast of the USA.

I'm smiling just thinking about it.