40 Oceanfront Acres and a Mule

“We’ve gotta find shelter! There ain’t no way we are gonna make it back to Ma and Pa’s before the storm hits!”

“I can’t take another step. I’m plum worn out. You go on without me.”

“I’ll be happy to, you old hag! I never did like you none anyways. That’s why I brung you with me. Just in case you didn’t make it, I could go home alone. One less mouth for Ma to feed.”

I cracked up at the old hag part. There’s nothing like your eight-year old calling you an old hag, in all seriousness, and getting away with it.

We were taking a walk on the beach after dinner, and the clouds had formed a thick blanket over the setting sun. The wind had picked up, more like March than July, and it sent the loose top layer of sand flying fast across the rest of the beach, like a grainy, hot, sticky blizzard. My daughter, S, and I walked hand in hand near the water, but not out of reach of the stinging wind, and the effect of the blowing, swirling sand layer combined with the gale forces made both of us think of pioneers trudging through a horrible winter storm. I made a casual comment to her about needing to get back to the cabin, and S just ran with it.

Up ahead of us were my other daughter, E, and my husband. They were enjoying an after-dinner stroll on the beach, made more challenging because of the wind. They were not enjoying the Oregon Trail hardscrabble story that unfolded behind them. As S and I role played louder, my spouse and older daughter walked faster. But once the pioneer drama began, S and I were powerless to stop it. We had to see the story through to the end.

In one hand, S carried a bucket. Our original plan was to look for creatures that exposed themselves at low tide, which it just about was right after dinner. Normally, we spend our time eyeballing tidal pools for tiny hermit crabs, burrowing shells, and the occasional sand flea. We filled the bottom with wet sand and a bit of water, in case any living creatures needed to be collected and relocated. The wind rolling over the sand changed everything.

“Storms a’brewin’,” I said to S. “We better take cover.”

The next thing I know, my daughter, who normally struggles with the “th, ch, and sh” sounds in speech therapy, sounds like she is channeling Laura Fucking Ingalls Wilder. She dazzled me with her fairly detailed knowledge of the trials of pioneer life. I guess that private Montessori education is paying off.

“We can’t go home yet, you dunce. We gotta go to the trading post. Pa needs more tar to fill the space between the logs in the cabin. And Ma asked me to get more coffee and corn meal. We need flour too, else meals are gonna get scarce come full wintertime.”

“Whaddya have that gun fer?” I asked her. “Are we going hunting?”

“I wish I could shoot you with it, you old hag! You sure are stupid. You always were, like you got dropped on your head when you was a little baby in your mama’s arms. Of course we’re hunting! What are we gonna trade with if we don’t have some animals? I can’t trade you, now can I?”

S was totally in character, minus the coon skin cap and moccasins. I had to stop and laugh.

“What’re you stopping for? Didn’t I just tell you to hurry up? We don’t have time for none of your lily-footed lollygagging!”

“Lollygagging?” I choked out. “Where did you even learn this stuff?” I wiped the tears from my eyes. “Look! Sand fleas!” Right in front of us, a few of those fast burrowing crabs were trying to hide in the sand before the next wave came.

“What in tarnation are you talking about? Them’s rabbits! Shoot ‘em! Shoot ‘em before they get away!”

I reached down and grabbed one before he could finish hiding in the sand, then tossed him in the bucket that S carried.

“I got one! Looky! I did it!”

“Well, you only got one. You let the others get away, ya dummy. Now how are we going to get all that Ma and Pa need at the gas station?” S said.

“You mean trading post,” I said. “They didn’t have gas stations back in pioneer times.”

S smiled at me,” Oh yeah, I mean trading post.” She resumed her back-woods style of dialect.
“That rabbit, plus them deer I shot up, will give us plenty to trade for what Ma needs."

“Stop screaming,” E screamed at us. “You’re embarrassing me.” E is convinced in her pre-teen way that literally everything her family does is a public embarrassment. I am kind of enjoying it, to tell you the truth. It gives me the opportunity to really make an effort to take things too far.

“We ain’t screaming,” S said, back in character. “We’re just talking over this storm.”

E rolled her eyes and walked faster away from us .

It turned out that the trading post was at the jetties, the pile of rocks where we usually stop and turn around to head back to our condo. S and I pretended to trade our sand flea and imaginary deer carcasses for some imaginary sacks of coffee, corn meal, and flour, along with the wood and tools that our imaginary Pa needed to shore up that cabin, which was also imaginary. What was real, however, was the walk back, over half a mile in strong winds.

“Can we stop now?” I asked S.

“No, you old hag! We have to get back to the cabin. Not that I wouldn't mind letting you freeze to death out here."

“No, seriously, can we stop? My throat is all dry from talking like that.”

“But I don’t want to,” S said, sounding like herself again. “I’m having fun.”

“All right,” I agreed. “But if I get all dry and choky sounding, than I’m out.”

We finished our walk, the trudge back from the trading post to the cabin in the woods, just as the storm hit. We lost our extra deer carcass on the way, and some of the wood that Pa needed. S threatened to leave me, shoot me, and beat me. She reiterated how stupid I was and how much she hated me. I argued back, tried to redeem myself with catching more rabbits or even some squirrels. I got blamed for wasting bullets, which were hard to come by.

And we irritated E some more. And my throat got really dry and scratchy. But we made it back to the condo, er, cabin.

“That was fun!” S announced brightly.

“It sure was,” I said, trying to return to my normal speaking voice. “Where’d you learn all that stuff about pioneers?”

“At school,” she said. “I miss school. It’s fun there, except no one will play pioneer with me. Camp’s fun too, but different, because we don’t learn stuff. No one will play pioneer there with me either. But you did.” She let the waves clean out the bucket, returning that traumatized sand flea/rabbit back to its home.

“I did, didn’t I?” I said to her, and we smiled at each other. Not bad for an old hag.