Leaving Retired Guy to monitor the Tour de France and the Red Sox on TV, the three of us had just started for Middletown when Maria called and said she'd rented a place in Green Hill for August and did we want to go down to the shore with her while she paid the deposit? We'd be able to park the car at her place to use the beach, which has no public parking. We made a U turn to pick her up, and then the four of us were heading to South Kingstown on Route 2, the old South County Trail, still the best route to the shore.Well, it turned out to be a great beach day. Seemingly, the wind had pushed the clouds inland, leaving the coastline clear as a bell, with a nice breeze to cool us off while we sat on an old flannel sheet of Alan's and ate the sandwiches we'd bought at Rippy's. Charlie had brought along some SPF 4 sun lotion, and even though I had my 45 in my bag, I couldn't resist. The stuff is practically a controlled substance now. I felt I had to look around to see if anyone could see me putting it on.
The waves at Green Hill Beach were big, the backwash tugging you out and burying your feet in the sand whle you picked your moment to jump in. But the water was perfect. (I had brought my instant-read meat thermometer, and it read a comfortable 70.)
It was the first time I'd met Alan, who grew up in North Providence but escaped to the Charlestown/Matunuck shore at every opportunity. He knew his way around, remembered the long-gone Green Hill Motel, where you used to be able to park and pay to use the beach, and the glory days of Moonstone Beach, now lost to the dreaded piping plovers.
We all noted the plethora of Private Beach signs, keeping different groups of people -- and hypothetical birds -- each on their own patch of sand, which unfortunately was steadily shrinking as the tide came up late in the afternoon. "You know, the sand below the mean high tide line is public," I said to Alan, kind of as a test. But the guy knew his stuff: "Yeah, but just try sitting over there, and watch what happens."Besides being savvy about Rhode Island state law and beach rights, Alan demonstrated a neat beach trick I'd never seen before: burning wood with a magnifying glass. He'd brought along a powerful jewelers' glass, through which he focused the sun's rays on pieces of weathered beach wood to burn letters and pictures into them with a tiny, moving flame.
We all were mesmerized by the process, and before long he'd made a beachy sign for Maria's Providence store, Antiques and Interiors, and one each for me and Charlie to take home.
He said he'd known by looking at the clouds over Providence that morning that the coastline would be clear. I guess it takes an old beach bum from North Providence to know that kind of thing.
