The Uncle And The Whale

When I was but a wee Billy, we had a family reunion at a place up here called Ocean Shores. Much as the very original name of the place implies, it a collection a buildings near the shore of the ocean.

I have been brainwashed by movies and eventually by my moving there, that beaches are to be like the ones found in Southern California. Glistening sand, blue sparkling water with perfect waves, great looking and perma-tanned bodies scattered like M&M's when the bag accidentally rips all the way open.

The beaches up here seem desolate and cold, and the water... The only word that comes to mind is bitter. You probably don't want to get into that water unless you're saving a loved one. And even then, you'd probably give it a good long thought, dragging your feet for a long enough time so that said person might go under those frigid and unforgiving waves and you could rationalize your way out of it.

My memories of the Ocean Shores beach is grey. The beaches here seem to be more an exercise in extremes than playing. The ocean here seems to be about communing with the awesome power and beauty and allowing it to move and transform your soul than it is about body surfing.

And realizing that this sounds fairly judgmental, I have to say that actually being able to get in to the water is a great way to have your soul transformed. The austere version of land's end here though seems somehow perfect for the British Isles/Lutheran/Scandinavian background of so many of the people here. I again wonder if similarities in geography attract a person to a place, if there is something in the blood that brings a person to a cold, wet climate versus the glaring heat of a desert.

There is a picture of my brother and I, and our two cousins standing in front of that vast, cold ocean. We are happy to be on a trip, and we are happy to be together, but you can tell that we are also very cold.

Or maybe it's just that I can tell 'cause I was there.

On that trip though, along those seemingly endless miles of empty and grey beaches, we found the corpse of a beached whale. This was the first time I had actually seen a whale in real life, dead or alive. I spent most of my time checking out the blowhole situation. The thing stank, as it was a large amount of sea born flesh rotting on land. My uncle, my drunk Uncle Paul, thought it would be a great idea to climb up on top of the carcass, as if he were conquering a mountain in the name of all beer drunk, young, uncles everywhere.

Uncle Paul was always trying to make us laugh. I totally get it in a different way now. Drunk or no, Paul was in love with laughter. And he knew how to communicate with kids, probably only knew how to communicate with kids, and he always knew how to have fun. It makes me a little sad now, remembering that rambunctious and devil may care laugh and knowing a badness that would happen down the road.

The only time I can remember being angry with Uncle Paul as much as the adults around us is on that van ride back to the hotel from the beach. That dead whale smell stuck to his boots and soon overcrowded the air inside that death trap van. And man, that is a stink that lingers…