adventurous times

A world of wonders is beneath your feet.
An entire civilization lies hidden.
When you walk a sandy stretch of beach they are all around you.
Sometimes you can hear them.
A hissing sound as you walk over the hard, wet, gray sand.
Sometimes a stream of water shoots up and marks a spot, like an x on a treasure map.
Dig here.
All you need to do is look down.
Down at your feet and as far as eye can see.
Under every hole in the sand are clams, clams, clams; Manila, Littleneck, Butter, Razor, and the giant Geoduck.
It's fun to dig for clams.
To pounce on a waterspout, and scoop up the sand until your fingers close upon the prize.
Geoducks are the most fun of all though.
Their siphons are often just at the surface.
Clam lips.
It can be a foot or more to where the giant clam lies smugly safe.
But mollusks are nobodies fool.
They feel the sand being thrust aside and retreat in a rush of water.
Sand is heavy and filled with broken fragments of shell.
Digging by hand can be perilous.
It's a sport of fools apparently.
Spurred on as I was by a reckless desire to show my grandchildren a giant clam, I plunged my hands into an ever deepening hole in the sand.
I could tell right away that the cut was deep.
By the time I pulled my hand to the surface, up through the slurry of sand, blood was everywhere.
I held my hand aloft and stared in amazement as red flowed down my finger and hand and began to drip onto the sand.
Good grief.
I was a bio-hazard.
You never have a hankie when you need one.
Have you noticed that?
I didn't have anything I could wrap around the cut, so I pressed on it with my thumb as we hastened towards shore.
It was low tide and we were at the waterline.
Of course.
A clean bottle of water was sacrificed and a kleenex pressed into service.
Then back to the beach we went.
The children and I disrupted the eco-system by feeding pretzels to the seagulls.
We gamboled and rambled and roamed and roiled.
Then raced for the truck and the parking meter.
We arrived breathless with two minutes to spare.
Adventurous times.