Castles survive 'sands' of time
On this Father's Day, I remember my dad, who taught me how to build sand castles
Many full moons and low tides ago, a man stretched out in the sand with his children along the beach at Jekyll Island.
He had grown up a Missouri farm boy with his fingers in the dirt. But, on this summer day, he reached for clumps of sand and fashioned them into castles.
He molded the sand with his hands, packing the foundations and rounding the grains into shape with a palette of salt and sun at his fingertips. His children watched him build sky-scraping towers, dripping the wet sand into impressive spires and steeples.
It wasn’t a construction site.
It was an art studio.
The man was my father.
A generation later, I taught my children the craft the same way he taught me. On our family beach vacations, we migrated up and down the beaches of the Golden Isles of Georgia at Jekyll and St. Simons. The sand followed us home in our shoes and beach towels.
We built castles … and made memories.
We drifted to the Emerald Coast in Destin for many years, then moved our trips to the barrier island of St. George between the Gulf and Apalachicola Bay. We sifted the sugary sands in our hands as if we were clutching an hourglass.
Last week, on a stretch of sand at Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, I huddled with my grandchildren along the tide pools for the same time-honored tradition of playing in the sand. They had sand toys and shovels, Tonka trucks and plastic buckets.
We built castles and condos, mountain ranges and volcanoes with lava tops. By the time we finished, we had almost two dozen lined up in formation. The tide was going out, so we were able to protect our beachfront community from encroachment and waves.
My youngest grandson – the boy who loves to play in the dirt back home – marveled at the craftsmanship of my castles. The surf was our classroom.
“Do you know how I learned to do this?” I asked him.
He has heard the story before.
“Yeah. Your dad taught you,’’ he said.
Happy Father’s Day.
