In the photo, a group of people, women and men – some youngish – stand in shallow water with the ocean splashing their shins. The background is stunning: white sand beach, blue water meets white-frosted blue sky.

The picture contains smiling faces, extended arms, hands clasped upon adjacent shoulders suggesting the familiar. They are prepared for the day on a tropical beach. All, that is, but one.

There I am, white linen pants in water, moisture wicking upward by the inch with each new wave.

What the hell is wrong with you? That’s a question I would certainly ask if I were looking at a photo like that for the first time. Who goes to a beach in pants, regardless of color (white reflects sunlight, you know).

The honest answer is – brace yourself – I hate the beach. I hear the sun lovers among you, your  guffaws audible from a distance. But kindly refrain from cursing me out until you know the reason why.

Northern European ancestry aside, I blame it on the mountains. The Adirondacks, to be specific, where I experienced some of the happiest moments of my childhood.

Every summer through high school, sometimes in fall and occasionally in winter, I and various family members would find ourselves in Big Moose, a rural village in the central part of New York’s Adirondack region. We would pack up our cars, prep the car sick among us because there was no way we were stopping, and excitedly travel state route 28 northward, winding through Old Forge and hanging a left at Eagle Bay, just past the seasonal doughnut shop selling grease-stained bags of warm cinnamon and plain doughnuts. Once on Big Moose Road, we’d brace ourselves for the bumpy, roller coaster expanse to our destination.

Camp consisted of two rustic buildings, one owned by my grandfather who inhabited the one with plumbing, and one right next door owned by my uncle, who was perfectly content with an outhouse. The buildings stood maybe 100 feet from one another and were connected by a foot path traversing a pine tree filled gully.

Camp memories come easily when conjured…
…soothing calls of the white-throated sparrow, a sound that stops me dead in my tracks so many decades later.
…the pungent, fresh smell of pine.
…the rhythmic lapping of waves against wooden docks.
…cobblestone church walls juxtaposed against smooth, slate pathways.
…the squeaking sound of styrofoam surf boards keeping little limbs afloat two feet from shore.
…the tar smell of bubbling road patch.

I remember…cousins as constant companions, scampering along narrow, root-laden paths directing us to ponds and lakes unencumbered by habitation. Surreptitiously swiping M&M’s from the bar table as the adults played cards, and later, with neighborhood friends along for the summer, giddily writing obscene messages on bunk-bed walls.

But those walls are redone now, covered with coats of paint applied by another owner’s hand. And my grandfather’s camp, of which I still vividly dream some forty years later, has been sold and rebuilt several times over.

When I close my eyes, I still clearly see the stone fireplace, hear the rhythmic ticking of the mantel clock, feel the stubbled softness of the over-stuffed chair…and, yet, all of it is gone now; the truth of it so hard to believe, still.

So, please forgive me if you see me donned, perhaps inappropriately, in pants on a sun-soaked beach.  My heart is in the mountains, in a time and place far, far away.

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