Sunday, November 6, 2011

Unfortunate Tides

My brother and I went out for a little beach combing this morning before it was time to pack up and head home. We were searching for some of the fossilized shark teeth that the area is famous for. If you can find four, you can find a hundred! I had read on a local how-to website the day before, and so we were trying to train our eyes to pick out the real thing from the millions of shards of shells on the shore.

Down the beach, I saw a local lady chatting up my brother, and it wasn't long before her little dog ran off in my direction, with her in hot pursuit. She paused at the fallen tree I had recently scrambled over. "I'm just looking for poison ivy," she said. "It's all over around here. My daughter had to go on steroids this summer because of it!" Shark teeth are one thing, but I know my poison ivy, and I waited without alarm as she inspected the tree.

When her dog wouldn't come, she shrugged and climbed over it herself. "Is that your husband?" she asked, gesturing toward the bent figure of my brother sifting through a mound of fragments at the water line. No sooner had I corrected her than she continued, "He's picking up mostly shells down there. I told him the tides weren't very good this weekend." I nodded and started back to where he was.

"Hey!" she called from behind me a moment later. "You missed a tooth!" I turned back and she deposited a tiny, but perfect shark tooth in my palm. "Give it to your brother so he knows what to look for," she told me. "I've got buckets of 'em. Buckets!" And with that, she followed her dog down the beach.

No comments:

Post a Comment