Elaine Faber

A Day at the Beach -                Vidya Shergil

My friend, Vidya, grew up on the island of Fiji in the 1950’s. She attended a private girl’s high school. She is working on an autobiography. This is one of her memories and an essay she wrote about her experience.

For our annual hostel picnic, Miss Hodge, and the team, took us, by the bus loads, to Saweni Beach. Nothing like a day on the beach with 50 or so girls. We had only a few hours, but we made the most of it. Any amount of time by the ocean is a treat. The simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a banana, and water on the beach seemed like a gourmet feast.

Another time, they rented a flat-bottomed freight boat called a barge to ferry us across the shallow waters to a nearby island. Our music teacher played the tapes of ‘The Viennese Waltz’ for us. ‘The Blue Danube,’ which is the English title of a waltz by the Austrian Composer Johann Strauss, takes me to that trip every time I hear it.

Just imagine listening to those beautiful waltzes while gently gliding through calm and serene waters. Heavenly!

That island, like many others, is small, low lying park-like and generally not habitable because there is no fresh water source. If you try to drill a well you simply get salty sea water. But these islands are great for a day’s outing.

Again, we asked for and got the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a banana and plenty of water. The sandwiches were made from thick slices of crusty, sourdough Fiji-bread.

In the few hours there, we were able to walk around, barefoot on the sandy island many times. It was practically all beach, but ringed by many coconut palm trees. After lunch, a bunch of us lay around under a cluster of these trees and snoozed away.

In one of my college English classes, we were asked to close our eyes, to visualize a special day from our childhood, and write about it in a timed assignment. I recalled those two high school picnic days on the island and here’s what I wrote:

SEA OF LIFE

When life’s hurried pace gets you off track and you feel caught up in a whirlwind of strife, what could be better than a leisurely stroll on a wide expanse of a sandy beach? Better still would be lying on that beach napping lazily as the sunbeams melt your cares away.

You slide into a delightfully hypnotic state, listening to the endless breaking of the waves on the shore, centered and completely at ease. It’s time to relish the fact that solitude is not synonymous with loneliness.

Intermittent sprays of briny mist coupled with sea-kissed breezes cool and soothe both mind and body as you watch the delicate swoops and dives of the seagulls, the living kites, playing out an improvised ballet on the coast below.

You sit up for a moment to gaze at the ocean, an implacable azure entity, heaving and recoiling tumultuously as if to flex its impressive muscles in arrogance. Surely, a subtle reminder from the mighty Neptune of our place in the hierarchy of things.

A day at the beach is all one needs for a renewed zest for life. The seemingly endless ocean could well be a testament to man’s mortality. A feeling that life needn’t be simply about existing, but rather about filling one’s sails with enough passion to successfully navigate the ups and downs of life’s temperamental seas.

Isn’t it fun to look back on the thoughts of a teenager raised in a different culture than our own? Perhaps I’ll publish some of her other experiences as a teenager in Fiji during the 1950s. (Elaine)

I won first place in a local library writing contest with this story several years ago. The theme was 'what library memories did we have?'.

In 1950, I was a first grader in a new, small, rural school. The children marked the days off the calendar, waiting for the two days a month  the yellow Sonoma County bookmobile visited the school and we could each select a library book! Without today’s modern technology of television, videos, and smart phones, a book was the doorway to a world of fantasy, imagination and excitement.

We lined up at the door of the bookmobile. I was barely able to contain our excitement until finally it was my turn to enter the truck. The librarian directed my attention to the two shelves dedicated to beginning readers and I made my selection.

The librarian challenged me with the responsibility of caring for library property and tucked a card into the back cover. It was mine for two whole weeks! Triumphantly, I carried my book down the steps and into the shade of a nearby tree.

The book was a treasure, sent to me personally by the President of the United States, who owned the County Public Library System and personally sent the yellow bookmobiles to rural schools, as a symbol of truth, justice and the American Way. This, I knew in my heart of hearts.

I walked home from school that day, carrying my lunch pail, sweater and my precious library book under my arm. One of my companions suggested we take a different route home. Though I knew this was against my mama’s rule, the chanting of chicken cinched my decision to agree. Several blocks from home, our path brought us to a PG&E workman’s hole, loosely covered by boards. Our leader pranced across the boards and 'double-dog dared' us to follow. I was afraid, but unable to defy a double-dog dare, I had no choice but to follow him across the wobbling boards.

Fighting back tears, I clutched my lunch pail, sweater and library book, closed my eyes and took a step onto the wobbly boards. Flailing my hands to keep my balance, my precious book tumbled into the dark hole and landed surely, into the pits of hell. Horrified, we peered into the darkness. I could barely see its pages flipping gently back and forth. The hole was too deep, and rescue too challenging for our small six-year-old minds to comprehend.

I contemplated the outcome of this catastrophe. The President of the United States had personally commissioned the book into my hands and I had failed him…. miserably. Someone was going to jail. I felt sure they wouldn’t put a 6-year-old in jail, but, who…? Suddenly it became all too clear. They would put Daddy in jail because I was his kid and somebody had to pay for this grievous error.

When I got home, I hid in the closet, despite my mother’s pleas to come out. I sat in the dark, crying, imagining what would become of us. Mama would have to go to work. Everyone would  point fingers at me, knowing I was the reason Daddy was in jail.

When Daddy came home, he grabbed me by the collar, pulled me from the closet and whacked my bottom, “What the heck is going on?” Daddy always could get to the seat of the problem in about four seconds.

Between tears and trembling, I confessed the loss of my library book on the way home. (I decided not to mention my suspected opinion about him going to jail. The library police would be here soon enough to point that out and arrest him.)

Daddy drove us back to the gigantic, monstrous hole that yawned beneath the 100 foot deep PGE boards, the hole that had swallowed my precious book, the hole that was the cause of his impending incarceration, and my everlasting shame. He leaned over the gaping cavern, reached his long arm down and…pulled out the book.

Things were easier back then. You could count on Daddy to solve life-shattering problems with one sweep of his big hand, or so it seemed to me, as I snuggled against his shoulder on the way home, my library book clutched tightly to my chest.