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The Beach Cabin

 


When I was a teenager, my parents bought a cabin at the beach as a little getaway for the family. My brothers and sisters had moved out by then, so it was mostly just me and the parents. The cabin was about an hour’s drive from our home, and my parents liked to spend about one weekend a month at the beach cabin. Activities there included going to the beach to collect agates and shells or staying in and playing cards or reading. This was long before computers, the internet, or cell phones. Importantly, there was no TV at the beach cabin. My parents did not want a TV there. They were trying to get away from the cares of the world for a little bit.

For a teenager, this experience was like death warmed over. I dreaded these weekends. No TV. Are you kidding me? What was I supposed to do all weekend? I was not a big reader at that point in my life. Card games, yeah, okay, but how many waking hours can you play pinochle? Staring out the big picture window at the ocean was interesting for about two minutes. I was not a big fan of going down to the beach to collect agates. The beach was often cold and/or windy, and when it is windy, sand gets into EVERYTHING.

My parents did their best to keep me occupied. As I said, we played cards, drove to various points of interest on the coast. We would go out to eat at least once on the weekend. No TV, but there was a radio. I discovered that tuning the FM radio to a low frequency allowed me to hear the audio portion of one of the Portland television stations. So, I could hear it and try to visualize what I was seeing. It was an exercise in imagination. I remember listening to the movie “Failsafe,” and it was an interesting experience, with my mind filling in the blanks of what I was missing. Years later I saw the movie on TV and somehow it lost something when you added the visuals. With sound only, it was more tense.

Still, I was never too happy going to the beach cabin on those weekends. (Can you imagine a kid today being stuck in a cabin for the weekend with no cell phone, no computer or tablet, and no TV. They would gnaw their own arm off to get away.)

Now, as I have . . . matured, I have come to see the value in quiet time. As we are fed by more and more digital devices, it is nice to unplug once in a while. And I find I don’t mind just sitting and reading or going for a walk. It is something I can find value in. But if you try to force that on a teenager, you better expect to get the stink-eye. 

Star Liner

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