At The Shore

"No sweetie, we don't go to the beach. We're from New Jersey - we go to the shore." - Christopher Weyant, caption for a cartoon from The New Yorker 18 August 2003.

So the father explains to his little girl who listens wide-eyed, sand pail and shovel in hand, as the two stand on the beach. And so it has been since the mid 19th century as millions have flocked to seaside resorts each summer. For anyone lucky enough to grow up near an ocean, sand, salt, and a guide to the ebb and flow of the tides are the necessary accouterments of a real beach.
My mother's bright red beach bag spent the summer at the ready in the truck of the car, striped beach blanket, sunglasses, lotions, inflatable beach ball, and paperback books neatly packed. All that we needed to go was our bathing suits and the large thermos to be filled with lemonade, topped by three nesting cups - "Mama cup, Daddy cup, and Baby cup."
Just look at Winslow Homer's Eagle Head and imagine the sound of the waves. You can hear them and the gulls and smell the salt before you reach the shore. No view is quite so thrilling as that first glimpse of the horizon in Jacques Durand-Henriot's Beach Cabins at Saint-Valery.
You can observe the evolution of the beach costume from Fernande Mathey at the Beach in her ruffled pink dress through Louis Valtat's black-clad Bicyclette to the tanned group in the Jantzen ad. Beach cabins from Europe to Japan allowed bathers to change clothes modestly when they reached their destination. (Read Dr. Kathryn Ferry's history of beach huts at http://www.beach-huts.com/ .)

The intertidal delight children experience at the shore is made visible in the magical underwater swimming of Babar and baby. The littoral zone, between high and low tides, a place that appears and disappears and reappears, is the ideal summer place.