During our 21st visit to the white sand beaches of Florida’s Emerald Coast along County Road 30A, I took particular interest in the daily ritual of setting up and taking down beach chairs and umbrellas.
This is a young person’s task, and I am neither fit nor inclined to pursue this vocation.
Once upon a time we toted our own beach chairs and umbrellas to the beach, and the tanned brawny young men who put out the rented equipment were none of our concern. But as our boys grew up and were not content to go to the beach without their own chair and umbrella, the sheer quantity of beach apparati swelled beyond my capacity to carry in one trip.
The tipping point occurred a few years back when the condo we rented came with complimentary “beach service.” That was it. We were done lugging our own chairs and umbrellas to the beach.
This service is not always complimentary these days, but I don’t blink at paying the increasingly exorbitant fees. To have a spot pre-set at the water’s edge with no one obscuring your view without having to scramble down to the beach before dawn to claim your spot is a transaction I am willing to make.
This week during our vacation, our condo’s balcony afforded me an excellent view of the setting up process. I managed to sleep in each day until 6 a.m. (which to my EDT internal clock felt like 7 a.m.), and enjoy my coffee on the balcony while the young men toiled away below setting up. This year we were at Adagio on Blue Mountain Beach, and their section of the beach had three rows of set-ups totaling more than 100 umbrellas and twice that many chairs.
Two or three dudes managed to accomplish this in about an hour and a half. It starts with one, who I can only suppose is the supervisor, takes a large drill, and drills holes in the sand five paces apart in three rows. As he does so, his apprentice, in my imagination, follows along behind him placing umbrellas in the holes.
Then comes the real work. Both the master beach setter and the apprentice uncover the stacked beach chairs and arrange them around themselves so that using only two hands gripping chairs at their sides, they manage to carry 438 chairs at once over to the umbrellas. Then they go down the row distributing them, lightening the load down the row.
At the beginning of this operation, the young men jog back to the stacks of chairs. By the end, they are less speedy.
Here are the important life lessons I gleaned from this daily ritual:
With advanced age comes greater appreciation of feats of strength and stamina. I admit it. I was impressed. They were doing something I do not think I could do, or at least not in the time they allotted for the task of setting out an entire beach worth of umbrellas and chairs.
Work smarter not harder. I don’t know who the first sun-bleached muscle man was to figure out how to stack those wooden chairs so that they could carry so many in one trip, but that was genius. Having to constantly run back and forth from the umbrella to the stacks would be death by a thousand paper cuts, and utterly exhausting. Yes, carrying the big bundle of chairs requires exertion, but you can recover during the fold-out phase.
Those with sun-sensitive skin need not apply. There are real physical limitations in life. Ignoring them is foolhardy and can be deadly. I may have thought I could tan in my younger days, but the frequent trips to the dermatologist in my mid-50s has proven that to be ill-advised. These beach dudes are tanned to the point of being impervious to UV rays.
When there’s nothing to do, just sit around. These guys work hard for about three hours a day, by my calculation. The rest of the time they are sitting under their own giant umbrellas and sipping from their Owalas. They also seem to attract attention from scantily clad female admirers.
No matter what your job is, it’s hard to escape customer interactions. This work would seem to be ideal for the solitary introvert looking to escape from human interaction. However, I have witnessed a number of conversations with beautiful young women interrupted by customers with questions about their setups’ location and distance from the boardwalk steps. Even these guys can be found by Karen.
I end this vacation with a newfound appreciation for those who, like Ken from the Barbie Movie, have as their occupation, “beach.” It looks hard, and it is hard. I don’t know what it pays, but I’m guessing it’s like any kind of seasonal work. It has its benefits as well as its challenges.
So here’s to you, Beach Dude. You work hard so us middle-aged dads can sip our coffee on our balconies with our lower backs still intact.
New South Essays 