The Old Man at the Sea

I descend the walkway to the playita, plunk into my beach chair and scan the bay.  I am aware of a familiar soul roaming the beach before me. He is a mature gentleman, lean and bronzed by the Mexican sun. His daily ritual rarely varies. The trash bag trails  as he scours the upper beach for plastic bottles, paper wrappers, styro-foam plates/cups or other discards. Our eyes meet, we nod courteously and exchange “holas.”   His route begins at the rocks to my right, follows a stone wall past the restaurant, veers to the left, crosses the creek, re-emerges adjacent the ramp and proceeds to the opposite corner of the beach. Stopping, stooping and gathering parcels as soon as they are spied. The locals seated a top the sea wall watch him with quiet amusement tempered by a bit of discomfort. Some speak out, while others ignore.

The linear route across the beach morphs into the first curve of an oval and drops down to the water’s edge. His bag is buoyed  awkwardly by the waves. More trash is plucked from the sand and surf. He withholds judgment as he trudges along remaining resolute in his task. As the last curve of the oval closes, he pauses to appreciate the result. The accumulated debris in his bag signals the playita’s temporary return to a pristine state. We acknowledge each other once again.

Of late, yet another task consumes his time. He enters the knee-high surf and scans the water for what appear to be shell fragments. Once located, he extracts the piece and instead of garnering it as some personal treasure, he pitches it up onto the sand. His progress is slow and methodical yet his practiced eye is no less capable of spotting the desired object than an egret is capable of detecting a small minnow. The number of shell fragments present increases daily and must now total in the hundreds. Second task completed, he departs.

To what purpose is this behavior directed? Is this misguided fool now scouring the sea beds for debris? From my perch, I observe the following: visiting couples strolling the playita pause then retrieve a personal Yelapa treasure which finds its way into a satchel tagged for Anchorage; city cousins visiting their rural counterparts dart across the beach a la Easter egg hunt style and screech with glee as tiny fingers close around a new fragment. My friend adopted a stretch of beach, cleaned it up and turned it into a treasure trove for the young and young-at-heart. How cunning. I sense this old boy might have been a teacher in a former life.

As this entry is being posted on Earth Day, I urge you all to watch for those who make seemingly minute differences. They are out there, aren’t we?