Beach towns

Evelyn C. McDonald

Arts & Culture Reporter

January 7, 2016 11:22 a.m.

Fernandina's Main Beach

Sometimes your life seems to come full circle in ways you hadn’t considered. On my New Year’s visit to Main Beach, it occurred to me somewhat belatedly that I grew up in a beach town. Not on the ocean but an inland sea. I lived in a town a bit smaller than Fernandina Beach on the shores of Lake Huron in Michigan. Note on folks from Michigan. We are the only people who, when you ask where we are from, raise our hand palm out and point somewhere on it. So consider me right hand, index finger, second knuckle down from the tip. I will admit it works better visually than when it’s described.

Unless you’ve seen the Great Lakes, they are hard to believe. Standing on the shore, the view is just like the ocean – all horizon and no discernible far shore. I have taken friends there and had them insist that the lake had to be salt water. I believe that the Great Lakes contain 20% of the world’s fresh water.

Lake Huron

The beach in my town had fine sand. The next town north was stony– a gift from the last Ice Age. The water had a gradual slope so you could wade out a ways before committing yourself. Except for a brief scare over lamprey eels, there wasn’t much wildlife in the lake that can harm you. And the eels seemed to be really good at determining fish from humans. I have a friend who has a t-shirt that says, “Lake Michigan. Salt free. No sharks.”

Those are the good points. Not so good is that the lakes are cold. Fresh water seems colder than salt water. Lake Superior is so cold your feet freeze 15 feet from the water line. The nearest I’ve come to experiencing that temperature is in two places – the Pacific Ocean in California and Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts. In the latter, my legs kept suggesting to me that I was demented for wading.

You’re probably wondering why I’m nattering on about the Great Lakes. Here’s the connection. When I was living there, I’d go down to the beach to watch the lake. I found something about the wave action was reassuring. I had the feeling that lives could come and go, but water and sand would still continue their struggle for supremacy. It lent a sense of perspective to my thoughts. That’s part of what my visits to Main Beach do for me now. And trust me, a little perspective is quite useful.

Evelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. She is a chair of Arts & Culture Nassau, a city commission charged with support of the arts in Nassau County. She serves on FSCJ's Curriculum Committee for the Center for Lifelong Learning. She is also the chair of the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.