This land is our land

Yesterday, the GG spent a considerable amount of time with a young relative of ours who goes to college here on The Planet Ann Arbor. They were working on car issues and the GG was having a great time! This young man is my first cousin twice removed. His grandmother is my first cousin.

Encouraged by that, the GG reached out to a relative on the PacNW and was rewarded by a couple of photos including this one, which I have posted without permission from anyone. This young man is my first cousin once removed. His mother is my first cousin.

All of these folks have roots and property at the family moominbeach on Gitchee Gumee, which is where I spent all of my summers as a kid and as much time as I can manage nowadays.

Can you surf on Gitchee Gumee? There are places where people do surf on Gitchee Gumee. Not on our beach. We have shallow water in our bay with a couple of sandbars that we can easily walk to before the water gets “deep” (12 feet or thereabouts). When there’s a northwest wind, we get decent-sized waves that break near the sandbars and we can body surf on them or dive straight into them. The waves never get big enough to surf with an actual surfboard.

And that’s a good thing because there is rarely a “undertow” on our beach, the kind of thing that sweeps children under the water to drown. When my children and nieces were young I sat on the beach and counted heads while they swam (including the surfer in the pic when he was at the family beach).

Not sure if this surfer is ever going to want to live or even own his share of the moominbeach family beach property but however that all works out, he is always welcome here.

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