I’ve been waiting for a candlelit evening all summer and I finally got one. I was not aware (but shoulda been) that we would be candlelit tonight until a beach urchin started lighting them.

It was a cold windy day with big waves coming in off Lake Superior. There was lots of water flying through the air but it was hard to tell if it was rain or spray coming in off the lake. Maybe a combination of both. Our beach urchin and her buddy went swimming *anyway*. I was willing to give them a “pass” because cold and fugly weather but I am feeling happy that they went in *anyway*. When I was a beach urchin, us cousins went swimming EVERY DAY no matter what the weather was like.

When I got old enough to feel like I needed DAILY BATHING (not to mention hair-washing), I bathed in the lake no matter the weather. When I started working summers at “your Tempo store”, I remember getting to work and my boss Mr. Drysdale would take one look at my long dripping wet hair and ask, “did you go in the lake this morning?” Yes. Yes I did. He was laughing. He was a friend of my dad’s and knew where I was coming from and I think he valued that I cared enough about hygiene to get clean whatever it took before coming to work. I will say that if the weather was like it was today, I would ask The Commander to come down to the beach and watch in case I had any trouble. I never had any trouble but she would always oblige.

We sang a Piedmont chorus tonight. And so, g’night.

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