Sowash:  "Morning at Seaside" from Cape May Suite   for oboe, piano and violin

When our kids were little, we had a friend who was part-owner of Congress Hall, an historic, seaside hotel in Cape May, NJ.  He was allowed three weeks of free lodging each summer.  Unable to use it himself, he kindly offered our little family the opportunity.  We joyfully accepted!  For seven summers we had a free place to stay for three idyllic weeks in beautiful, quaint, Victorian Cape May.  Right across from the beach!

We had some of our best times in Cape May, playing in the sand, tumbling in the surf, strolling through lovingly restored neighborhoods, enjoying the gardens and picnicking at Cape May Point.  Jo, my dear wife these 43 years, instructs us to spread her ashes exactly there, at Cape May Point, where she was happiest and at her best.

(Me, I haven’t decided where I want my ashes spread.  Maybe in the Shenandoah National Park,  cast to the winds atop Mary’s Rock or Hawksbill.  But nowhere near the ocean, please.)

Those of you who live near oceans cannot conceive how strange the ocean seems to a Midwesterner.  Everything is wrong about it, upside-down, backwards, the opposite of all we know about water and how water ought to behave.

I grew up around water, mind you.  Swimming in farm ponds, canoeing the rivers of rural Ohio, sailing on Lake Erie.  I’m a good swimmer and I love boats.  I taught Scouts how to swim, canoe and row.  I know about water.

But the ocean?  First, there's way too much salt in it!  Whoever heard of such a thing?  Water is not supposed to be salty, unless you’re going to cook rice in it.

There are tides!  The shoreline actually advances and retreats!  Not like the well-mannered reservoirs and farm ponds of Ohio.  They know where they belong.  They know their place.  They stay put.  Oceans are rude, even uppity … for about six-and-a-half hours … and then they go “down-itty.”  What’s with that?

Oceans are impossibly big!  You can almost see Canada from the Ohio shore of Lake Erie.  You think, “I'll sail over there and back some afternoon."  But an ocean?  Immense.  Sailing across an ocean is beyond the imaginings of a Buckeye.

Then there are the waves.  Lake Erie has waves, sure.  Sometimes.  When the wind kicks up, good and strong.  But the ocean?  Always.  Wind or no wind, you’ve got waves.  All the time.  Noisy, too, like a dinner guest who can’t shut up. The darned ocean never calms down!

Being the early riser in our family, I’d throw aside the sheets at the crack of dawn, leap from my bed, pull on my bathing suit and t-shirt and head straight for … the bakery.  I’d get coffee (“Hot as hell and black as Death!") and an almond croissant and head for the beach.  A beautiful place in the early morning, I’m the first to admit.  Mysterious.  And, despite the crash of waves, serene.

After downing the coffee and croissant, I often considered ripping off my t-shirt, flinging it aside with a joyous yelp and plunging into the surf.  Finding myself actually there however, ankle-deep in cold, salty, gray, tossing water, I generally felt disinclined to proceed.

I did go in, once or twice.  I did not enjoy it.  They put sharp-edged shells and rocks in the sand to hurt your feet.  And you have to hop, shivering, through six inches of water for about fifty yards before it gets deep enough to dive in.

Suddenly, a wave picks you up and plops you down, hard, square onto your bottom.  The next one carries you out to sea.  You flail and kick, desperate to regain the shore.  Then the wave retreats and you're left sprawling on the wet sand, belly down, arms and legs still flapping, .  You find that you'’ve been swimming for your life -- in two feet of water.

Gasping, you get onto your hands and knees and then, just when you’re pushing yourself up to a standing position, another wave slaps you from behind and somersaults you toward shore.

Having had your fill of fun, you crawl out, ignominiously, find your t-shirt and return to your hotel room where you have to lie to your family, telling them how much you enjoyed your brief encounter with “thou dark and deep blue ocean.”  (That’s what Lord Byron called the sea; he was not a Midwesterner.)

No.  For me, the sea is lovely for looking and listening … but please don’t ask me to go in.

To hear "Morning at Seaside" from my Cape May Suite [as featured on my CD, Portrait at 50], played by oboist Robert Franz, violinist Brandon Christensen, cellist Carl Donakowsky and pianist Adrienne Kim, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/morning_seaside.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/morning_seaside/pdf