Saturday afternoon, Newport Oregon. Rainy April day. First taste of ocean in years; drove past looked at feet dry doesn't count. I parked at the top of the bluffs and walked the path down the winding dunes to the flat sandy tidal flats which were rapidly filling. A northwest spray soaked my thin inland idea of sea front attire, and the little pitiful OSU green and orange cap I had bought, blew off my head and was saturated with sand, salt and mud. I took me sneakers off, and walked, barefoot, into the grasping sands, the cool tickling of the sand around my feet and ankles remembered from Jersey summers of decades before, almost lost for good.