Because I’m a Summer-Ends-on-the-Fourth-Of-July kind of guy, pay no attention to me now. I’m not going to declare the summer over again.
I just have to fess up: I never got in the water this summer. In a way, the weather was too nice.
Of course, some people never set foot on the beach – the sand is like the Empire State building or other NY attractions. New Yorkers like the fact that the Empire State building is there — but they have no intention of visiting it.
Some people say they’re all about Rockaway and say they have sand in their shoes.
And you gotta ask, how? Did the sand blow down the block and land in your shoes? In my pathetic case, I was on the beach but not in the water. I guess this newspaper thing confused me. I put a surfing column in the paper and it makes me feel like I’ve got water and sand in every crevice.
The truth is, I was hoping The Parks Department was going to keep the boogie board ban in place. That would’ve given me the chance to join the protesters. I would have grabbed a board and jumped right in. Though maybe not. I’m not sure if the boogie boards in the garage are covered with Sandy goo or just regular beach goo (Hey, it’s been a while). To be safe, I might have had to go old school and used an ironing board.
Yep, ironing boards were used in a pinch before Rockaway became the coolest place on earth. It’d be even more cool if there was a tournament of surfers using ironing boards. Just for a day.
Though it might drive Parks crazy. Get out of the water, that’s a flotation device. No, it’s not. It’s an ironing board. Tell me where in the Parks’ rules it says we can’t use ironing boards.
Next week’s headline: Parks Say No To Ironing Boards.
Of course, with Rockaway fashion – where most shirts are as wrinkled as choppy surf – maybe ironing boards these days are like de Blasio, hard to find.
You can’t mention the days of surfing on ironing boards without tipping your cap to Dee McLean, the first Rockaway surfer to win an endorsement contract. Using real surfboards he, his brother Dennis, and a handful of others were way ahead of the wave about surfing here. Sometimes it takes a few decades for things to catch on. So don’t give up, we might be all dead and buried, but Rockaway is gonna catch on.
Anyway, from ironing boards to irony. I know I could still get in the water but well, with the Jewish holidays just ahead, the pattern will repeat itself. The weather’s just gonna be too nice to get wet.
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Boyleing Over: Loved the recent Beef Chip column in which he confessed to being won over by the Rockaway Beach Volleyball experience and is now part of the cult.
On the other hand, it was another reminder of how a thousand of my closest friends play and never ask me to join. Thanks.
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