Lest We Forget at the Beach (Terrigal Australia June 2015)
Quite a few years ago in a poetry class the teacher asked us to write about our strongest
beach memory. Not as a poem, just a short piece of prose describing the
memory.
This is what I wrote.
Well it’s been slightly edited, but not in any way that changes the original meaning and content. I came across it today as I sorted through some files. As we are actually staying across the road from a beach on the same coast right now, I thought it was a good time to resurrect this still powerful memory and to share it with you all.
I’m not really a
saltwater person. Never have been. Sure, it’s true I’ve spent time swimming in
the sea: you can’t grow up in Australia and not spend a heap of time at the
beach and in the water. I never liked it much though. And after the Boxing Day
Tsunami in ’05, I just was not physically able to go anywhere near the sea for
a long time—and I was sure I would never ever get in the water again.
But, time passes, and I
did eventually get back to the saltwater. But, let’s just say that even now, it’s
pretty rare for me to actually swim in the sea. In fact, I think the last time
was on the Gold Coast, that soulless, heartless strip of concrete lining the
coast up near the tropics. Lived there for a year.
Anyway, I did swim up
there a few times. But I stopped after a few shark scares. The final straw when
a shark took a Japanese tourist. Bitten in half he was. Still and all, there
are some fine beaches on that stretch of coast, which have left me with some
pretty nice memories of walking the dunes, picking up shells, sitting with my
hood up on the sand listening to winter waves pound the shore.
Funny thing though, none of these are among my
strongest beach memories. That honor belongs to a memory that goes a long way
further back in time that also involves a chopped human.
1967. Balmoral Beach in
Sydney. It’s a lovely, sheltered beach with the usual assortment of palm trees,
chip shops and coin operated BBQs. I was 13 and my father was in Vietnam. Not
yet a pacifist, and not yet ready to be disloyal to him, I eagerly took part in
the picnics put on for families of soldiers fighting ‘over there’. Fun really:
a lot of other kids to muck around with, some cute girls and plenty of food.
Even better, there were sometimes presents: one time I got a string tied bundle
of over one hundred comics. Very cool. I had those comics for years. Wish I
still had them: some would be worth good money.
Anyway, on that
summer’s day in 1967, I was at the beach for one such picnic. As I recall it
now, I was just wandering around early in the day, just checking out what was
going on, who was there and whatever.
Then I saw him. A young
man (though to my 13-year-old eyes he looked old. But he couldn’t have been
more than 20) on the sand sitting bare chested and wearing board shorts. Well, was he sitting? He had no legs you see. He’d been chopped in
half, just like the Gold Coast Japanese tourist. I was stuck to the spot, just
staring. Sure, it was very rude of me. But I was shocked, and the sight mesmerized
me. I just could not get my head around the image that was burning itself into
my brain. Still can’t really—and now I’m all grown up.
I wondered, as I stood
staring, how did it happen? And I thought, with the simplistic perspective of a
naive 13-year-old, how can he live like that? As if in answer to my
stupid question to myself, his eyes met mine. He’d caught me staring. Before I
could turn away in shame, he lowered his eyes and bowed his head. Deeply
ashamed, I walked away, very confused by what I had seen, what I felt.
A bit later that day
(the picnic went on all day of course), a mate told me about the bloke with no
legs sitting on the sand.
‘Oh yeah, that’s ... ’,
my mate said. I forget the name now. And my mate knew what had happened to him
as well: Landmine. In Vietnam of course. Seems the legless guy had stepped on
one. Also, my mate told me, the poor bastard was an especially invited guest at
our picnic.
Now, if I’d asked the organizers
why they’d invited him, why he was an ‘honored’ guest, I am sure they would
have told me that he was a war hero; he’d paid plenty, sacrificed his legs, for
his country. For me and everyone else.
But I never did ask
them. And back then, in my immature 13-year-old mind, I thought it was bizarre.
It was like he was some kind of prized exhibit, a freak to be shown off. But he
wasn’t. He was just some poor kid whose number came up one night in a bloody
lottery. They told him to go and fight, so he did. Then he stood on a landmine,
got his legs blown off and had his whole life buggered.
I wouldn’t say I am a
pacifist solely because of that
chopped up boy on Balmoral Beach back in ’67. I’ve seen a lot, and learned a
lot in the many long years since. Still, as I think of it now, it wasn’t long after
that day when I’d turned my eyes from this bloke in shame, that my father came
home and I saw what the war had done to him, and then I saw what it did to me
and my family. Then later still, I saw that we weren’t alone: the war had
really messed up a lot of people, destroyed a lot of lives, ruined families and
left a legacy of pain and suffering that is still with us now. No, I guess you
could say that the legless guy on that beach simply planted the seed. So he
sure played his part.
I thank him for that.
And I am sorry I stared; I am sorry that my childish and ignorant behavior forced
to you bow your head in what I now know was a sign of your own shame (not that
you had any reason for shame of course) and sadness. I see you now, in my mind,
sitting on that beach so many years ago. Lest we forget? We always forget the
things we ought to remember. But, don’t worry: I’ve never forgotten you.
This is my strongest beach memory.
Lest We Forget
