Pajaro Dunes

The several years that the family enjoyed the beaches near Watsonville, were filled with wonderful and warm memories for us all. Thanks to the largesse of Grampsters and Grandma, most often a single large house was rented at this seaside resort. The weathered boardwalks crossing the sand dunes would resound to the rattling wheels of old shopping carts and dollies as family after family hauled toys, food, clothes and cooking gear into the vacation home that had been selected. There were more than a few unofficial shopping cart races held with squealing children being pushed by over-exuberant dads rivaling the Indy 500. Tiers of floors and voluminous bedrooms housed us all, and it was not uncommon for layers of cousins in sleeping bags to be piled helter-skelter on the floor of one “kid dorm” with grateful parents enjoying a semblance of peace and privacy in their own rooms.

Mealtimes were vast assembly lines of children and adults lined up for helpings of previously home- cooked meals (at the beginning of the week) or mounds of last leftovers (towards the end). The soup lines of the Great Depression or the efficiency of the military mess hall pale in contrast to the regimen and order that oversaw everyone being fed as much as they wanted.

Eating dispensed with there was a rush to the beach, each body, young and old, grasping the sand toy or beach towel and chair of their desire. Soon the troops were spread across acres of sand, the younger ones watched with eagle eyes by parents nearby, the older ones trusted to be more sensible and off on their own. In the years I knew Pajaro, Cece would either be in the water or “sunning” on her towel on the sand by the adults. Dan would have first become engrossed digging and building a HUGE sand fortification to defy the later high tide. This usually entailed slave labor from the paternal parent. Then it was off to wash off in the surf and collect interesting shells, dead crab parts, smelly seaweed and other flotsam to decorate his creation. Becca, being small during most of these years, was pretty well tied to grown up attention and happily was swished in the surf or daringly wet her toes while holding on to a parental hand.

Early morning walks along the beach were de rigueur since that was the best sand dollar finding time and that was big fun. Also high on the list was digging for sand crabs, looking for the bubbles coming up in the wet sand and digging like mad then scooping handfuls of crawling, clinging, scuttling crabs into plastic buckets to be lugged back to the beach house. Inevitably, an adult would oversee the return of the bucket loads back to the beach before too long so the inmates would not expire.

When Xochitl and Rosa came we would see Xochitl usually demurely wading or sunning and benignly overseeing her little cousins. Rosa defied Nature’s wrath in wading out far too far into the surf and challenging Neptune to a battle of wits when she was not helping Dan to reluctantly re-design his castle. The Coopers would show up and share in the fun, Nate being an inveterate water bug like his Dad, always in the surf with John.

Evenings were filled with games and stories, feeding and walks on the beach (Dan sadly surveying the ruins of his handiwork). Smores and a campfire or two fill my memory. Superintending all of this ordered chaos with benevolent smiles would be the progenitors, Mom and Dad Cooper, happily soaking it all in. Many times Dad brought his video camera and the incessant photo ops taxed his energy. We all delighted in watching the movies and laughing at our antics. At night, as silence reigned over the house (finally) the never ceasing roar of the surf lulled one to sleep, punctuated with the muted moan of the foghorn off Point Jo. Heaven must be like that.

JP 12-16-2011