Going to Semaphore Beach

Hot summer afternoons and the call of glistening water lapped a child's mind with a want. Just home from work we would pester our father until he relinquished and took us to the beach. At low tide, feet had to splash through what seemed like a mile of ridged and rippled shallows before the water was deep enough to swim and wheeling arms could be swung without touching the bottom. Heated all day by a January sun, the water was as warm as pee. Long tentacles of dead, brown seaweed clung to arms as if trying to snare a soul in revenge for some storm torn horror that had ripped it out its bed. But all too often it ended the same. Tramping back to shore across the endless shallows, feeling hotter than when you first went in. Flies clouding sweaty faces and then there was the hot vinyl back seat of the car to burn bums on the way home. All washed micraclessly from memory when, next day, the mercury nudged 100 and a want beckoned us to the beach again, still no wiser than the day before.