Actually, because my Daddy was in the navy we frequently lived in towns on the water, but our houses were usually inland, but once, in Norfolk, VA we lived right on the water.

It was a brown shingle house, facing the water, and was built up about six feet off the ground and one could walk under it. It had a porch all around three sides and as a child I didn't realize how wonderful it was. It was about a quarter mile from the road it was on; a long graveled driveway ran from the road to the back of the house, because the front faced the beach.

All of my life I have remembered it as being on Chesapeake Bay, but I also remembered being able to see other land across the water, fairly close, and that didn't seem to be right for a big bay like that. So, when I thought of writing this story I wanted to know what body of water it really was and thanks to the net I found out. First I looked at a map of Norfolk and couldn't find our road, which surprised me because I remembered it as a really big, busy road, but I thought, well maybe it wasn't. Things seem bigger and busier when one is a child. And I saw the bay, but also lots of rivers and creeks and I thought, well, maybe we lived on one of those. I know it was salt water, but maybe it was a tidal river, near the mouth. But I found Granby Ave. and my sisters went to Granby High School so I just kept clicking in closer up and down Granby and I found our street, Ocean View Avenue. (I had thought it was boulevard.) And it does parallel the coast as I remembered, and it is on Chesapeake Bay, as I remembered. The house must have been on an inlet of the bay too small to show on an internet map.

I remember the houses up and down the street and the apartment house next door, which was actually pretty far away on the other side of some dunes, because the lots were really big. It was a large, square, kind of gloomy place. I have seen similar apartment houses in movies from the 30s and 40s and it probably predated those, even. The apartments had really high ceilings that seemed shadowed because there were no ceiling lights, just lamps the people had and the doors to the apartments were enormous wooden things, very thick, like ones in a castle. What windows there were; were big, almost floor to ceiling, because of course when they were built there was no air conditioning. But because of the layout on each floor the apartments only had windows on two sides and all the rest was interior walls, which added to the gloominess. Everything was wood, our house, and the apartment house, all the houses, and everything was brown. I remember a little red haired boy who lived in the apartment house that I played with and 10 years ago I remembered his name, but I don't now.

I remember the rotted hulls of wooden ships on the beach that Lady and I would explore. There wasn't much to explore. They were really boats, not ships, and being wood there wasn't much left of them, but we found them exciting and imagined all kinds of things as we shared tootsie roll pops.

I remember that a little down and next to our house were boat docks and the boats would go by our house, coming and going. Because of the boats, the channel, or whatever it was, had been dredged and when one went in the water, about 10 feet from shore there was a sudden drop to very deep water, no gradual decrease. Lady loved the water and would always swim out with us. She would retrieve anything thrown in the water and return it to the thrower. You might not believe this, but it is true; we could throw a rock in the water and Lady would dive under the water and get the rock and bring it back. Now, looking back I can't believe it and I saw it. How does a dog keep water out of her nose and mouth? How did she see the rock in the sandy, churned up water? I don't know. She had a gift. And she loved water. She wasn't even a water bred dog. She was a brindle colored mixed breed boxer we had brought back from Cuba.

I remember the ducks. They lived across the water from us, where there were no houses and the ground was marshy, rather than like a beach. One could see them floating on the water in a flock, close together, bobbing up and down on the swells, like a feathered raft set adrift from an island. I would go stand at the water line in front of our house with bread my mother gave me and in my shrill, little girl voice I would screech, "here, ducky, ducky, ducky". (I'm not a little girl any more but I must confess I still have a shrill voice that I hate.) And they would come, hordes of them, some stayed in the water and I threw bread out to them, but many came up on the beach and gathered around me while I dropped the bread to them. Unbeknowst to me at my age it became quite a show and people watched me call the ducks to come and eat. Apparently one lady had told some visitors about how the ducks would cross the water to eat and they wanted to see it, so they all went out and she called the ducks to come for her bread, but they wouldn't come. She came to our house and asked my mother if I could come and call the ducks, so her friends could see and I did and the ducks came and the friends saw. I guess ducks have ears like dogs and pick up on shrill noises. They were just used to me. While those people were there none would get out of the water, but when the people retreated some, they came around me, like usual.

One Sunday one of my sisters and I were home alone. I don't know why now and we were bored and she said, "let's go fish". My Daddy had rods and reels there, but he had always said that one should never fish on a Sunday, so we were a little guilty about it, but we did it anyway. Well, she did. I just stood there. We didn't have any bait, so she must have put a fly hook thingy on the line and we caught a fish, I think. It was the ugliest fish I've ever seen. It was short and fat and had a grossly large misshapen head and big mouth and very sharp looking fins and was a mottled brown color AND IT HAD TWO LEGS IN FRONT. We were startled and frightened and just wanted it back in the water, but we had to get the hook out of its mouth and the hook had gone through its lip and it was bleeding and we were crying to have hurt this poor ugly thing and hurting it more to get the hook out, but we were afraid it would die if we left the hook in and it was one of the most traumatic times of my life.

We got the hook out and waded out in the water to put it back in the water because we didn't want to hurt it more by throwing it back and we hustled back up to the beach and started gathering our stuff to go back to the house and the fish came out of the water and started walking on its two little legs, dragging its tail, and coming towards us. We screamed at each other and had to put it back in the water because we didn't want it to drown on air, but maybe it wouldn't have, but we didn't know. So we gingerly got it and waded out to the very deep drop off and returned it and hurried back to dry land. It took it longer to come back that time and we had our stuff gathered as it was coming out of the water. We ran for the house and locked the doors and closed the curtains and sat in the dark, knowing that that fish was crossing the beach and climbing the stairs and would be waiting for us on the porch.

Of course, it didn't and it wasn't, and my parents came home and we told them of our great adventure and my Daddy said that was what we got for fishing on a Sunday. Later I was descibing that fish to someone who recognized it and told me its name, so it was a relief to know it wasn't something supernatural and/or that we hadn't lost our minds. But I will always remember removing that hook from its bleeding mouth and I never fished again. Just because you can't hear it doesn't mean that something isn't screaming.

Once a hurricane came and all the power went out and the water rose to the level of the porch, which is why the house was built up, I guess. I remember it as a great adventure. I don't know if the grown ups were worried. If they were they didn't show it to me. I remember during the eye my sisters put on bathing suits and walked up the driveway and down the street to a little store to buy some more candles and bread and things and I remember how very,very angry I was that my parents wouldn't let me go with them. The water receded quickly, once the storm had passed, and I remember running out and calling the ducks to make sure the storm hadn't killed them, but there they were, swimming across the water, coming for the bread.

I don't know, but I would guess that it is all gone now, torn down for newer buildings and strip malls and hotels. All the brown wooden houses are gone and the gloomy apartments and the old wooden docks and the decaying wrecks. The ducks I knew are dead now and the old lady who asked me to feed them so her friends could watch. My parents and sister are dead now and so is Lady, but she is in an urn on a bookshelf in my living room. Even the creepy fish we tried so hard to save, and that I hope we did save then, is dead now.

But it was a wonderful place for a child to live and it still lives in me, and since I told you, now it all lives in you.