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daddy cleans a beach .. sorta

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Nichinan, Miyazaki, 2022.01.02

Today we headed out for a bit of a trip around the coast, just Mari and I and the kids. We got to a park that overlooks the ocean just south of the city and headed to the lookouts at the top, and then a short strip of gravel beach at the water's edge, down many, many stairs.

There we found an incredible amount of plastic flotsam. So I started collecting some of it in a plastic hamper that was among the debris. Needless to say, flotsam hampers aren't known for their integrity (if they are in fact known at all (you know, this whole sentence is a mess)) and the thing broke sending my hoarded debris everywhere.

At this point Mari expressed her dismay with how I had now amassed an unsightly collection of PET bottles and Styrofoam in the middle of the "beach". So I did the only thing I could do: I called the kids together and we started playing with a coconut that had found its way from somewhere warmer. I showed them how coconuts are, and they were impressed with the meat and the milk. They were less impressed with the I have to say unequaled stench of a half-rotten, half-pickled coconut.

[ edit 2022.01.10 - photos! ]

rand()m quote

Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool.

—Bellamy Brooks