JCK-at-large SITE

They opened the Cobourg Beach today after a summer-long shutdown.  With the Corona virus simmering all around the province, one day up, the next day down, the town fathers had decided this was a reasonable precaution — keeping the beach-lovers off the beach for the entire summer. 

But today, the second Monday of September, was a monumental day for Cobourg and its 15,000 inhabitants.  For the first day in months, the popular beach was officially reopened.  It was lovely to stroll the long, wide beach in the early morning, while the Beach-Zamboni made wide loops and smoothed off the sand.  The sun was rising up over the lapping waves, glistening ridges of silver on the bay, while some preschoolers made their imprint in the wet sand with a stick, eyed by a father who nudged sea shells and other objects with his foot.  

“Good morning!”  Two ladies saluted us with broad smiles as they marched by in a power-walk, reclaiming lost territory, jackets zipped against the morning breeze, eyes aglow in the rising sun.  A pony-tailed jogger in pink and black beat a trail on the hard-packed sand, leaving the first runner footprints of the summer.   A man with a metal detector poked his way along the sand, looking for the coins of summers past.  A large flock of seagulls waddled and huddled disgruntled, as if knowing their days of monopolising the town beach were over.

Oh, it was a good news morning, to be sure.  Here was the social centre, the heart and soul, the claim to fame of a popular Ontario town — and it was coming back to life!  Here was the go-to summer place, a quarter mile stretch of soft, welcoming sand where young and old alike can throw down a blanket or pop up a volleyball net and join the world community of peeled-down sun worshipers all summer long. 

But just as one was beginning to enjoy the beach, a glaring sentinel rose up like a judge banging his gavel. A large maple tree came into view, towering above the beach in the picnic area.  And it was changing its colours!  

As the morning warmed, it blared a chilling announcement: “This beach may be open, people, but the summer is over.” Oh, most unwelcome news!  This was almost like the lament of Jeremiah in his city under siege: “The summer is over, the harvest is past, and we are not saved!” (31:22).  

Ah, the end of summer and the turning of leaves reminds us of lost things.  Especially after a summer of lockdown!  All those lazy, hazy, crazy days — all lost beyond recovery!  And what is a beach-lover to do?  It seems all one can do is look forward to next summer — when the dreaded virus will hopefully be no more, when once again we can again plant our beach umbrellas and claim our lovely patch of warm sand. 

Meanwhile, all we have is the prospect of frosty nights, falling leaves — all the signs of a long winter ahead. That, and perhaps we have a moment to ponder the lament of an ancient prophet. “And we are not saved!”  His was not a lost season, but a lost people!  And, indeed, Jeremiah’s word to us might well be: if you are “saved,” they can close all the beaches on the planet. Your every day will be a sun-kissed season that seems to last forever.  

As John Keble put it in his much-sung prayer:

“Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear,

It is not night if Thou be near;

O, may no earthborn cloud arise,

To hide Thee from Thy servant’s eyes.”