Wampum

I picked up his footprints about 2km up the beach. I stopped running and started from the water's edge, and walked towards the dryline. There. Running feet much too close and the toes slightly too long. Jonah was still ahead of me. I'd checked the ravine that lead up to the SP tracks, my greatest fear.

The Bell UH-1 that landed an hour earlier with mechanical problems earlier was airborn and coming up the beach. I'd asked a crewman to look out for Jonah, in the off-chance that he crossed the creek and went through the wire and onto VAFB land, because helicopters might interest a person. I looked back up the beach to where the second Ranger was visible coming back towards me from the second rocky point that ended the beach to the north, and the form seperated into two persons, one tall, one small.

I cried out without thought and ran to my boy. Naturally, the Ranger had something to say. They always do. They're the real protagonists, distracted from their real work by ... careless parents. We sat to let me catch my breath and let the angry man leave, watching the sun crawl towards the sea on the huge expanse of the minus tide. I sang Bear's Song and Jonah joined in on the fourth recital. Then we walked home. First, leashed, then Jonah kissed me to ask to be off-leash and cooperatively hand-in-hand, and so we walked along a wide beautiful beach next to the sunset sky until dusk when MB met us near the camps at Jalama Beach. We sat down again and sang again. Its calming, and the story is of a boy in a cave brought into the light by a bear. Its wicked old.

This morning the Ranger came by to inform us that if they were distracted from their real work again by ... that we'd be evicted. Just as we were in Monterey. I'm underwhelmed by the County response to a safety needs of a handicapped child. This isn't how local government should respond.