Crabs, Cousins, and a Love of the Sea By Abby Treadwell The irony of this paper is that somewhere out there is a paper almost exactly like it. It contains the same memories, same events, and same feelings. But it is written by another person. My cousin Ellen is one year older than me, but that one year is small compared to the fond memories we both share. We are almost amazingly alike, and it would seem that we should be sisters instead of cousins. We both have the same interests, from activities we enjoy, to the things we say, even to the guys we like. Every year since we were about five, we would go to our Grandparents’ house by the beach. It was a one week stay, in their fantastic house where we could never get bored. It was a beautiful house, with all of its flower beds filled with bright colors and the bird feeders where birds of every kind were welcome. Just as long as they didn’t tell any chipmunks, that is. It was right within walking distance to the beach, so every day we would grab a few buckets and shovels, some towels, and walk to the beach. When we got to the beach, our grandma would set up the blanket and chair. We would take off our shoes and get ready to run. In unison, we would take off, feet flying in the sand, the distance between us and the water shortening with every step. Sometimes we would race to see who could get to the water fastest, sometimes we would just savor the feeling of running. But we always ran. As we neared the water we would plunge in, jumping over the waves and shrieking as the frigid water made contact with our skin. The water was always cold. With every step we took into the water we would scream, but it never occurred to us that we could just stay out of the water. We had to swim. Once we became used to the water we would enjoy the sport of simply jumping over the waves. We would wait until an enormous wave was almost upon us, then we would try to trick each other into looking the other way, sending a crashing wave on top of each other’s unsuspecting head. It never worked. Our ploys grew increasingly silly as we tried without fail to trick the other, sometimes saying a famous celebrity was on the beach or that there was a dragon in the sky. Eventually, the water would become a little too cold, or we would lose interest. But that didn’t mean we ran out of things to do. At the end of the beach there was a big stone jetty. We would walk out to the jetty and climb to the very tip of it. I noticed, as the years passed by, that the time it took to reach the jetty became considerably shorter but never lost its fun. At the jetty we would clamber over the rocks and look for caves hidden among them. We would pretend we were explorers, and each cave was our hide-out. The jetty had many fun and interesting things to do, and we would enjoy every minute of it. Crabs were a very important part of going to the beach. We had a strange obsession with them. We would search for crabs under the rocks and name them after one another. Crabs offered hours of entertainment to us. We would flip rock after rock looking for them, searching for the cutest crab. We would find it and name it and talk baby talk to it, only to find a crab that was even cuter and throw the old one over our shoulders without further thought.  There was this one time when an evil seagull had just caught a poor, innocent crab, and was about to eat it. We sprang into action, screaming at the seagull to drop the crab. The seagull rudely ignored us and flew away where it could devour the crab in peace. The crab, later named Crabby (may he rest in peace), became a very important part of us. We still talk about Crabby (may he rest in peace) all the time, and we want to find the seagull who ate him. All my memories of the beach are very vivid, maybe because the times we’ve been there we had the most amazing, yet really stupid adventures. Surprisingly, all the time we’ve been to the beach we have had nice weather. And we have been to the beach all our lives. There has only been one time where we went and it started to rain, but instead of going home like any normal people would do, we begged our grandma to let us stay. We were soaked anyway, and there was no thunder or lightening, so it wasn’t like we were in danger. The rain was pouring down in huge drops, and seemed to make the ocean a lot warmer. We were some of the only people on the beach (though our grandma waited for us in the car instead of standing in the rain), and we took advantage of this to sing at the top of our lungs while dancing around. I distinctly remember the feel of standing in the ocean with the rain water running down my face while we danced around like two kids on Christmas. I also remember the ride home from that adventure, sitting in the back seat, shivering, and imagining the feel of warm clothes when we got home. We successfully crammed a lifetime of memories into every one of those little beach trips. So even though I don’t see Ellen very often, all I have to do when I do see her is remind her of when we did this and such at the beach, and it makes me feel like she has been with me throughout my whole life.