by Stephen Alexander

Created on: February 10, 2010

Far Reaches

I have spent the majority of my life in a continuous quest to attain the farthest reaches possible. When I was a boy, fresh out of high school I hurled myself across this continent (North America) in an attempt to find out exactly who I was. Upon my return to the city of my birth (i.e., Boston,) I signed up with the Merchant Marines (commercial shipping for those not conversant) and once more flung myself across a void, this time the Pacific Ocean. This itinerant manner became a recurrent theme in my life.

During my first foray into the abyss that is this broad land, I was a mere boy, a lad of seventeen. This was a result of my beginning formal school (first grade) at the tender age of four. Consequently, I entered my senior year (twelfth grade) at sixteen years of age and graduated at a still tender seventeen. That summer, I embarked on what had become the dream escapade of my generation: I set out cross-country with no means beyond my wits and my thumb.

That first venture or at least the extended excursion that followed helped shape what was to be and who I was to become. After returning from my seagoing adventures, I settled into an east coast mode of living until the wanderlust returned a decade later. Having many fond memories of the city of San Francisco, I eventually returned to that fair enclave hard by the Pacific.

There is a section of San Francisco called Land’s End, presumably because the peninsula upon which the city sits abuts the mighty Pacific Ocean. Early settlers must have had the uneasy sense that they sat somehow at the end of the world. I am sure there are locales on the west coast of the British Isles with similar names so perhaps the residents of San Francisco were merely appropriating those appellations with which they were familiar.

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly twenty-five years until a stroke precipitated a loss of work and ultimately my home. San Francisco is not an ideal community to be without means so while awaiting the federal government’s decision on whether or not I was eligible for Social Security Disability, I eventually had to relocate to my sister’s home in eastern Virginia.

As it turned out, not quite east enough, I soon discovered to my regret; my sister lives in Lanexa, VA, a small town outside Williamsburg. She lives in a small three-room house, too small for two adults and eventually, I was lamentably homeless once more. After spending three months in a faith-based homeless program, the feds, in their infinite wisdom, finally deigned me eligible to receive benefits, so I was able to move to the outskirts of Williamsburg.

While I dithered around Williamsburg for about a year, I perused maps of the region and discovered Nags Head, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This area appeared to fit the bill as an outpost at a sufficient remove to satisfy my hankering for far reaches.

The Outer Banks are, indeed, by definition the farthest reaches of Atlantic beaches. They, like Cape Cod in Massachusetts, jut out into the ocean; also like the Cape, they sport considerable sand dunes. The primary concentration of these is at Jockey Ridge, a nearby state park. A favorite phrase among locals extols the virtues of “life on a sandbar,” for that exactly characterizes the Outer Banks; they are akin to a giant sandbar facing the vast ocean.

Once again, it appears I have managed to site myself along the farthest reaches of this grand continent. I look forward to an improvement in the weather and hope the warmth of spring will inevitably lead to the heat of summer. Only then, will I completely appreciate this newest outpost in my quest for the utmost of outer longitudes.

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