As soon as I was old enough to cross the street, I was on the beach all year. Not to get too old-person cranky, but at the time there were only three vehicles in town able to drive down to the Point (one a Jeep owned by Marillis Bittinger Bolonsky). If you wanted to get up close and personal with the dunes and Bug Light, you walked. We did.
Now it seems that it’s a God-given right to take a motor vehicle loaded with people and gear and petroleum byproducts to compact the sand and leave your fumes all over and scare the terns and other wild birds. Do you wonder why there are hardly any starfish, sand dollars, razor clams, moon snails, and horseshoe crabs for your kids to find anymore? It makes me almost ill to look out there of a nice day and see the sun glaring off windshields like the beach were a huge used-car lot.
As to “I just want to go to the beach,” well, it seems as if the petition is asking the DNR and other environmental protection agencies to do yet another study in hopes that this can continue. One thing about prayer, though: Sometimes the answer is, “No.” To which I would add: Walk.
– Wendie Howland