The Old Shoreline
by Veasna H.
In Long Beach, there is a bright indigo-blue building with a roof cleverly designed to resemble the gentle waves of the Pacific Ocean. People call it the Aquarium of the Pacific. To me, it is the showy tourist attraction that rudely took the place of what used to be my family’s own little weekend vacation spot, Shoreline Park. Yes, the park is still there, and yes, there is a nice view of the ocean, but the peace and calm I remembered as a child is not quite the same now.
My family liked to go on picnics when I was younger. My parents wanted to make sure that my siblings and I were not cooped up at home for too long, whether it was because we were glued to the TV or harmlessly reading for leisure. With my three siblings still in school, it was hard to find time for weekend outings. If it was not my sister and her research paper, then it was my brother with his art project, or my other sister, with a diorama. Whatever it was, it most likely meant that we had to wait till summer before any picnicking was to be done. Come June, though, and we would wake up to my mother making a racket in the kitchen dragging out the cooler, and to my father starting up our ratty old car in the driveway, a sure sign that we were doing something or going somewhere in hopes of breaking the monotony of early summer.
The ratty old car in the driveway was the first car I ever remembered in our family. It was a caramel brown station wagon that almost died once during a flood and was older than dirt. The windows were tinted dark purple and you could tell it was done by the owner because of all the air bubbles left on the window. It looked so gloomy from the inside and I remember slowly peeling away bits of it little at a time in hopes that my parents would not notice the gaping hole of clear view in the window, growing larger. The vinyl seats were starting to peel revealing squishy foam, and I would speed-up this process too. By the time I had finished, the insides of the car looked like a disaster victim forced to suffer the wrath of a bored five-year old.
Despite its physical imperfections, the car was a reliable friend in the family. We could always count on it to transport us to our various destinations, such as our spur-of-the-moment picnic trips to Shoreline. My parents would toss the food-packed cooler in the trunk, squeeze four skinny kids into the backseat, and hit the road. There were three seatbelts and four kids. Most of the time, I ended up being passed around on the laps of my older siblings while they complained about the unfairness or illegality of it all. I preferred standing up because I was at that perfect height where my head hit the car ceiling with just enough pressure so that I remained still even when the car moved. This would go on until my mother noticed, then back onto my siblings I went.
Eventually, we reached the grasses of Shoreline and happily vacated our trusted friend. We would find a spot to settle down and my mother would unravel the mat and toss it onto the ground, releasing a puff of breeze that cooled my face and made my bangs fly. I remember the familiar smell of meat and fish as someone popped open the cooler. There we would eat, as the seagulls serenaded us with their occasional screeches. After they felt they had eaten enough, my siblings scrambled towards the park concrete. Being too small to partake in their recreational activities, I spent my time roaming the endless emerald green expanse of grass of the park. I remember hearing the metal jangling of the older kids at the recreation park and the vibrations of roller skaters and roller-bladers rumbling by on the concrete walks that winded through the park. I spotted my sister among them, a pink-clad blur among the speeding masses of blues and grays. I watched as she skated circles around me, passing me once, twice, three times until I grew tired and shifted my focus to the calmer, more peaceful ocean waves. My mother called me back and beckoned me not to stray so far from the picnic area. I took a few steps back, only to hear my father call my name. I turned around to see him with his mammoth video camera perched on his shoulder, the shiny dark blue lens looking right at me. My father had recently purchased our camcorder and had a tendency to video-tape everything that moved, including me. I wandered to and fro for a while, a mundane little subject for a home-video. My siblings came running and skating back to the rescue, excitedly joining me in front of the camera to make their film debut.
Eventually, we had to go home, which meant cleaning up our picnic area and climbing back into the old car. We would go on more family outings like these, but as my siblings went off to college one by one, we would have less and less people. As the years went by, we would find that our quiet picnics were not to be interrupted by overhead seagulls, but by the sounds of loud tourists flocking to see Long Beach’s watery attraction. I could only roam the grass so far before finding myself in front of hot dog vendors and the like. My childhood retreat had become a public franchise, and I was forced to look elsewhere for that familiar peace and solitude.
