Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, my siblings and I would often escape summer heat simply by spraying each other with a garden hose, swimming in a public venue called Shady Grove — or sometimes paddling around in pockets of calm water near the Ohiopyle Falls when our father found time to take us to the mountains.

I never grasped the immensity of the ocean until age 20, when my cousin and I rode a Greyhound bus to the Jersey Shore to take summer jobs as waitresses at a high-end hotel facing the mighty Atlantic.

good beach

On day one, wearing a matronly swimsuit borrowed from my Aunt Rita, I walked boldly into the surf, not realizing that this expanse of blue water was wilder than a friendly mountain stream. The first wave knocked me over, the second took hold of my body and the underto

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