LONG WALK TO THE LIQUOR STORE

I was 13 years old. I certainly wasn’t buying liquor. But everyday, all summer long, my mom would drop off my brother and I and our two friends (also brothers) up the beach and we’d walk to the end of this private community and set up forts on the last patch of sand, and surf the wedging rebound waves that formed here. We were too young to be hassled much by the locals, though they did smash our nicer forts when we weren’t around. There was a liqour store about a mile away, that was the closest place to procure the substances we prefered to abuse in those years- sodas and chips and candy bars. When it was our turn, we’d have to take everyone’s order and walk back juggling all the carbohydrate contraband. The thought of a long walk on a beach sounds nice now, but at the time, being that this was the highest pinnacle our burdens of responsibilities to our fellow man had ever yet ascended, it was a pretty stressful ordeal.