Family beach vacations create wonderful memories we treasure for a lifetime. While I enjoy experiencing our memories as they are created, I also enjoy watching from behind dark sunglasses as others create their own memories...or nightmares, as the case may be.

Take Mr. Athletic, for example. He appeared to be around 40, baldheaded, and obviously excited about the beach vacation with his family.

Mr. Athletic’s pale skin and extra tire around the waistline were dead giveaways that he sits behind a desk indoors all day during the work year.

He unpacked a huge rubber boat, two boogie boards, a cooler, a baseball, a baseball glove, beach ball mallets, another cooler, a football, a Frisbee, and I could have sworn I saw the tip of a basketball goal sticking out from under the surfboard.

He hit the surf with a running dive and didn’t think anyone was looking when the wave flipped him and rolled him back up on the shore with the grace of a beached whale. He came up gasping for breath, trying to compose himself while glancing around to see if anyone had witnessed his spectacular entrance into the sea.

Later, his sand-filled jogging shoes sent him sprawling into the wet foamy beach, the boogie board attached to his wrist almost dislocated his elbow during four or five wipeouts, and he nearly scraped all the hair off his chest when he tried his hand at body surfing.

Finally, he gave up on the sports, or maybe it was his lobster-colored skin that forced him to flop into a beach chair underneath one of the large umbrellas. He was too busy talking baseball averages to see the 12-month-old toddler happily pouring sand into Dad’s opened, chilled beer.

Then, there was Ms. America, a beautiful bikini-clad young woman who obviously came to the beach to be seen by anyone who would look her way. Her make-up was perfect, her hair was perfect, and her large, dangling earrings matched her brand new bathing suit.

She paraded up and down the beach, never going near the water, and found the perfect spot to sit and tan just out of the surf’s reach.

With my own hair looking like I’d just exited a wind tunnel, and my body encrusted with sand, I watched her from behind my dark sunglasses and couldn’t help but smile just a little bit as I saw the tide coming in, inch by inch, getting closer to the beauty who sat with her back to the water.

As the force of the next wave sent her head over heels into the water and wet sand, I couldn’t help but feel a small sense of justification and jubilation for the rest of the haggard mothers and grandmothers who sat nearby.

Ms. America looked around to see if anyone had witnessed her demise, but all she saw was a line of mothers and grandmothers with sand buckets covering their heads, muffling their cackles of pure joy!