Summer Day at the Shore

My daughter and her one-year-old cousin enjoy sun and surf at Folly Beach in South Carolina.

The kids did not mind the scorching 98 degree heat near as much as I did.

I sat under the umbrella with a copy of Deliverance while Lindsay attempted -- without success -- to get up onto Harper's boogie board.

No matter. Everyone had fun. That's what it's all about.

And yet, even as we passed our time blissfully at the beach, already events had transpired a continent away to rob us of the love and affection we had grown to cherish -- our fish, Flippers, had shuffled off this mortal coil and into the belly of a hungry cat, while we laughed and swam and ran and played, unaware.