Help Keep the beaches clean. Guest writer Chris Gay

Guest Blogger Chris Gay

Today I will have a guest blogger, Chris Gay.

http://www.chrisjgay.com

http://chrisgay.wordpress.com

Chris  is a freelance writer, (including this national humor piece for Writer’s Digest) broadcaster, voice-over artist and actor. Just published in December was his theological, paranormal thriller novel Ghost of a Chance.  He has written three humor books: And That’s the Way It Was…Give or Take: A Daily Dose Of My Radio Writings, Shouldn’t Ice Cold Beer be Frozen? My 365 Random Thoughts To Improve Your Life Not One Iota, and The Bachelor Cookbook: Edible Meals with a Side of Sarcasm. ( Summer 2013)

July National Clean Beach Awareness Month

2013 marks the tenth anniversary of Clean Beaches Week, (CBW) which is celebrated July 1^stthrough 7^th each year. The festivities focus on four primary initiatives,* with those being Food, Recreation, Travel and Environment.

Seagulls, reclusive Midwesterners and the agoraphobic aside, I think we all can appreciate the beauty and serenity of a nice, clean beach. It’s in that spirit that we’ll take a closer look at what the Clean Beaches Coalition is promoting through those very initiatives. Let’s start in some particular order:

Food: Healthy eating is encouraged during CBW, with the spotlight focused squarely on seafood. While it’s unquestionably an integral part of a proper, well-balanced diet, (And sure to make oceanfront restaurants happy) the only seafood you’ll see me eating are Pepperidge Farm pizza-flavored goldfish and the occasional order of fried clams at some New England fair or another. But then, not everything is about me.

Recreation: What better way to celebrate CBW than with a beach activity? Ocean-based fun includes fishing (Which can also be a great workout; though generally more so for the fish) and surfing. For those who prefer their beach time with less action and drying salt-water, there’s walking and reading. (Though the risk of a paper cut from the latter cannot be entirely ruled-out.)

Travel: In a number obtained from the Connecticut Fictitious Statistics Bureau (Est. 6.26.2013, 8:56a.m. EST) more visits are made to the beach annually than to the …well, it’s not my blog, so let’s let the rest of that joke go. At any rate, what’s being showcased here is energy conservation. So if you’re going to the beach, please walk, bicycle, carpool or teleport there. (If you have the technology.) Also, be sure to engage in “green activities.” Which I can only guess means things like playing beach bocce with forest or olive drab-colored balls.

Environment: Other than Tiger sharks, no one likes to see litter at the shore. (And they can’t even reach the trash on the sand, anyway. Or…can they?) Moving along, the 4^th of July holiday is the biggest one spent at the beach annually, and it (I’m guessing not coincidentally) falls squarely in the middle of CBW. Look, those garbage cans you see sprinkled all along the sandy landscape aren’t the abandoned works of lazy sculptors; they’re there for use at your disposal. (Get it? I love double entendres. But I digress.)

The reality is that regardless of which beach you frequent, all people have to do to greatly enhance the experience for everyone, is to simply maintain respect for others and clean up after themselves. It’s easy, really.

Thanks so much for your time and attention. Now, go enjoy the beach!

*Information referenced on CBW from the Clean Beaches Coalition and cleanbeaches.com

Artwork by Amanda Dagneau