My parents and I went down to our condo over Memorial Day weekend, a break from reality which I desperately needed. My RSS reader was replaced by books I had been intending to read for months, I walked on the beach instead of commuting to work, and hours in a cubicle translated into hours in the sun. I’m a bit pinker for the experience, but the time off was necessary.

My family refers to the beach we visit as the “Redneck Riviera,” an old Southern coastal town where Confederate flags and oversized pick-up trucks absolutely coat the local ocean-front camping site. During the summer, however, families from across the nation come to this beach, looking to force “bonding time” by sitting out in the sand for days at a time. I have no idea if they leave happier or closer together, though they certainly return home a good deal redder than when they arrived…

While attempting to endure the elements and each other, the moms and dads out there provide all sorts of entertainment for their precious darlings, from toss games which make horseshoes pathetically outdated to setting up a full-size trampoline. Trying to take a walk while avoiding fishing poles and fire pit remnants oftentimes proves difficult enough, but the amount of junk that the kids have to play with is just completely over the top. Whatever happened to using a pail and a shovel to make castles? Or, better yet, using your hands until you’re so coated in sand that you actually have to get in the water (cold as it may be) to wash off?

One family, though, served as the pièce de résistance – at the end of the walk, completely disheartened about the future of a generation just a few years younger than myself, we found a group of children huddled together, playing some sort of game.

“Excellent!” I muttered, as I observed some buckets set up in a diamond-like structure. “Baseball on the beach… that’s some reliance.”

Then we drew closer, and I noticed that batter was swinging around a rusty horseshoe spike.

“Not too bad,” I thought, though I took a few steps to ensure that I was well outside the path of the metal rod.

And then the pitcher threw something which was definitely not a ball, which made a very distinct “Squish!” when it connected with the “bat.” And then I realized the kids were tossing around the carcass of an eviscerated sand shark.

And so the mutilated creature went flying, body one way, entrails another, and so the children cheered as the batter rounded the bases.

But they had found something to do, and they had managed to do so completely on their own.