Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
Letter to the President of the United States February 20, 2010 The Honorable Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: My name is Dan Reiter and I live in Cocoa Beach, Florida. We have a charming little town here, rich in history, culture, and scenery, but poor in most everything else. Once –- a half century ago –- the Mercury and Apollo missions launched from these sands to stir the hopes and dreams of the world. For a shining instant,... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
Marriage By Dan Reiter It happened one idyllic afternoon, over six Valentine’s Days ago. The sunset flooded in through the church windows and shed a dreamlike, coral pink glow over our clasped hands. We recited our vows and donned the rings. I was 26. She, 21. At the reception, a friend of my father’s approached us on the dance floor and said, rather unwittingly, “Cherish it, my boy. This will be the happiest moment of your life!” I thanked him for his gracious words and twirled away to dance... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
Evolution has a strange, sometimes disturbing way of revealing itself. A species, when faced with a threat to its survival, must either perish or adapt to its changing environment. Usually, this modification process will take thousands of years, but every so often an animal will rise to the challenge in a matter of mere decades… and the transformation can be startling. Just the other day, I was out on the river on my stand-up paddleboard, skirting the periphery of the Thousand Islands, soaking... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
For all the surfing Harold T. Sweeney did in his life, he should have been happier. Unfortunately, he had too many problems on dry land to be very happy for any long stretch of time. His wife died giving birth to their second son, Melvin, which was about as serious a problem as you could come across, when you think about it. Her death hung like a sick, black cloud over Harold’s life for many years. But Harold was resilient; he watched for glimpses of sunlight through the darkness, and he did... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
On Beauty, Part II By Dan Reiter (This is the second of a two-part series. The first explored the beauty found in everyday moments, and contemplated the choice we are all given: whether to consciously seek this beauty out, or else to ignore it.) I was surfing alone last week, alone in a warm, green sea all simmering with seaweed, with the onshore winds ripping at my hair, and tattered and broken waves bumping up the surface. Why was I alone? Probably because it was Tuesday, because we were coming... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
For the faithless among you who have long been searching for an answer to this question, what a surprise it must be to finally stumble upon it here, in the most unlikely of places — within the pages of The Beachside Resident! And to the devout readership, who doubtless consider the title of this article foolish (perhaps even blasphemous), I urge you to revisit the question… and try to remember the first time you counted yourself among the believers. I suppose I should begin by telling... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
Florida summers are like molasses, thick, hot, dripping… The birds move with a certain languor, the yard is overgrown with wild, exotic grasses, the plumeria and mosquitoes swarm into full bloom, and a bright, lazy mist hangs over everything. It is stifling outside something terrible, your car feels like an oven, the sweat runs into your eyes, the sand burns your feet, the no-see-ums gnaw incessantly at your legs… In a sort of reverse-hibernatory instinct, you want to hide away, tuck... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
Localism (definition from Webster’s New World College Dictionary) lo•cal•ism 1. a way of acting characteristic of one locality; local custom, practice, or mannerism 2. a word, meaning, expression, pronunciation, etc. peculiar to one locality 3. fondness for a particular locality 4. narrow outlook; provincialism Warning: this article is intended for locals only. If you don’t live beachside, or at any rate, within a 15-minute drive of the beach, you should stop reading... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
With all this talk about going green lately, it’s tempting to think that we may finally be climbing out of the coal-caked chimneys of the Industrial Age and peeking our heads into a bright, clean future. But how realistic is the green movement? And if it succeeds, how much do we really gain? Some pragmatists claim that a green Earth is inevitable. Hell, in 500,000 years, it’s very likely our cities will have crumbled to dust, our reign as the dominant species will be over, and, just... [Read more...]
By: Dan Reiter
Article Category: Dan Reiter
Florida swells are notoriously fleeting; they can come and go as quickly as the tides. When they do happen to stick around, the wind will usually blow in from the east, chop them into stacks of whitewater, and pile close-outs all up and down the beach. There are no channels here, no easy paddleouts through mid-break, no points to wrap these waves into workable lines, no reefs to hollow them out. Most of our beach breaks can’t hold a swell much larger than ten feet, and when it’s smaller than... [Read more...]
