Mike Cox It was bone chilling; a cold rain that pierced jackets, fleece, shirts, and skin. Without warning, the shower began. There was no increase in wind velocity to signal its arrival. The day had been cool and overcast for hours, so no cloud dimmed the sun.

One minute, those gathered were enjoying the unmistakable sound of a steel drum band. The next, everyone was running for the warmth of any structure with a roof. It was as if we were all being awakened from a bizarre dream.

Sitting in folding lawn chairs, surrounded by finger foods and the beauty of Cape Cod, a group of us were listening to By The Time I Get To Phoenix . The song was being played, quite efficiently, on steel drums of various sizes. All the members of the band were white and over 40. I’ve had less bizarre dreams; I’m sure you have, too.

This was day one of my first visit to the Cape. A promising start to the vacation was quickly extinguished by the near freezing shower. I’m a southern boy; I have thin skin and little patience for extended periods of cold weather.

Flashbacks from a recent trip to Maine began to come into focus. An entire week in late June with only one day above eighty. That was enough to keep me permanently away from Bar Harbor. I don’t like a week below 80 in February.

After warming from the rain, my spirits climbed. Good food and good conversation revived my expectations. I even found someone from Massachusetts who could discuss the War of Northern Aggression without irritating me.

The rest of our time in Cape Cod was accompanied by beautiful weather. It was sunny every day; pleasant when the wind blew, and downright balmy on still afternoons.

I found the Massachusetts coast impressive, although not as wonderful as what I was used to. I remember one of my fellow travelers, a hardcore Yankee, commenting to my daughter–in–law, another person born north of Mason and Dixon’s dividing line, about how the food, especially the bread and ice cream, tasted better in Cape Cod. I disagree.

You can’t get biscuits in Massachusetts; the cooks up there don’t even know what cornbread is. And if you’ve ever had a cone of chocolate ripple from Pure Process in Tuscaloosa on an August Sunday, you might argue about the ice cream, too.

The beach to me is white sand and hot asphalt, even in November. It is the Flora–Bama and crab claws; the Gulf of Mexico with its blue water where the condo construction hasn’t clouded things yet. It is jelly fish and undertow, grilled snapper and shrimp boats, Panama City and Destin.

To the folks who were raised in the Carolinas, beach music and shagging comes to mind. Plough mud and marshes, Folly Beach and Ocean Drive bring smiles to wrinkled faces. Calibash seafood and low country boil are mandatory food items.

Lobster bisque and clam strips dominates the Cape Cod menu. The seashore is beautiful and the coastline is pleasantly devoid of high rise structures. The regulars remember Provincetown and Well Fleet, lighthouses and gray seals. Traffic jams on Saturday mornings and swap shop bargains are frequent activities.

For most of us, the lucky ones anyway, there is a beach in our past. That place determines what we seek in the vacations of our present. None of us can help where we are from. We just have to live with the way our roots shape us.

A lifelong New Englander was explaining to me how much better Cape Cod was because the summers were not hot. It was clear his preference was to freeze in the winter and stay comfortable in the summer. I told him I wish more northerners felt that way. The South is too crowded as it is.