This story was no day at the beach

27.07.09

Christine Hochkeppel for The Boston Earth

Sunbathers ignored the machine. Somewhere in the sand: the keys to a VW.

By David Filipov, Globe Employees

It was hot. Really hot. My lower back was starting to growl, and my fingers were red-hot little balloons of pain. Easton�s Lido in Newport was the Sahara. From the size of the pile in front of me, I could see that my job was nowhere near done.

And where were my bloomin� car keys??!?

This was not where I had intended to be, raking a gigantic heap of sand, seaweed and garbage in the heat of the day on the most popular beach in one of the region�s most august seaside cities.

It had all started so well. I was reporting about Newport�s efforts to clean up the yucky red seaweed that had plagued the beach for decades. The city had acquired a large, Zamboni-like machine � the Beach Harvester -- to do the job. It was so much more unwasteful than raking the stuff off the sand. It was a great excuse to hit the beach � and get PAID for it. Not only that, the days I visited, July 14 and July 16, were rare average beach days in what will no doubt go down in history as the Summer of Floods.

Source: Boston Globe