When on the Water, I Gotta Stay Warm

I’ve lived in Virginia Beach long enough to know that some folks around here wear cutoffs and/or shorts year-round. During the colder months, you’ll likely see at least a few of them in jackets or coats, and even a few may wear gloves and/or hats. By and large, though, it seems that many locals like to think of this city as a resort area 365 days a year.

That truth was never more evident than yesterday, during my trip to the river for a day of bass fishing. There I sat in my boat, dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, sweatjacket, and ballcap in the afternoon sun, as an outboard-powered johnboat approached me. The occupants, a bare-armed young boy and girl, were simply out for a boat ride. It was evident they were enjoying themselves by virtue of the fact they made three or more trips up and down the wind-blown creek…always sleeveless.

Then, when I had decided to call it a day and headed to the boat ramp, I was even more stunned by the scene that unfolded before me. Seems that a good-sized crowd of bank fishermen had taken over the point at West Neck Marina where the boat ramp is located. Except for my trailer rig and one other in the parking lot, there was nothing but passenger vehicles parked there.

And those people…for the most part…were treating the day as an opportunity to begin their yearly suntans. There were guys in cutoffs and no shirts and girls in shorts and sleveless tops everywhere I looked.

Perhaps in a bygone day, my dress would have been more in line with all those folks, but I offered no excuses to anyone for hustling to my van in the same attire as I had started the day. My wrinkled skin was enjoying that long-sleeved shirt, jacket and those bluejeans. That hat on my head also felt good.

As reported in a New York Times article that I read, “As people age, their metabolic responses to the cold may be slower. Vasoreceptors, for example, may not be as quick to direct blood vessels to constrict to keep the body temperature up. As it happens, studies have shown that older people are more likely to have slightly colder body temperatures than younger ones.”

I, for one, have no problem fully accepting the fact that as people grow older, they have a harder time taking the cold. This much I can tell you: I was only in my 20s when I did a two-year tour of Navy duty in Adak, Alaska, and the cold up there certainly never bothered me the way this in Virginia Beach does today, as I near 78. In my own defense, however, I offer that I still haven’t reached the point where I have to wear socks to bed.