That's me in the photo from 1958, exactly two years old, sitting on a beach blanket next to my ten-year-old sister at Pensacola Beach, Florida. It's as faded as my memory of that time, my sister now long gone from our planet as is my mother who took the photo, but in the past, whenever I looked at it, I believed that beach would always be there with it's sugary white sand and clean-breaking surf. After the required sand castles and sunburn we went to the Driftwood Restaurant for fresh Gulf seafood, it was my birthday after all. I do remember the salty breeze and murmur of the waves through the open window of our cottage at night. I can still hear that, though now it's more like a requiem for a beach.