Why I Love Living In Norfolk, Part 8012

Four words: Ocean View Community Beach.



Today was the kind of day that's so beautiful you feel guilty being inside. So around 12:30 this afternoon I threw a towel, some suncreen and a book in my bag, glanced at a map, and hopped in the car. Within 15 minutes I was wiggling my toes in the sand along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay (so really Ocean View Community Beach would be more appropriately named Bay View Community Beach, but whatever). This is a little park maintained by the City of Norfolk. There's not much to it except, you know, the beach, which is kinda what I went for.

Plus, there was bonus police activity! Late in the afternoon I was compelled to look up from my book by a woman screaming, "There's kids here! And you're doing this! Do you fucking understand that?!" (I guess screaming the f-word around kids is okay, while doing whatever "this" was is not.) I'd noticed a trio of scantily clad teenagers (I know everyone's "scantily clad" at the beach, but these kids were wearing clothes, not swimsuits, and they were the kind of clothes one associates with hookers rather than with beachgoers) staging some sort of sexy amateur photo-shoot earlier in the day, but I'd ignored them because, well, it was weird and I was reading. When I heard Screaming Lady, I wondered if the sexy photo-shoot might be the "this" she was screaming about, and indeed it was. Shortly after the screaming, two police officers showed up, chatted with all parties involved, and escorted the youngsters off the beach. I'm not sure what law they were breaking, but I sort of have to agree with Screaming Lady that if you'd like to take pictures of yourself on your hands and knees with your (scantily clad) ass in the air, or being felt up by another young lady, or practically humping a signpost, this is probably best done in the privacy of your own home.

The city actually maintains a much nicer, and therefore more crowded, beach park (Ocean View Beach Park) a few blocks down the street, but I think I'll stick with the Community Beach for its odd combination of solitude and the potential for drama. However, I'll have to hire myself a sunscreen boy lest I return from the beach looking like this again: