Fun, Fun, Fun

It's a beautiful June day, the sun is shining, and I'm thinking about the beach. We'll be heading down to Cape May Point soon for a short get-away. The Point is at the southern tip of New Jersey, where Delaware Bay flows into the Atlantic; it's a quiet and peaceful spot - no hotels, no restaurants, etc. - with a lighthouse, dunes, beach houses (including some that go back to the 19th century), and a lot of birds (and a branch of the Audubon society); we've been spending part of our summers here for almost 25 years. The Victorian resort of Cape May proper is a few miles east, and the honkytonk of Wildwood is 10 minutes to the north, but we're happiest at the Point, where the only things to think about are which book to read next, when to walk to the beach, and what to grill for supper.

In anticipation, I'm listening to the Beach Boys, the ultimate summer band, today; more specifically, I'm listening to a one disc-30 track compilation released two years ago by Capitol as The Very Best of the Beach Boys: Sounds of Summer. The set spans their career and includes pretty much everything you'd expect. It's not in chronological order, but most of the cuts are from their peak years in the 60's (there's nothing from So Tough or Holland, for example), and the track sequence, which opens with"California Girls" and closes with "Good Vibrations", plays well. A few of my personal favorites are missing ("409", "All Summer Long", "The Farmer's Daughter") , and some of the later cuts are pretty lame ("Getcha Back" and an adds-nothing-to-the-original cover of "Come Go With Me"), but if you're looking for a one-disc Beach Boys collection, this is the one to buy.

When I went off to college in the early 60's, I attended the University of Rochester, in upstate NY - right in the middle of the snow belt that runs along the coast of Lake Ontario. Winters were long and the snow started falling in late October and ended sometime around April. L, a friend and fraternity brother (oh yeah - lot of stories there!) , detested the snow and thought seriously of transferring. Only the Beach Boys kept him going. He'd play them endlessly, 45's and LP's alike. His room had pictures of the California surf; he wanted to "Catch A Wave", fall in love with a "Little Surfer Girl", and above all, have "Fun, Fun, Fun". When we finally graduated, L. went to law school and then headed straight for southern California and never looked back. Last I heard, he was still practicing law and living in Santa Monica - and I'll bet he's got this disc in permanent rotation: behold the power of music!