Atlantic Ocean Conjures J. Alfred Prufock and Sea Turtles

I was sitting on the beach looking out across the Atlantic Ocean, when J. Alfred Prufrock showed up.

T.S. Eliot wrote "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in the early 20th Century, a poem of a middle-aged, inadequate man:

..."with a bald spot in the middle of my hair--[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"], My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--[They will say "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]

Why, you might ask, would J. Alfred Prufrock show up on Yaupon Beach on Oak Island on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Well, J. Alfred Prufrock dwells within most of us at times, and unless you're either young or buff, there are plenty of reasons to be insecure on the beach.

There's more to it than that for J. Alfred Prufrock, though, he who thought he "should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas." Yes, if J. Alfred Prufrock had been a creature on the ocean floor he wouldn't have had to deal with life, with the women he didn't have, with the women who "come and go, talking of Michelangelo."

How could he compete with Michelangelo or anything else the women chose to talk about? After all, he didn't even think the mermaids would sing for him, those creatures that don't exist.

Just as suddenly, J. Alfred Prufrock disappears with a poof. Oh, wouldn't he be injured to know he is gone just as easily as he was summoned? Wouldn't he be injured to know he is replaced with thoughts of sea turtles, those creatures of the sea that swim and scuttle across the ocean floor?

I think of an August years earlier, when the residents of Yaupon Beach adopted a nest of sea turtle eggs to insure the baby turtles made it to the ocean. The mother laid the eggs in the sand and left, returning to her watery home.

The adoptive "parents" staked the nest off and when the time came, swept a path with a broom to the edge of the sea to ensure the baby turtles would find their way to the water and not become a midnight snack for a crab.

Around 20 or 25 people gathered to wait for the turtles to hatch that night, and when the nest began to "bubble" the time was coming near. It didn't happen until 1 or 2 am though, and by that time the crowd had dwindled. One man, who "had to be in a dentist's chair at 8 am" the next day stuck it out. I was just glad to be a visitor.

Those in the know said most of the turtles wouldn't make it to adulthood, that they would be eaten or come to some other end-- environmental, perhaps--before they could get there. If mermaids existed, I'm sure they would sing for the turtles on the night they were born.