All this was history was history of course, but would history repeat itself? In fact, could it possibly repeat itself, or would things be worse? We all knew that our country had drifted into a much deeper mess than it had been in, back in 1929. Farming hadn't been wrecked before the 1929 crash. The industries been demolished then, nor had the rail grid been taken down as was already beginning with fuel prices going through the roof. Neither had America become beggars to the world, supported with cheap imported goods that we could no longer produce ourselves.

      I decided to dismiss the thought that Steve might have been wrong when he said that we weren't in a crisis situation yet. This meant that the chaos that he said was coming, was still a long way off and would be worse than anything we had ever seen or endured. With that thought I let the holiday mood resume.



      I felt comfortable after a while with the thought that the world would just keep on rolling along. Perhaps it was the holiday mood that was causing this leisurely feeling. After lunch was completed, none of us really felt like working on the trail again. Consequently we all lazed around for an hour putting in a snooze. Two seagulls fighting woke us up.

      The work was still there when we awoke. We had to do it. As tough as the slugging turned out to be, we needed that access to the spring of fresh water. The spring that we had found was located at the bottom of the slope to the right of the gully. No one can live without water for long, us included. The supply that we had brought wasn't intended to last long, and wouldn't have. In a sense, building that trail to the beach was our own vital infrastructure project. Thus, building it wasn't an option. It was a necessity. Without access to water we wouldn't be able to remain at our paradise for long. Maybe it was that realization that drove us back to work.



      We emerged from the 'jungle' in the late afternoon, exhausted, but happy that the work had been completed. By doing the work we had transformed our encampment into a livable world. Steve would have said that we had created a whole New World for ourselves that didn't exist before we laid our hand at the axe. The trail had been cut trough all the way to the beach. A crude sort of trail it turned out to be, but for the moment it met our needs perfectly well. We could think of many refinements. Certainly more steps were needed in some of the steeper places, but the refinements could wait. The holiday mood won out.

      As soon as we got out to the open beach we 'collapsed' as it were, against a log, to rest our tired bones, except Tony. Tony seemed to be tougher. He ran back up to the camp to test our newly built trail, and to bring down some snacks and fruit. He also returned with a pitcher for the first draft of water from our own spring.

       Never had a glass of water been as tasty as it was that day. We were all certain of that. The pitcher was filled three times.

      We savored the water and the nourishment of fruits and cake. What more could one ask for than this, being leisurely stretched out on the sand right where we were, eating and drinking, with nothing more urgent on the agenda than to be lazily stretched out on our perfectly clean sand, pretending that this was paradise, which indeed it seemed to be. Except, we weren't on a tropical island to make the dream complete. Apart from this small technicality we could just as well have been on a disserted island. There were no footprints in the sand as far as anyone could see, except our own. Being at our beach that day was rather magical in this sense, like being in paradise alright. We all agreed on that.



      We hadn't been at the beach for more than an hour that afternoon when Sylvia noticed someone in the distance coming towards us. A while later we recognized that there were two people coming, which we recognized later to be a man and a woman walking hand in hand. They were the first people we had seen on the beach, ever. At our last visit we had met no one.

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Stories about  Love from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche