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T.H. Watkins (1936-2000) http://tinyurl.com/TWatkins

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The Longest Hour

From On the Shore of the Sundown Sea, 1973.

Reader: Wm Leslie Howard

Few people can claim they've never been struck by the beauty of a sunset. But is that drawn-out descent all the more beautiful when memory adds its own light to the afterglow?

Recalling langorous afternoons spent on the beaches of California during his childhood, Thomas Henry Watkins here contemplates the end of a perfect day as the sun drops beneath the horizon.

The end of each of these long summer days was a waltz of sunny pleasure, of more sand castles, of explorations, of pebble and seashell hunts, of mindless, exhilarated running whose only purpose was movement. As the sun curved out of sight, I would change to sweat shirt and jeans, after which there would be dinner, served hot from a campstove on a paper plate and wolfed with the undiscriminating hunger of childhood. As twilight slipped into darkness, there would usually be a pit fire in the sand with flames to feed and watch while my mother bedded down the last, whimpering, heavy-lidded member of her younger brood. I was allowed to choose my own bed-time, but I rarely lasted until the flames had become embers.

T. H. Watkins was edior of the magazine Wilderness. His 1973 book On the Shore of the Sundown Sea was published by the Sierra Club.

–Contributed by Christie Genochio.