1.5 Seconds of Fame

Baby and daddy had their 1.5 seconds of fame today. The wind was blowing strong out of the south, the day was warm for January, and I drove baby to the beach for a walk along the seawall. The sea was roiling, as I’d known it would be, and I covered baby in her stroller with its opposing hoods. Similarly, I pulled the hood on my sweatshirt around my face and tied the strings at my chin, as I hadn’t since I was a boy. I had to lean into the wind pushing the carriage, and realized halfway into the two-mile-plus roundtrip walk that my own hands were cold and baby’s might be, too. I opened the hood and grabbed one of her little paws and it was cold. (The temperature outside was around 50 degrees, but the wind was raw.) I decided to end the walk early, and turned the carriage around. Mostly watching the sea thrashing the rocks below the seawall, I happened to notice a TV news cameraman recording our progress on the sidewalk. He didn’t look too serious about his work, but later this afternoon I turned on the noontime news that Channel 6 repeats every half-hour all afternoon, and there we were. Baby anonymously in her stroller and a tall man in a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled tight around his face out for a walk on a false-spring day.