Class English
veLarry Neuburger
Mrs. Jackson
English 101, Sec. 140
2 March 2010
Descriptive Essay
The August Crab
As I sat on the white concrete sea wall looking out over the vast greenish-blue Atlantic
Ocean, waves rhythmically pounded the wall ten feet below my skinny ten year old legs. The naked August sun, the only thing in the blue crystalline sky, assaulted my fair skin and darkened my hated freckles which Nana laughingly referred to as angels’ kisses. Sometimes, a wave smacked the wall so hard a white foamy spray rose and blanketed me with a cooling, salty tasting mist. After a while, the waves receded with the low tide revealing a huge peanut butter colored beach dotted with piles of grey rocks. I walked to a place where there was an opening in the sea wall and discovered a steep stairway that descended down to the beach. I ran to Nana’s summer home, grabbed an old rusty pail and small gardening spade Nana used for planting flowers, and returned to the stairway at the sea wall.
My bare feet touched the cool drying sand, and I noticed a putrid odor like rotting garbage that made my stomach do somersaults. White seagulls with bright orange beaks soared overhead screeching as they searched for food. There were millions of dime and quarter size cream colored seashells mixed in with the sand. As I approached a large pile of rocks the beach seemed to come to life. The sand appeared to be moving in front of my eyes. Thousands of cake donut sized, cream colored sand crabs with ebony eyes strangely protruding an inch from their hard shell bodies skittishly scurried sideways on six hind legs toward the rocks looking for a place to hide from the strange creature approaching them. As they scampered away, their two front claws pointed to the sky and opened and closed in a menacing fashion as if to say, “Don’t mess with me!” My ten year old mind did not understand the ocean will return at high tide and thinks crabs need water to survive. “I must save them,” I
Mrs. Jackson
English 101, Sec. 140
2 March 2010
Descriptive Essay
The August Crab
As I sat on the white concrete sea wall looking out over the vast greenish-blue Atlantic
Ocean, waves rhythmically pounded the wall ten feet below my skinny ten year old legs. The naked August sun, the only thing in the blue crystalline sky, assaulted my fair skin and darkened my hated freckles which Nana laughingly referred to as angels’ kisses. Sometimes, a wave smacked the wall so hard a white foamy spray rose and blanketed me with a cooling, salty tasting mist. After a while, the waves receded with the low tide revealing a huge peanut butter colored beach dotted with piles of grey rocks. I walked to a place where there was an opening in the sea wall and discovered a steep stairway that descended down to the beach. I ran to Nana’s summer home, grabbed an old rusty pail and small gardening spade Nana used for planting flowers, and returned to the stairway at the sea wall.
My bare feet touched the cool drying sand, and I noticed a putrid odor like rotting garbage that made my stomach do somersaults. White seagulls with bright orange beaks soared overhead screeching as they searched for food. There were millions of dime and quarter size cream colored seashells mixed in with the sand. As I approached a large pile of rocks the beach seemed to come to life. The sand appeared to be moving in front of my eyes. Thousands of cake donut sized, cream colored sand crabs with ebony eyes strangely protruding an inch from their hard shell bodies skittishly scurried sideways on six hind legs toward the rocks looking for a place to hide from the strange creature approaching them. As they scampered away, their two front claws pointed to the sky and opened and closed in a menacing fashion as if to say, “Don’t mess with me!” My ten year old mind did not understand the ocean will return at high tide and thinks crabs need water to survive. “I must save them,” I