Hooty Booty Beach

My favorite beach is soon to be no more

Thumper Joe at the beach in 2012

last night on the news there was a report about the plans to rebuild the seawall and construct a huge splash apron that would prevent storm waves from washing up on the road and freezing during the winter.  the road that goes by this beach is a major thoroughfare, and so any dangerous road conditions are an understandable concern, but who is really at fault?  the wild and stormy Lake Erie? or the people who were foolish enough to build a major road next to the wild and stormy Lake Erie. 

The plans disclosed in the article detail how they will be dredging up the sand along the beach so that they can do the construction on the bedrock.  The plans also include a pedestrian walkway along the new construction.  Here is the latest article from the Buffalo News if you are so inclined to read it. 

I suppose I'm being selfish, but it was (and still is for the time being!) one of my favorite places to exist.  an excellent treasure beach, i often find rare colors of beach glass as well as interesting rocks, fossils, bones and shells.  it was a difficult beach to get to since parts of it were often washed out and only accessible by wading, or by climbing down the wall.  I could be completely alone, and have a whole beach to myself and i am less than thrilled about the idea that it could become a crowded meeting place.

The Alhambra Club in its Heyday

 not only was it a great place to gather freshwater flotsam, but the beach was littered with the ruins of former buildings.  The Alhambra, an old supper club sat there from the 1920's until it burned down in the 1940's.  The wave-chewed foundation can still be found as a testament to the power of water and to the Lake's temper.  Although the plans in the article say nothing of what will happen to   the ruins of the establishment, i imagine it will either be buried under the rock, or more likely completely demolished to facilitate the construction.

Thumper sitting among the ruins in 2013

I'm also concerned for some of the interesting graffiti along the wall, most notably, this

giant portrait of Bettie Page.  As much as i will miss this work of art, my photo of it also demonstrates exactly why these repairs are being done: a huge tumbled portion of the wall can be seen in the right of the photo.

Rock in peace, Beach Bettie

In other news, there was a small earthquake in Lake Erie this morning.  it was nothing special impressive, just a 2.1 but its always special when it happens.  we get weak earthquakes like this every so often in this region and its the result of crustal rebound in the wake of the last ice age.  if that doesn't make sense the weight of a continental ice sheet a mile thick can actually locally depress the earth's crust into the mantle and now that the glacier is gone, the crust has been slowly rising back up over the last 10,000 or so years and every once in a while it rebounds a little faster which causes our earthquakes, which never cause any serious damage.  one time when i was 9 years old I experienced such a tremor after school.  a 5.0 quake made the whole house shake for a few while.  at the time i thought it was fun.  but i don't live in a very geologically active area so there is little cause for concern or alarm when it happens (no real tectonic dangers such as the pacific rim endures). Here is a link with a list compiling earthquakes centered or felt locally, although it doesn't give the  scale for all of them which is unfortunate.

so in conclusion, I will be spending as much of my summer as i can documenting and collecting memories of my favorite beach while i still can.  please enjoy some photos taken in years past

frozen drainage holes and the wall is half buried in the ice dunes

Thumper following me along the wall in 2014

Interesting mildew growth on drainage holes

 and lastly, here is a video of me and my dogs splashing and playing among the ruins on the beach.  the crumbling wall, again, is very visible in the background

As always, Thank you for reading :)

Day at the Beach

today's intact bottleneck

Collecting Beach Glass is one of my favorite hobbies, and late autumn is one of the best times to find it.  The rare calm days that punctuate November's status quo of choppy riotous waters are oft to reveal marvelous treasures.  In part this is because the weather conditions dredge more of it up, but the real reason is because no sane person wants to get cold and wet and slapped by wind at the beach in late fall! Of course, that means there's simply more for the taking for those of us occupying the lunatic fringe.

of course, not every day is a  lucky one.  there are a number of productive beaches near where i live; rocky, smelly, full of trash and dead fish.  and on occasion i leave with pockets full of pinks and yellows and all manner of rare colors.  Today, that did not happen.

i found some nice things, no doubt, but not quite what i was hoping to find.  the first treasure of note was the intact top of a bottle, presumably from hot sauce judging by the small opening.  intact bottlenecks are a relative rarity, so even in a common color such as clear glass, they are a treat to come across.  Not long after, i discovered an opaque, two-tone blue glass bead, which i for sure thought was plastic but picked up anyway.  the bead was heavy for its size, and had a gritty feel, more akin to polished glass with a definite glassy "plink" when dropped on a hard surface.  I'm in love with

two-tone opaque glass bead

the vintage character of the bead and it looks slightly art deco.  im not sure if i want to turn it into a jewelry piece, or keep it in my jar of rare pieces as one of the trophies of my collection.  either way im very glad i found it!


The rest of todays haul was mostly common colors, though i did find two pieces of clear pattern glass, 3 pieces of UV glass, 1 piece of gray glass, and an unusual aqua-gray piece, much darker than is typical for aqua glass.  it was also a good day for cobalt blue and lime green, and found several pieces in both of those colors, though they are not as rare as the reds and yellows which I covet.

Pattern glass, and gray and aqua-gray

at any rate, i was at least the first person to the beach this morning.  so i got first pick of what washed ashore last night.  as i was finishing up i got the chance to talk to some fellow collectors, informed them that there wasn't much today and we got to boast about our past finds.  one older woman i talked to informed me of a beautiful piece of dark purple she found at the location during the Super Moon earlier this month.  we wished each other luck and went our own separate ways. 


once i got home and emptied my pockets, the first thing i do is check my collection under a black light, and if you dont check your finds either you are really missing out on some rare treats.   years ago, uranium was used in the manufacture of glassware and ceramics.  before it was weaponized, and before people even knew what radioactivity was,  uranium was valued as a pigment, yielding a vibrant color in shades of yellow and green.  in years past, glass of this sort would have been proudly displayed in a window, since the color of the glass seems to intensify in sunlight.  This effect is the

Today's Limes and Cobalts

result of the pigment reacting to the light, and is not actually caused by radiation (many substances fluoresce under black light, and very few of them give off radiation).    Speaking of radiation, this stuff is pretty safe to handle.  The amount of uranium actually used to create a piece of this glass is so minimal that even an intact piece of green depression glass wont even register on a Geiger counter and the exposure you would receive from these little shards is nothing to worry about when you consider the background radiation we are exposed to daily, which enters earth from space, and comes up from the ancient rocks beneath our feet. 

Today's UV glass under black light

UV glass is highly collectible, both in its intact and surf-ravaged forms, and looks simply amazing displayed under a blacklight, or stored in a jar on a windowsill to enjoy its much more subtle display.  If you would like to find such glass, the most common color is a pale minty green, though over the years ive found UV reactive pieces in red, pale yellow, pale blue and opaque white milk glass.  if you have jars of beach glass from years past lying around, i encourage you to check your collection and see if you have any UV you didnt know about!

Thank you for reading :)