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Evening in Belmont Shore

Long Beach
Nov. 15, 2003

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We were sitting on a bench, pulling out the circulars so we could get at the Sunday Times without having the ads blow all over the beach, when two women walked past us. "That's what I wish we'd brought," one said, "a paper!"

You don't want the circulars, by chance, do you? Jen asked.

"Yes!" the other woman said. "That's exactly what she wants!" So we pulled them out and gave them to her, along with the Sports section, which we probably weren't going to read.

A few minutes later, an old Latino man came out from his ice cream truck over to us and asked if he could have the Sports section. We told him we had just given it away and pointed to the women plowing through their circulars. He could go ask them for it. But he shook his head and climbed back into his truck.

So Jen ran over to the circular women and asked for the Sports section back. Then she took it over to him in the truck. Smiling, he asked, "What kind of ice cream do you want?" He gave us one of those lemon yellow SpongeBob popsicles with the gumball eyes. We didn't really want it, but it would have been rude to say no.