Sand scholar

Only one brainteaser dawdles in the background during Debbie Paulin's methodical, luxurious summer beach routine. Everything else is cake. Is it that her 1990 Bronco is jammed with every comfort and practicality that will possibly fit? Or is it that through some coincidence of space and miracle of creative packing the Bronco holds everything Paulin will actually need?

Stick around for the answer. For now, who needs brainteasers? Certainly no one on the dune-backed pulchritude that is Chapin Beach in Dennis, where Paulin holds court as chief theorist and main adherent of the Gospel of Beach Going.


It's enough for now to say the Bronco is stuffed to the gills. And when all is unpacked, Paulin's encampment includes a "living room," "kitchen" and "entertainment center." Her beach stays often last from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. between April and November. Chapin regulars simply call her "The Mayor."



There is a pronounced artistry in Paulin's pursuit of relaxation. Her example provides a lesson in how to do a day at the beach perhaps to the same degree that the Abbey of Pomposa in Italy provides an example of how to build a church.


Do it in style. Be flamboyant.


"The sun is going this way," Paulin says, pointing to an imaginary line in the sand. "The No. — rule is, don't get in my rays."


The three-tide stay


There is no No. 2 rule. Though others, too, may go all out when at the beach, probably no one is as mentally invested as Paulin, a lifelong Dennis resident and an office worker in Yarmouth. She takes as many weekdays off as she can in the summer to hit the beach.


"I sometimes stay for as long as three tides," she says.


Winter makes her cranky.


"She's the beach queen," said Lori from Brewster, who often sets up beside Paulin.


But, foremost, she is "The Mayor."


"This is my office," she says, "with a view. Get here early. Leave here late. It's my other job.


"This is all I do," she says. "I just wait for the sun to go around."


As it does, she gets up incrementall shifts in her chair in the direction of the sun. "Beach aerobics," she calls it. She cooks. She hunts for beach glass. She floats in the little rip that appears on the flats when the tide comes in. The water gets like a Jacuzzi, she says.


getting to the beach early, she gets the "primo" spot on that elbow of sand at the mouth of Chase Garden Creek overlooking Bass Hole and the tip of Sandy Neck.


Nature enters the eyesight every which way.


A Barnstable-bound plover does a U-turn overhead, letting out a high-pitched tweet that sounds like a squeaky toy. A gull follows suit, laughing like a monkey.


People and SUVs come and go. Paulin remains.


Seaside Fellini set


A pink windscreen she made by sewing together twin sheets is attached to garden stakes. She sinks the stakes into the sand by pounding them with a rubber mallet. The windscreen gives her encampment a poetic playfulness. In fact, along with her lounge chair, a couple beach stands, umbrellas, a stereo, coolers, and a propane grill, her encampment resembles a set in a Fellini movie.


Six different-colored Dennis beach stickers line her front fender like merit badges. You can tell the years by how much the sticker is peeling away from the steel. The 1995 sticker is curling in on itself like an autumn leaf, and 1996 is following suit. The 2000 sticker is flat and fresh.


Paulin, who has been coming to Chapin Beach for 10 years, learned the value of four-wheeling out to the Cape's great beyond 10 years ago. She was taken out to Nauset Beach by an old boyfriend.


"I was like, yeah, this is living," she says. "Yep."


So she bought the Bronco. She reckons that on the busy weekend days she knows everyone within eight car lengths in either direction.


The Gospel of Beach Going involves coming prepared, even to the point of overdoing it. Paulin, who often comes with friends, brings enough food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks in between and beverages.


We're not talking burgers. Recent menus have included grilled pork with curry sauce and grilled pizza. She recently prepared brownie shortcake. It tasted like summertime in a dish.


A plastic cup to heaven


Rafts and an inner-tube are tethered to her Bronco's back end. Her Bronco has six storage drawers in the back holding basic kitchen necessities, Band-Aids, suntan lotion, tools, coils, bungee cords, clamps, an air compressor, and a nip bottle of Stolichnaya vodka she found on the beach.


She's prepared. Even the clicker for her stereo is wrapped in plastic to keep the sand out.


The Gospel of Beach Going includes raising a plastic cup to the heavens several times a day, giving thanks even for those limbo days of no sunshine.


She'll try to coax a cloud-covered sun.


"Come on," she implores. "Over here."


Or: "Ahh. Scorch. Scorch. Please scorch," she says, as a plane crouches under a low cloud ceiling while pulling an advertisement for a lobster dinner on Route 28.


The Gospel of Beach Going includes searching the flats at low tide for beach glass - former bottle shards whose dagger teeth have been smoothed by the sea to the shape of worry stones. She has bags full in the Bronco and jars full at home. One is shaped like the island of Nantucket.


Finally, The Gospel of Beach Going involves dreaming delectable little dreams as the radio plays. Brian Setzer is jumping, jiving and wailing.


"God, what the Cape really needs is a dance hall," says Paulin, lying on her lounge chair, propping herself up on her elbows. "You know, it could be '30s-style. You could get a bunch of old cars, park 'em out front. They wouldn't necessarily have to be working cars. They could be kits that you put together. Line 'em up. Have this kind of music playing inside - real old style.


"We gotta get someone to do this," she says.


Little waves lap up on the sand like the tongue of a dog licking a dinner plate.


Answer to the riddle: When you are dedicated to the beach, to summer and to the dogged pursuit of relaxation, needs and wants meld into one. (Everything gets used in the Bronco except for a few of the bungee cords and the Band-Aids.)


"I don't know," Paulin said. "It replenishes my soul. It replenishes my soul being out here."

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