Beachfront in the Time of Climate Change

It was time to pack up, the end of summer, and I bicycled one last time past a beach house the owners had named “High and Dry.” The prim structure was about 100 yards in from the crashing waves of Rhode Island’s South Coast, just east of Westerly. High and dry—maybe today, I thought. But in 30 or 40 years? Probably not.

There’s nothing like a summertime community all along New England’s coastline, from Watch Hill to Bar Harbor. One spends a fortune to rent four walls and roof at a spot that is all about location, and each lazy morning the sun umbrella gets planted in the sand, a statement of utter lack of agenda. At the understated enclave of Quononchontaug, there’s a pick-up softball game at the ballfield every Sunday, and a musical put on by kids. My youngest son learned to ride a bike on the placid street grid, rewarded with a Dell’s frozen lemonade. It’s all so very Norman Rockwell.