Off Season

I consider myself a lucky man if for no other reason than the fact that I’ve got family that live in a seasonal tourist town. They live in a little seaside village on the tiny strip of North Sea Coast that belongs to Germany. It’s not the “world renowned” sort of spot that has people flocking to it from all over the globe, but it is well known in Germany, Besides the occasional late autumn/mid-winter/early spring holidays, its high season is Summer. Many of the local business owners rely on the Summer season to make it through the year. Come June, a town of several thousand swells like a tick with both long and short term vacationers. By mid-September though, the blood flood of tourist dies down to a trickle, and by November there’s almost a anemic ghost-town air about the place. Last Winter, short before Christmas, the family gathered together from all over to celebrate the holidays. Because of the long journey coming from California, we got there before the New Year’s tourist crowd had the chance to breathe a short breath of Winter life in town (it's still very empty over actual Christmas). The couple of off-season days we spent wandering around gave us weather that was typically cold, typically rainy, typically windy. The beaches, parks, and streets were empty bottles, waiting for someone to come along and fill them. It was the calm before the storm of day-trippers hit, ready to tilt back champagne and burn the New Year’s fireworks. It was a long awaited brief moment of peace and quiet for this particular visitor, and recession of anticipation for locals waiting on the breaking wave of life to roll over the place they called home.