This July 4th: Say hello to shibumis

My father was never a fan of taking us to Nantasket on July Fourth: “Too crowded.” As tweeners, before any of us had our drivers’ licenses, a group of us would then catch the subway to Orient Heights or Revere Beach. In any of the three cases, we never had to worry about shibumis.

Until my son-in-law Harry purchased one for last summer’s vacation on the Outer Cape, I had never heard of a shibumi. The only Japanese word in my vocabulary was the one for “goodbye.”

While the University of North Carolina is famous for its basketball teams and for its hiring of our Bill Belicek, it is also the institution from which three University of North Carolina grads who were looking for a lightweight, easy-up-and-down solution to sunburn and searing sand invented their two-color blue tarp that’s stretched over a tent pole and held aloft by the wind. On some beaches in distant states it is now such a common beach accessory that swimmers coming out of the ocean have to scan the shore for a few minutes to figure out which shibumi is theirs.

The inventors, Dana Barnes and brother Scott, and Alex Slater, now vary the colors: they are not all colored teal-and-blue. Unlike tent-like structures on the beach, there are side flaps. There are downsides: because there used to be an irritable flapping during windy days, they now use a different fabric for “putting the Shh back in Shibumi.” Another downside that has not been rectified yet is that it blocks the view of the ocean for bathers sitting behind you. The mere beach umbrella offers those sitting behind virtually an unimpeded view of those looking on the horizon for prowling sharks.

One beach community in South Carolina has already forbidden shibumi usage. Up here in the Bay State we have more pressing problems: beach access for those of us living in Boston and inland communities has been effectively thwarted by coastal towns, forcing us into nearby, overcrowded DCR beaches or long rides to Scusset, Horseneck, Salisbury, or Cape Cod’s National Seashore.

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You can bet good money that shibumis will be outlawed before most of Massachusetts tax-paying citizenry gains access to the many beaches of the Bay State’s coastal towns.