THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409230536
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
The chocolate Labrador retriever spent the other day playing tag with the ocean, all day.
I say ``chocolate'' because that is part of the name of the breed, many of which are of a hue as if they were poured from a cauldron of bubbling candy syrup at Hershey. This dog at the beach on the Outer Banks is darker than chocolate, even the bittersweet bar. He is only a shade or two lighter than starless midnight.
In the water, gleaming head and shoulders protruding from a wave, he could be taken for an eager seal looking for a thrown fish.
At the veterinarian's not long ago, an owner of a waggish yellow Lab pup looked at the brown Lab and asked his name. ``Boomer,'' I said.
``You should have named him Root Beer,'' he said.
Now that was close. But in late afternoon, when the declining sun is swinging an orange brush on everything, it burnishes the Lab's coat with flame, and I feel we should have named him Red.
Five years old, he has weighed 65 pounds for four years, his silky hide sheathing not much more than muscle and bone. And he still loves to play, as most Labs do as long as they are able to move.
He had never seen waves as monstrous as those curling on the beach, churned by some weather disturbance far beyond the horizon.
On arriving, the Lab went flying across the sand and flung himself at the first towering wave, only to be thrown back head over heels. He tried again, went down again.
He began stalking the wave, hanging back from its face until the foaming crest broke. Then, head high, he spotted the ball bobbing in the wake behind the rustling wave and leaped over the breaking wave's tumbling surf, as nimbly as if topping a picket fence, to retrieve the ball.
But, now and then, two giant waves came close together, a massive one-two punch. Even as he cleared the first wave and was spearing the ball in its trough, the second massive wall of water was rearing above him with a roar.
At that moment, instead of trying to scramble into a retreat before the rushing, hissing wave, he gathered himself in a crouch and dove straight at the base of the wave and came bobbing to the surface on the other side as if he had plunged into a bramble bush, coming through unscathed.
Every so often, he gauged a mounting wave so that he rode it, body surfing, his head projecting from the crest as he was swept along, a dark head midway in a green-blue wave extending 150 feet in length.
Eight grandchildren were throwing the ball, but even grandchildren are known to tire. As strollers paused, he engaged them, too, dropping the ball at their feet, crouching, looking up, brown eyes beseeching, and, when one stooped and threw it, the Lab fetched it until he had hooked another recruit.
Then, moving back to reweave the first group into the act, he was in command of the waves and the watchers, binding the two in play. by CNB