Throughout his life, [Ray] Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance, Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, “Live forever!” Bradbury later said, “I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.”
Two days ago, I took a day off from work and went to my favorite beach in Chicagoland—Waukegan Beach, located on Lake Michigan in Waukegan, Il.
This beach is the location in which the narrative in the above Bradbury anecdote originated.1 Watch the short-but-magical video below for more on that.
I discovered Waukegan’s beach in 2020 during the pandemic after realizing every other beach in Chicagoland had been closed down. Despite the common belief (at that time) that one was less likely to catch the virus while outdoors, most cities or state parks felt it would not be prudent to keep beaches open throughout the summer of 2020. Waukegan Municipal Beach was the exception. I was beyond grateful for that.
Anyone who knows me well knows I love to be near water any chance I am given. Being next to or on water always has a calming effect on me. And what better time to seek out calm than during the first substantial and widespread (or uncontainted) pandemic of my life? After a desperate google search for any beach that might possibly be open within a fifty mile radius of my house, I found one site that mentioned Waukegan had not yet (nor had any plans to) shut down their beach.
Knowing it was just a straight shot east, I put on my bathing suit and packed a few things for a trip out to Lake Michigan… to this new-to-me beach I had no knowledge (prior to 7/3/20) existed.
Despite mentioning how bodies of water possess the ability to calm me, as they do for many (I assume), it might seem shallow that I felt such a wanting/need to go to a beach in those first few months of the Covid outbreak. And although I do enjoy basking in the sun during the hot months (also, because I am quite opposed to being inside with the air conditioning on if there is an outdoor alternative), this eagerness I felt was so much more about craving solitude in and connection to nature. I simply could not accept the conditions of locking myself down (or away) from the natural world, especially not from water.
Bodies of water, whether the ocean or a river or lake, are sacred places for me.
The beauty of The Great Lakes is that they are so large (Lake Michigan being the second largest of the five) that it can feel like you’re on an ocean.
All of my favorite beaches along Lake Michigan’s Illinois shoreline, including Lake Forest Beach, Openlands Lakeshore Preserve, Fort Sheridan and Illinois Beach State Park, were closed. Waukegan Beach would have to do.
I was already somewhat familiar with Waukegan-the-City for the ties my workplace had/has to it—my employer was originally headquartered there (in office buildings that still remain and in which I briefly worked during the pandemic) and has substantial involvement in the concerts/events that take place at Waukegan’s Genesee Theater (another old stomping ground of Bradbury’s).
As for the beach, though, I was unfamiliar, which is why I received (and continue to receive, even now) concerned and inquisitive expressions or comments from others after mentioning my visits there. You see, Waukegan (especially the vicinity the beach is located in) has developed a reputation over the last several years for becoming a somewhat rough town, often labeled as dangerous and dirty. It’s not at all like some of the ritzier pristine cities along the lake to the south (which have equally pristine beaches, some of which I mentioned above).
But upon my first visit to Bradbury’s hometown beach, I didn’t have that sense. For me, as I drove through the side streets to get to the lake, I found this part of Waukegan, despite its pockets of dilapidated roads and structures, to be quite charming.
It emanated an industrial vibe, seeping out of its concrete stacks and abandoned rail yards, that somehow spoke to me. I am not even quite sure why.
Even though I did not realize at the time that Ray Bradbury grew up in Waukegan (because it wouldn’t be until a year later while vacationing in Florida that I learned of his ties to that city), perhaps I was still somehow feeling/sensing the same feelings/sensations he felt about his childhood town.
In preparing to write today about my discovery of this beach, I wanted to know more about Bradbury’s connection to it, so I typed the necessary keywords into my web browser which gave me a satisfying result—I found something that had been written somewhat recently describing how he felt about this part of his hometown.
Mr. Bradbury notes how some critics who, aware of his humble childhood and some of the perceived ugliness of that area of Illinois (such as the trains, boxcars and smell of coal) wonder how he could convey excitement about these. It’s all about perception, he reasons. A carnival or railyard deemed ugly by a dignified, stuffy Byzantine person is, to a Midwest boy who grew up in the 1930s, a paradise.
To Bradbury, his humble surroundings were Byzantium: a wonderous, exotic, beautiful place very ornate and rich to him.2
I love that! And, as I said, I too was charmed by what I saw. Driving along, on roads in dire need of repair, past marinas and smoke stacks in the oddest of times (apocalypticesque, as very few people were around at the time), I felt an uncanny pull toward this beach that I would soon be discovering firsthand… for the first time.
That short drive between the main thoroughfares of Illinois suburbia and Waukegan’s lakefront was somehow beautiful in its ugliness.
So, while I could not have identified with Bradbury’s thoughts about Waukegan’s vibe at the time, in retrospect, I most certainly do now.
And, for me, that hideous beauty would only continue and intensify in the most spiritually magical way at the water’s edge.
I feel prompted to mention a few things in regard to this theme of living forever.
I have a suspicion about why I have always felt a spiritual connection to this beach, which I think relates to the ways in which it first reminded me of a favorite painter whose work and life I also feel a spiritual connection to. But I will touch on that later, or perhaps in a separate essay, as this one is becoming quite long.
Also, the following summer of 2021, I took my son with me when I returned to Waukegan beach, which had become my go-to beach even though all other beaches were open again. On that day, we experienced a terrifying close call with being swept away from shore, almost to a point of no return, by a dangerous lurking riptide. This too, was a spiritual experience, as it felt like a brush with death, as well as an encounter with some sort of supernatural protection. But that is definitely another story for another post at another time.
Perhaps our salvation came from the words Mr. Electrico once exclaimed there — Live forever! — a message that has somehow been echoed within each wave that has come ashore since he first gave Bradbury the awe-inspiring admonition.
I only know that I felt a charged sense of the eternal each time I visited in 2020, despite the fact that many throughout the world were dying of Covid, and my own sweet aunt was in hospice with Alzheimer’s, facing the end of her physical life as her immune system stopped fighting the Lymphoma that had taken hold of her now weakened body.
My time spent there that summer (for the long holiday weekend on July 3, 4, 5 and then back again July 11 and 14) was of the utmost peace, but also of discovery, both of which felt much more tied to life and the eternal than to death and the temporal.
I particularly remember my visit on the 14th (exactly four years ago today), because the water was unusually warm for this Great Lake. After my first few visits, which had me closer to the main beach, I decided on my subsequent visits to venture further north along the shore… into a territory that was much more “natural.” That is to say, the beach seemed less like a beach where people go to do all things beachy, and more like a stretch of shore that had never been touched by humankind.
To get there, I had to hike through somewhat rough terrain… sandy, yes, but not at all flat. And it was riddled with rocks and sharp, broken reeds rising out of the sand, driftwood, and even animal carcasses (birds and fish)… just a tangled mess of all the above.
But once past this mess, it proved to be a trail well worth blazing, not just because of the beauty discovered beyond it, but also the beauty I noticed while still on it. I cut my foot on one of the reeds, as my not-quite-appropriate footwear left me a little bit wobbly on such a path. But it was still worth the journey.
Also with this particular visit came my decision to bring along my “fancy” camera… my Nikon D800 DSLR. I wanted the opportunity to document this beach I had fallen in love with after just two visits. And I wanted something that was a step up from my iPhone camera. The only lens I own for this camera is a 50mm/1.4… a lens that is often used for portrait photography, which is the main reason I purchased it (to earn a living at natural light portrait photography almost ten years prior). But over the years, as I grew more and more fond of nature photography, I ended up using this portrait lens in nature… making flowers and such my models (like Georgia O’Keeffe, except for the “hate” part).
It was a magical day… everything about it. The light. The colors and tones that light was creating. The air. The warmth of the water (I remember lingering in the water for hours, which I don’t normally do). The vibration the waves made in the sand, which lulled me to sleep for one of the most peaceful naps I have ever fallen into. Every object I touched with my hands or suspended with my lens seemed to me like myth or mystery. I was in what felt like another world of sorts. And I remember not wanting to leave that new world.
I would attempt to describe what I found that day (which includes part of myself, I think), but my hope is that the photos I am including will describe what it was like for me.
And I hope this collection of my 7/14/20 photographs (all of which I have included as the visual half of this journal entry) somehow captured that mystery.
I have posted several of these photos sporadically on my most recent Instagram account, but this is the first time I am publishing them all in one place.
Every summer since 2020, I have returned to Waukegan’s beach, and I am sad to say that with each passing year, it has lost its untouched-by-humans charm, becoming flatter and more combed over. The lush vegetation and natural beauty have been replaced with man-made sand.
The water is still lovely and mesmerizing to me, and an area of nature preserve with walking paths remains on the other side of the sand from the lake. But the beach as I discovered it four years ago is no longer there.
Still, I am grateful to have witnessed and experienced it exactly as it was when I first found it.
In the magical way Bradbury’s shoulder was touched by Mr. Electrico’s Excalibur sword, so the halt this world came to during the pandemic of 2020 touched the shore of Bradbury’s childhood beach. It was for me frozen in time… embedded for all time in my memory.
And hopefully too, within these photographs, the magic will indeed live forever.
Click on any photo and swipe to see the photos slightly larger and all together as a sort of slideshow.
For more images/videos I made of this beach with my phone, see this IG Stories Highlight.
Thank you for reading and seeing. ✨
Ray Bradbury Anecdote: “Live Forever!”, Kris M. Smith
Some really nice photographs of the beach Georgia.