In recognition of shark week, my own personal shark encounter

I was born and raised in southern California. I spent most of my life at the beach. One summer, when I was eighteen years old, I went to Huntington Beach. It was the hottest I ever remember it being along the coast over one hundred degrees with zero wind. Generally, the coast doesn’t get above eighty in the summer, but that day it was different.

The beach was pack with dark brown oiled up bodies lying on large beach towels a foot apart, listening to their radios and drinking soda. I was one of...