The "Like Sand in An Hourglass....." Story

It was an ordinary day. I was putting beach sand in a bottle. Not any bottle, but one from St. Martin. One of the neatest souvenirs that I have from our many vacations is sand. Not a lot, but just enough to fill a space about 1/2" by the diameter of the bottle. And the bottles are about 1 inch round or square. About the amount that you would get from the bottom of your shoes after shaking them out each night while on vacation or the amount that comes from the inside of your bathing suit when you take it off each day. I must admit that I take a small baggie to the beach with me with the name of the beach on it in permanent ink. Sometime during the day I take a small handful and place it in the bag. Sometimes it has small shells or small pebbles in it. But, that's OK, since it shows what the beach was really like that we visited that day. I have a bottle of sand from the USVI, which would be St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, that has sand from 8 beaches in it. My favorite beach in that bottle is Magen's Bay. That was the first island beach that really WOW'ed me when I saw it for the first time. Parked in the lot and walked through the seagrape trees and, WOW!! Just breathtaking! I have black sand from Maui, the big island of Hawaii, Kauai, St. Martin/Sint Maarten, Anguilla, PinelIsland, St. Barts, Prickley Pear, Tortolla, Virgin Gorda, Peter Island, Caicos Island, Jamaica, Barbados, and Antigua. All but two of the bottles are bottles that I brought back with me from St. Martin. In the little hand-painted bottles was MaDouDou rum. Naturally had to empty the liquid before putting them in my suitcase, to lighten the load. That was a pleasant task. Next trip to St. Martin I have to return with one more bottle for the souvenir sand I will collect in the seven stops we will have on our Panama Canal Cruise. I often wonder what would I do if someone picked up a bottle to view it and dropped it or shook it. Then I realized I would have to refill it again. Another trip to the beaches in the bottle would be in order. And .... what will happen to all this sand in the bottles when I die? Doesn't really matter! It is something I treasure and use to remember all the good times Carol and I had while visiting some of the most gorgeous islands in the world. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.