We read A.A. Milne to our children when they were young. The year that our daughter was born, when he was 2½, our son received a large book of A.A. Milne stories and poems. For several years I read from that book often. But, as the world goes, the children grew up, and the book got set aside. I haven’t read from it for a long time. And as time passed, my memory got a bit fuzzy and the line from a poem that I often quote became a mis-quote.

The way I remembered it was, “Whenever a good nor’easter bows, Christopher is certain of sand-between-the-toes.” I don’t know what I was thinking. A.A. Milne, and therefore Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and the rest would have lived in England, where fowl weather comes from the northwest. I somehow had transplanted them into the New England states where storms come from the northeast. I would have known better, had I taken time to think about it, but my memory is often not in the same part of my mind as my rational thinking.

Here is the real poem:

Sand-Between-The-Toes by A.A. Milne

I went down to the shouting sea,
Taking Christopher down with me,
For Nurse had given us sixpence each –
And down we went to the beach.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the toes.
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.

The sea was galloping grey and white;
Christopher clutched his sixpence tight;
We clambered over the humping sand –
And Christopher held my hand.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.

There was a roaring in the sky;
The sea-gulls cried as they blew by;
We tried to talk, but had to shout-
Nobody else was out.

When we got home, we had sand in the hair,
In the eyes and the ears and everywhere;
Whenever a good nor’wester blows,
Christopher is found with
Sand-between-the-toes.



I do like the poem. I love the sense of adventure. I love the delightfully warm relationship between an adult and a child. I love the notion of teaching one’s children about the world and helping them to overcome their fears. Even though a storm is raging, the child is safe. The gales that chase others from the beach are no match for the love of family. The world is a place that is safe and worthy of adventures that bring you home in need of a bath and a warm meal. It is worth going out to explore even when you know you’ll be coming home with sand-between-the-toes.

I remember sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose, and sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes. I remember the bathtub so full of sand that I worried about washing it all down the drain. We raised our children with plenty of outdoor adventures. We went to the beach and flew kites and made castles and chased waves and examined shells and rocks polished by the surf.

But today I am thinking of parents on another coast, where the storm is raging not from the northwest, but from the northeast. When our children were little the longest power outage I can remember was about three days. We had plenty of flashlights and batteries. We had a few candles for the dinner table. We had a woodstove to keep the house warm and a camp stove to cook warm food. We had plenty of provisions and were in no danger of running out. And we knew that even though our street was temporarily blocked by a spring blizzard, help was only a phone call away. If needed, the county would send a snowplow and an ambulance.

It is different for families who watched the water fill the lower floor of their home while they huddled upstairs. They have been trying for days to survive without electricity, with limited access to gas and groceries. And now a nor’easter is whipping the region and dumping snow and dropping power lines from Delaware to Maine. Up to seven inches of snow was expected on Staten Island by this morning. Parts of Connecticut saw more than eight inches. There are hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in New Jersey and New York.

I know that we are a resilient lot. I know that we often have far more luxury than is necessary for survival. I know that we have become soft and spoiled by the ease of access to warmth and food. I know that all of us should take more precautions and be more prepared for the storms that inevitably come. I know that forecasters have predicted these storms would come. I know all of that.

But how do you explain it to a child? How do you provide a sense of safety and security? How do you teach the joy and wonder of this world when nature is delivering a one-two punch and the temperatures are dropping and your home is not some secure and independent cabin in the woods, but an apartment dependent upon public utilities to keep it warm and a car to commute to the work and services upon which your life depends?

I think if I were a parent in some of those locations, I might gather up my child, a few cherished toys and a few good books and head to the home of another family member or, if necessary to a shelter, where I could at least provide warmth and safety for my child.

Chances are, among the books I would grab would be “When We Were Very Young,” and perhaps “Now We are Six.” When the world becomes unsettled, it is always good to have the classics. Who knows? It might even be fun, once a warm meal and a safe bed has been found, to read the poem and change the worlds to nor’easter and then to check for sand-between-the-toes. Our kids always giggled when I checked for sand-between-the-toes.

If we fill our lives with love and remember what is most important, we can weather life’s storms, even the severe ones. We are survivors. And sand-between-the-toes makes for good stories to tell our grandchildren.

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