It was the morning of the Fourth of July.

The moving brigade began at 5 a.m. or so I was told. I only saw the mostly finished encampments when I walked along the Tower Shores Beach in Delaware an hour and a half later.

They came down the appointed walkways with might be described as half of Walmart’s seasonal department. When I arrived, I stepped through the sand to the edge of the low tide and peered down the shoreline at what looked like a line of erector set builders. One man inserted a thin metal pole into another and placed it equal distance apart from three others that marked the corners of a beach tent he was preparing to mount.

Next to him, a middle-aged man in a tropical flowered swimsuit filled a plastic pocket with sand as one of four anchors tethered to a large canopy that expanded 15 feet or so over an area of beach to provide shade. The guy next to his left must have been one of the sun risers, or what Joe the Fisherman called, “The Devils of Dawn,” the earliest beachcombers who came to stake their territories on the beach, a parcel of sand land that they and their wives had carefully calculated the night before to be the perfect paradise of a granular sanctuary with a blissful ocean view.

“I think they’re just rude,” said Joe the Fisherman. “They come here before the crowds arrive and set up their little villages just behind the surf. It’s like they own the beach. The tents and umbrellas pretty much block any view from people who have to park their stuff behind them.”

Joe’s choice of words seemed to be appropriate. The “village” he referred to was a large canopy tent erected above 14 beach chairs of all sizes and styles, three or four large coolers, and a basket filled with plastic toys for the kids. Under the village tent was also a cornhole game, towels for everyone and an assortment of different sized blankets. Food was brought later when the village people arrive around 11 a.m.

“There’s no rule against what they’re doing,” said Joe, “but sometimes, good ol’ Mother Nature makes them pay a price for staking their ground on the beach and when that happens, it’s fun to sit back and watch the circus.”

Joe was talking about the changing of the ocean tides. According to him, the village people have no clue. “They’ll be paying no attention to the high tide that gradually moves toward their villages. Picture this,” he said. “Four or five of them are asleep under the big tent. Two little kids are digging in the sand with their plastic shovels. You can hear music coming from a speaker. Two women sip drinks and pull snacks from a bag. Three men face the ocean from their lounge chairs. Two teenage girls are sunbathing just outside the tent.”

And here it comes. At first, the rolling water looks like it will stop just before it reaches the edge of the village, but not this time. The sea water and foam rush right through the village compound. Those who were asleep let out a scream as they are rudely awakened. The little kids jump up into a frenzy of tears when their sand castles are flooded from the rolling tide that carries their little shovels away. One man, in a hurry to get off his lounge chair to grab the music speaker, tilts himself downward and falls face forward into the sand. The sunbathers scream as the cold water runs over their bodies scorched by the sun.”

He continued with more details. “All the towels and blankets are soaked with seawater. Snack bags are knocked over. A hard cover book floats past the village and almost reaches a woman in a wide-brimmed hat sitting behind them. “That’s just the opening act,” says Joe. “The best comes after the flood damage is assessed.” Finger pointing and shouting are everywhere throughout the broken village. ‘Didn’t you see the water coming?’ shouts somebody’s wife. ‘How was I supposed to know this was going to happen?’ he barks back. ‘The water was close, but nobody could have known it was going to run right through us.’”

After watching the mayhem, Joe the Fisherman, sitting behind three propped fishing rods in his customary section of the beach, lets out a big belly laugh. “They gotta know when it’s high tide,” he says. “It comes six hours after low tide and this was exactly the time. These people don’t know the ocean and now they have to move their village somewhere else.”

I saw it firsthand. It wasn’t just picking everything up. The relaxing day at the beach had turned into anything but. “Oh, you can bet the wives won’t talk to their husbands for quite a while,” said Joe. “The little kids don’t want to dig in the sand anymore because the ‘big water’ is coming. The sleepers and sunbathers need to go back to where they’re staying to finish their naps and change their bathing suits. God forbid they should get their bikinis wet.”

The mood was not ideal for a village reconstruction so everyone involved left the beach. An hour later another family staked their spot in the sand at the same place. They enjoyed a pleasant experience during low tide.

Joe the Fisherman talked about karma. “After I watch the circus tents come down, I’ll walk up to the edge of the surf and I swear I can hear the ocean laughing.”

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com