The day wasn't going as planned. What was supposed to be a day of fun in the sun had suddenly turned into a murder mystery.
It had to be a murder, right? You can't tie your hands behind your back.
We had to go to the police. Which police? Were we in Vineland or Millville? Who could tell? None of us even knew where the police stations were around here anyway.
Wait a minute. Those two boys hanging around, they're local kids, they must know where the police are.
So Sherri and I and the local kids are in my 63 Fairlane heading for the police.
The boys are jabbering away like monkeys in the back seat while Sherri and I are trying to make sense out of all of this.
I think the officer at the front desk is wondering what in the hell is this when he sees the four of us walk in, all wet, in bathing suits and looking kind of frazzled.
"What do you kids want?" he asks.
"I want to report a dead body," I say.
This gets his attention.
We explain the situation to the officer who tells us to wait while he goes to get a detective. He acts like he really doesn't believe us.
A detective comes out and they take down our statements.
At first they seem more interested in why we all came down here and how we found out about the sand quarry, which they tell us is called the Menantico Sand Wash.
"We heard it was a great place to go swimming," I tell them.
What did they want me to say? Did they expect me to tell them I was hoping for some kind of first-time sexual encounter, or that we were all pot heads looking for some secret place to get high or something?
"Just out for some early summer fun, officer." "Nothing more than that."
After telling the detective that I pulled the body in to shore, he tells me that I had a lot of "Moxie".
"How did you know the body was real?" he asks.
"I knew from the way it felt when I touched it, and blood was coming out of the nose when we got it to the shoreline, that's how," I tell him.
After they get through with taking our statements, they tell us to lead them back to the scene.
On the way back we're followed by detectives and patrolmen, and the coroner is also on the way.
Yeah, we're a regular convoy now.
None of us were prepared for something like this. How could we be?
Now it was time to sit back and watch a comedy of errors unfold before us.