It took nearly a full year to build that boardwalk. Each nail was driven by hand - held between weather fingers. Fingers with cuts, bruises, rough patches of skin. Tan skin. They worked out in the sun all day - hoping for a passing cloud, praying for a coming storm.

Their shovels bore into the sand. It was never ending. Once they passed a couple feet, the sand began to cave in, becoming wet at the water line, turning to mush, filling itself in. A bottomless pit. The sand got heavier the deeper they went - more water to lug over the should - more effort to make progress. Each shovel deeper, the hole would fill twice and much.

Their breaks were short, worthless, barely useful. The boss would holler at them if they took too long, if they looked miserable. He wanted "strong bodied - abled men. Me who wanted to be there," he'd say. No one wanted to be there. They needed the money.

Driving wood into the earth was no one's priority. Hammering it together was not their pastime.

The tar stuck to everything. Their skin, their clothes, their hair. It smelled. It burned after sitting in the sun for too long.

All this work and 50 years later, the wood was splitting, rotting, covered in algae and moss. The boards creaked as people passed overhead - the legs shook as waves crashed into them.

Having not lasted long, their work seemed pointless.

Yet, it didn't matter to the two young children running between the beams, playing tag during low-tide.

The labor of those before them had become their playground.