Here’s a piece of advice for some small town along the coast looking to draw visitors in: take one of your nicer beaches and rename it (formally or informally) “Witch Beach.” Sure, it sounds spooky and all, like there’s some legend about some eloping lovers who met a star-crossed end just next to the pier (write it up and put it on the back of a local restaurant menu to get it jump-started). But the best part is that people will love talking about it in Abbott and Costello fashion. Imagine the conversation at the hotel nearby:
“Which beach shall we go to today, honey?”
“Sure!”
“What?”
“No, Witch!”
“Right. Which beach?”
“Good, then it’s decided: Witch Beach.”
“It is? Which?”
“Yeeeeessss!”
After everyone gets it, they’ll feel compelled to go to Witch Beach so they can respond wittily to their friends over the water cooler:
“Hey, Velda, so what did you do on your vacation?”
“Oh, we went to… (pause pause) Witch Beach.”
“I don’t know, I didn’t go. You tell me. Which beach?”
“Exactly!”
Hardee har har. See, then it spreads like wildfire. Everyone who loves a kitschy yuk yuk will want to take a trip to Witch Beach. Open up a gift shop selling Frisbees with the words “Witch Beach?” over a winking woman on a broomstick with a hat who says, “Yes!” Don’t wait for Wiccans to point out that actually, witchcraft is not a joke but a time-honored Celtic tradition celebrating the sacred cycles of nature and our human alignment with them… anticipate the media circus and invite the Wiccans to come to town for their next convention and commune, commune, commune. Make it a yearly festival, just like Twinsville, Ohio. Then call the Today Show.
P.S. There is already a Witch Beach out there, but it’s in Mazatlan, Mexico and is only “Witch Beach” in translation. “Playa Bruja” doesn’t turn into an English language pun. So the door is open to you, small anonymous coastal town. Here’s opportunity knocking! Knock knock.
