"Are you OK, Ma'am?"

And the correct question for today's Jeopardy clue is: What is the correct thing to say when you run over a surfin' granny with your board?

"Are you OK, Ma'am?" is not something I have ever heard before in the water, but I heard it today.

Now you know I am not in New York.

No, that sentence could only be uttered down South, at my favorite SSS (Secret Southern Spot). I'm down here for a week for a much needed vacation.

I was out on a glassy small morning surrounded by teenage boys---this one had braces on his teeth. Our boards collided---his fault---and instead of yelling at me as a typical male New Yorker would, he asked about my welfare like a good Southern boy.

Which, to me, sounded just like "You're too old to surf."

Every woman dreads the M word. You never forget the first time you hear it applied to you. You look around---Who's he calling Ma'am?---then you realize it can only be you and that you've crossed that invisible line into middle age and have nothing to look forward to but decline and death. You hear that word and you realize that your life as you have known it is over.

Bad as the first time hearing it is, there needs to be a whole new level of badness for hearing it while on a surfboard. Any of you women had this experience?

Still, it was a very good day and I'm glad to be out of New York and not facing down the usual supects in the lineup. Even people who live at the beach need to go on vacation to other beaches sometime.

This is the first time I've surfed at SSS when it's been warm enough for people to be standing and playing in the shorebreak in front of the surfers. They seem unaware or unconcerned that a speeding board could hit them in the head at any moment. And when you ruin a good ride because they won't get out of your way, they just stare at you like deer in the headlights. It's enough to make me appreciate our beach's policy of keeping nonsurfers out of the surfing area.

Still, at home I wouldn't have seen dolphins dancing in the surf in a lineup of their own, eliciting oohs and cheers from those beachgoers lucky enough to see them.

When you do get rides here, you can get some that seem to go on forever, not like at home. I didn't get forever rides but I did get several long ones, enough of a taste to get me back in the water for a second afternoon session. I watched several surfers get those long ones, especially one Gramps who I remember from the last time I was here. They all seem to be either teenagers or Grampses, nothing in between, and no women over 19.