THE DAY AFTER Crawdad's graduation from grad school we went to the beach to toast ourselves. It was a typical sunny California beach day: 90 degrees and 40 degrees at the same time. You freeze with clothes on. Your options are to put more on or take them off and turn the color that lobsters get. Crawdad, being a crustacean, leans toward the latter. And I, being moronic, prefer the former. I kept wrapping myself in the beach blanket, in lieu of extra sweaters or snow pants. But every time I nodded off nose-down in Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, Crawdad would slyly uncover me and I'd wake up baking in the freezing cold sun.

"You need more color," she said. In the interest of maintaining my newfound maturity, I won't tell you just what I think of that assessment; nor will I make fun of Crawdad for being the color that she now is.

I am perfectly willing to believe that there really was a time when "fresh" air and sunshine actually were good for you, but ... how shall I put it? These ain't those times. Not that good-for-you generally sways my votes, particularly when it comes to what's for dinner. We all choose our own poisons, and I personally would rather die of the heart attacks than skin cancer.

So I'll get my "color" hanging out in funky joints like the Marshall Store, eating clam chowder and oysters and a sausage sandwich with cheese, thanks.

The Marshall Store is in Marshall (pop. 50), down the coast from Dillon Beach, where Crawdad kept trying to cook me, and up the coast from your perspective, way up past Point Reyes Station on Tomales Bay. I think maybe Ramblin' Jack Elliot lives there, but that's all I know about Marshall – and I guess I don't even know that. Anyway, we didn't see him.

We did see some other things, including a small seal (or a big rat), some seagulls, a dock, a coot, and a bunch of boats. We were sitting on old wood chairs on a rickety wooden deck overlooking the bay. There's another deck that's bigger and windowed in, where you order your oysters, and where they shuck and barbecue them.

The clam chowder, and it's Marshall's "famous" clam chowder, is simmering in a crock pot inside, down the counter near the sliding wood-frame screen door. Help yourself. If you want a sandwich, you order that inside the store too, and then you find a place to sit somewhere. They've tucked funky tables into every available corner. You can sit in the store, on either of the decks, and even out front on the sidewalk, on Highway 1.

As I've said, we sat on the rickety little open-air deck, which seats maybe 10 people, and not necessarily comfortably, if it's crowded – but there's no better way to eat oysters than outside, with boats and the sound of lapping water.

We ate clam chowder ($2.25/3.25 small/large), which was delicious and dilly and, as I've said, "famous." Then when that was done, our sandwich was ready. It was a sausage sandwich with melted provolone, roasted garlic, tomato, and lettuce on a soft roll ($5.25). I liked this sandwich very much, in spite of the fact that the sausage itself was surprisingly fancy-pants, with pine nuts or something in it, and pale like chicken or turkey sausage – but I forgot to ask.

The oysters came last, first a half dozen barbecued ones ($8.50), with a couple slices of bread. My favorite thing about the barbecued oysters was that it was a double-kind baker's half dozen. There were eight! That's, what, two-thirds of a dozen, and they were buttery and juicy with little dollops of not particularly great sauce, but at the bottom of each half shell there was a reservoir of good greasy "gravy" for your bread.

Then came a half dozen raw oysters ($8), and I was disappointed to find that there were only half a dozen in this half dozen, dang it. But they were even better than the barbecued ones, of course, being raw and freshly shucked, freshly plucked, you gotta figure, out of that nice, clean, unpolluted water lapping down below.

So ... in summary, we got eight of one, half a dozen of another, which blows the saying all to bits, but, nevertheless, makes for a real nice postbeach repast.

Now, a moment of silence, please, in closing, in memory of Rocco the Van, which expired of complications resulting from a violent two-car collision on Thursday, May 29, in Sebastopol. Pronounced dead at West County Tow only hours after the accident, Rocco is survived by Crawdad's car, which doesn't have a name, and two bikes – one of which I reckon I'd better go fix ...

Marshall Store. 19225 State Route 1, Marshall (415) 663-1339. Wed.-Mon., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Tues., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.