A small, framed “At the Beach House” Sandy Gingras print in my dad’s former Surf City place suggested, “What you find is always better than what you buy.” There’s considerable truth in that statement. Over the years, I’ve found lots of cool stuff down here, most recently a discarded but charming little kid’s bike from the ’60s that’s scheduled for restoration over the winter. Now, it seems, my 4-year-old daughter, Dorian, is trying to “ground truth” this theory in her own inimitable way.

During early July, as my wife and I finally relaxed together in our beach chairs, we noticed Dorian in the distance,…