Summer vacations are wonderful things, especially for children. The end of the school year was much anticipated. Cumbersome book bags were tossed into the darkest recesses of our closets and forgotten until September. Day in and day out, bathing suits were worn under shorts, with or without t-shirts, or simply as the main garment. After all, no one knew when the opportunity to get wet would present itself, and we the children of the neighborhood were always ready. Any running sprinkler tempted us to body
Any running sprinkler tempted us to body slide across the neighbor’s wet grass. We knew the location of every backyard pool on the block and how to get in and out without being noticed. Although my family had a pool, we lived close enough to the beach to spend most of our summer days there. Monday through Friday, we packed into
Monday through Friday, we packed into Mom’s 1967 Oldsmobile station wagon with all our beach necessities—old blankets and towels, aluminum beach chairs, pre-SPF tanning lotion, lemon spritz to lighten our hair, a cooler filled with drinks, sandwiches, and snacks, and all the friends we could jam into the vehicle. My mom would drive us there and then relax far enough away so we wouldn’t bother her.
Weekends at the beach was taboo because that’s when all the “city” people would be there. Long Island people and New York City people just didn’t mix.
Our stay-at-home moms had plenty to keep them busy between housework and raising children … except during the summer. Everyone went to the beach. Great tracks of sand were usurped by neighborhoods replicating themselves along the ocean front. Entire households made daily moves from suburbia to shoreline at nine a.m., and then back home again at three o’clock in the afternoon amidst the traffic jam of cars filled with surfboards and sun-soaked people. We loved every minute of it.
A few years ago, Mr. Right and I took our vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to visit family, now ensconced along the southern shoreline. Memories bubbled up as we filled our arms with beach paraphernalia and joyously skittered across the hot sand to find a perfect place to spend the day. I remembered the beach requirements from childhood: a short walk to the water and near a lifeguard, but far enough away from the trash cans to avoid the seagulls.
Mr. Right and I body-surfed the foamy breakers, gasping as blue-green waves tumbled us as easily as seashells toward shore. We gulped and choked on the salty water and laughed with the déjà vu of childhood.
We soaked in the sun, dug our toes in the sand, and enjoyed doing absolutely nothing. We relaxed. We had fun, and at the end of the day we took our salt-taut bodies to a nearby ice cream parlor. We sat in the booths delightfully uncomfortable in damp bathing suits full of moist sand. Dripping cones painted our hands and arms with the melting sugary cream. We didn’t care. We were children again, and I remembered how much being at the beach meant to me.
We may not go on a beach vacation again for a while, but it was nice reminiscing over the memories of previous times, younger years, family fun and the time spent at the beach.
