Columbus Day at the Shore
Once again this year, our great friends Dennis and Penny Murphy hosted us at the South Jersey shore over the Columbus Day weekend. The weather was near-perfect; and, after a nostalgic visit to sleepy, post-season Sea Isle City...
...we gave the sun permission to set over the last vestige of Summer 2009 by the seaside -- or, in this case, the bayside.
My fondness for the South Jersey shore goes back into the late '40s and early '50s, when our family -- often joined by another family with kids roughly the same age as my brothers and me -- would rent one or more beach houses at Stone Harbor or Avalon. Dad was on vacation and therefore relaxing more and more each day. The proof came when he pulled out his trusty pocket knife and started whittling; or when he'd organize a driftwood search so we could build a beachcomber's shack; or when he'd make us a kite to touch the heavens on a breezy day. This was soon enough after the end of World War II so that there was plenty of interesting flotsam on the beach from torpedoed ships -- and plenty of "tar", as people called the congealed bunker fuel oil that washed up on the beach and got all over us.
In those days, the magnificent sand dunes along Seven Mile Beach were still mostly unregulated and not yet reduced to private gated compounds dominated by coyly hidden seaside palaces for the filthy rich. It was still OK (or at least not ABSOLUTELY forbidden!) to build a driftwood fire in a sheltered sandy hollow, among the sawgrass and low-lying tree shrubs, and roast hot dogs and marshmallows while savoring the joys of youth and freedom and grains of sand in our food. Later, in our teen-age years, a certain amount of innocent but urgent romance flourished in those magical places.
Long sunny days at the beach and in the ocean might be followed by evenings on the modest boardwalks, movies at the small theatres and ice cream at Springer's in Stone Harbor.
Precious memories, every one.
Oops! Time for me to pull myself together and get to the office. The real world awaits, so now I'll wrap the nostalgia carefully back into its cocoon, to pull it out and marvel at it later.
Once again this year, our great friends Dennis and Penny Murphy hosted us at the South Jersey shore over the Columbus Day weekend. The weather was near-perfect; and, after a nostalgic visit to sleepy, post-season Sea Isle City...
...we gave the sun permission to set over the last vestige of Summer 2009 by the seaside -- or, in this case, the bayside.
My fondness for the South Jersey shore goes back into the late '40s and early '50s, when our family -- often joined by another family with kids roughly the same age as my brothers and me -- would rent one or more beach houses at Stone Harbor or Avalon. Dad was on vacation and therefore relaxing more and more each day. The proof came when he pulled out his trusty pocket knife and started whittling; or when he'd organize a driftwood search so we could build a beachcomber's shack; or when he'd make us a kite to touch the heavens on a breezy day. This was soon enough after the end of World War II so that there was plenty of interesting flotsam on the beach from torpedoed ships -- and plenty of "tar", as people called the congealed bunker fuel oil that washed up on the beach and got all over us.
In those days, the magnificent sand dunes along Seven Mile Beach were still mostly unregulated and not yet reduced to private gated compounds dominated by coyly hidden seaside palaces for the filthy rich. It was still OK (or at least not ABSOLUTELY forbidden!) to build a driftwood fire in a sheltered sandy hollow, among the sawgrass and low-lying tree shrubs, and roast hot dogs and marshmallows while savoring the joys of youth and freedom and grains of sand in our food. Later, in our teen-age years, a certain amount of innocent but urgent romance flourished in those magical places.
Long sunny days at the beach and in the ocean might be followed by evenings on the modest boardwalks, movies at the small theatres and ice cream at Springer's in Stone Harbor.
Precious memories, every one.
Oops! Time for me to pull myself together and get to the office. The real world awaits, so now I'll wrap the nostalgia carefully back into its cocoon, to pull it out and marvel at it later.
1 comment:
Cool pictures. I am now using the sunset as my desktop.
Of course Springer's Ice cream Shop is the greatest. Love the Chocolate peanut butter and crushed cherry milkshake.
Jim
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