Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul Page 5

  Unknown

  Every hot summer Sunday of my childhood we headed for the beach in Dad’s Oldsmobile.

  Mom would start cooking the “picnic” at 5 AM. She would make fried chicken, corn beef sliced in thick slabs, several pounds of homemade potato salad, fresh tomatoes sweet and ripe from our neighbor’s garden, and peaches and plums lovingly chosen one at a time by Auntie Bella, along with Devil Dogs and Snickers “for extra energy,” Mom said. A dozen hard-boiled eggs just in case. Everything got tenderly packed into two round, metal Scotch-plaid coolers, the latest thing.

  Dad backed the Olds up to the back porch door, its chrome hood ornament, wide whitewalls, and soft gray curves still sparkling from a new wash. Between mouthfuls of Cheerios, we helped him carry out chairs, blankets, straw bags filled with towels and clothes, and the orange-and-green-striped umbrella with one corner bent up from a previous gust. Everything was methodically loaded into the open trunk and topped off with two huge black inner tubes. Dad said he had a “system.” And truth be told, if Mom had asked him to pack the swing set, he could have made it fit.

  Finally he loaded us, like a human crossword puzzle— Mom, Dad, and Auntie, single layer up front—my brother, sister, and I, with a friend for each, double layer in the back—and the two coolers tightly impacted under our legs, and we were off!

  The Olds rolled down the driveway out of the yard, and soon we were passing through downtown and onto the main highway. Everyone was chatting in a state of high excitement. At the halfway point we stopped for our picnic in a grove of tall pines that smelled wonderful. Mom always said that fresh air made you hungry, as she proudly passed out endless servings of food to her starving baby birds. And then it was off to the beach.

  When we arrived, the grown-ups set up the chairs and blankets while the kids raced for the water. Time floated between sand and sea on our salty air playground. Once in a while Mom would insist that my sister was turning blue and called her out of the water. She would sit, teeth chattering, wrapped in several large striped beach towels, just her red curly hair sticking out like a burning bush. Then back in the water she would go, with Mom pleading after her to put on suntan lotion. By late afternoon and many cries of “just one more swim,” it was time to head for home.

  Traffic was slow as we strained our eyes for the orange roof of the Howard Johnson’s take-out stand. Finally we rolled to a stop on the gravel parking lot and raced to save a picnic table. Dad would get in line and return loaded down with bent cardboard holders full of hot dogs, burgers, fries, and drinks. Gone in a blink, he would then get back in line, with six helpers, for ice cream cones. Sometimes he made a third trip when a scoop got accidentally licked onto the ground.

  As we sang rounds going home, Dad would sail the Olds into the final rotary. My sister, brother, and I would give each other secret looks as he went once completely around, twice completely around—tipping and squealing, we would yell, “Again, Daddy, again,” and with Mom and Auntie Bella begging him to stop, the captain of that happy ship would sail us around one more time.

  It was a perfect day!

  Avis Drucker

  “And here’s the towels, and some books and magazines and food and . . . whoops, the kitchen sink!

  Forgot I packed it!”

  Reprinted by permission of Stephanie Piro. © 2004 Stephanie Piro.

  Day Trippin’

  I have no excuse. It was one of those mornings when the sunshine shimmers through the window like a thousand pixie sun dancers and all things seem possible. We were going on a six-hour, round-trip, one-day excursion with the family.

  We woke up the teenagers, walked the dog, fed the cats, woke up the teenagers again, piled a few necessities (pillows, blankets, books, games, food, drinks, two changes of clothing and shoes to match, enough electronic equipment to overload the capacitors in Silicon Valley) in the family high-mileage, fuel-efficient Conestoga, woke up the teenagers again, and an hour and a half after our new idea was born, jumped in the car and drove to the corner for breakfast.

  “Tell me again why we’re doing this?” said Kid Number One, fourteen years old. Nothing makes sense to him except Biggie Fries and Crazy Taxi.

  “It’s a family thing. We’re going to Charleston. We’ll have fun.”

  “I can have fun here.” Kid One thinks fun spurts from his PlayStation controller like water from a SuperSoaker.

  “We’re going to the beach. There are girls.”

  “Girls are dumb.”

  “Says the kid who keeps the past ten years’ Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues in a safety deposit box under his bed?”

  Kid One ponders this security breach while he peels open the wrapper on his third biscuit.

  Kid Two comes to life at the mention of the beach. “Do I have to wear my swim trunks?” he whines. “They give me a supersized wedgie.” Kid Two is twelve, but qualifies as a teenager because he could capture first place in a worldwide pouting contest using just one lip. He is breakfasting on French fries because he doesn’t eat anything that has crust.

  “Well, you can’t wear your shorts because if they get wet they’ll drop another six inches below your waist and bind your knees together. You’ll cause the beach patrol to issue a warning, and you’ll scare the fish. Whales have beached themselves over less stress.”

  Three hours later, we’re in Charleston, as goal-oriented a bunch of travelers as have hit the road since the Swamp Fox turned east on I-26.

  “When do we eat?” asks Kid One.

  “Does Spanish moss hang on the north side of trees?” inquires Kid Two.

  “Do you think there’s a gas station with clean restrooms?” queries Helpful Wife.

  “Blast!” says a husband who should be concentrating on driving but whips past the beach exit.

  All signs pointed to an exciting trip. Especially the one that said if we drove any farther we’d drive off the end of the country. Who says the world isn’t flat?

  We stopped for lunch at a quaint roadside grill where, with luck and careful selection, you could feed a family of four for the price of a ticket to the International Space Station. “Let’s stop here again on the way back home,” says Kid Two, enthused, licking sea salt from a twelve-dollar French fry.

  Sixteen hours after we left the house, we trundled back in the driveway, weary yet somehow exhausted. We’d feasted, played, shopped, surfed, and threatened, at least once, to clear a wide section of the beach when a particularly cunning wave hit Kid One’s shorts at just the right angle. We bore prizes: a fork with an extension handle, a rubber toy on a string that looked like a blowfish in desperate need of a good Roto-Rooter man, bubblegum that turns your tongue blue, a clump of seaweed still bearing copious amounts of sea, and a plastic grocery bag filled with shell bits—altogether a very successful trip.

  The toys cost next to nothing, the food was exorbitant, and the look on Pop’s face when he realized the next stop was the Atlantic Ocean: Priceless.

  Amy Ammons Mullis

  The Shiny Half-Dollar

  Faith is like radar that sees through the fog.

  Corrie ten Boom

  My grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins crammed into a small bungalow for two weeks, every summer, in West Wildwood, New Jersey. I got an allowance of fifty cents each day. My grandmother gave me an extra, shiny half-dollar. She knew I liked to buy comic books. I put it in my pocket and forgot it was there.

  I slept in the kitchen on a cot with coils that made grating music every time I turned. Some mornings, before sunrise, I woke up my grandmother. The bathroom had a spring-loaded toilet seat that would send me airborne, flying out the door. I literally learned how to land on my own two feet.

  After about three days of playing jacks on the linoleum, swimming in the bay, swatting green flies, and reading too many comic books, I begged my mother to let me cross the wooden bridge from West Wildwood that led to the main island and the biggest boardwalk and amusement pier I’d ever seen. Everything always looks bigger
when you’re eight. Amusements were the only things I envisioned. I had my sights set on the roller coaster and the huge Ferris wheel. My mother finally gave in. She let my big ten-year-old brother take me. He had to promise not to run away or leave me at any time. Back in the fifties, most city kids traveled without their mothers.

  My brother and I set out in the ninety-degree heat. I felt like a wilted Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz; the yellow brick road was the sandy sidewalk and bridge that led to Hunt’s Pier, the Oz of my childhood.

  “Are we there yet?” I asked Jimmy.

  He was the experienced one, trekking to the boardwalk, many times, with our older cousin, Jack.

  Once we crossed the bridge, I could see the boardwalk. It was still a long ways off, but the bright lights were coming into focus. We had walked about one and a half miles to Hunt’s Pier, the biggest amusement pier in Wildwood. Jimmy and I climbed the ramp that led to my Oz. I was so excited and reached into both pockets to find my allowance. In one of them, I discovered the shiny half-dollar my grandmother had given to me. I now had a whole dollar to buy tickets for the roller coaster and Ferris wheel, and maybe even something to eat. I pulled out the flaps of my pockets and plunk, plunk, onto the boardwalk, both half-dollars fell. I saw them drop between the boards, into the sand below. I started to cry. Then, my brother had an idea. . . .

  “I’ll bang my feet on the boardwalk, right here, where both half dollars fell,” he said. “You go down below and look for them in the sand.”

  We both realized that he would be breaking his word not to leave me, but this was a real emergency. I went below, under the boardwalk, and began searching. I could hear the stomping above and the clear roar of the ocean. When I looked up, I could see the bottom of my brother’s shoes and some other shoes all tramping on the boards. Boom, boom, boom; others had joined in my quest for the lost money. I began sweeping the cool, damp sand, determined to find the two half-dollars.

  “I found them,” I shouted.

  Excited, I ran back up to where my brother was standing. There was a crowd cheering and clapping. I was so relieved, so proud, that I found the money. I put my grandmother’s shiny half-dollar back into my pocket. I decided to keep it as a found treasure. I gave my brother the other half-dollar to buy tickets for the Flyer, the biggest roller coaster I had ever seen. There was only enough time for that one ride. We had to start our journey back before it turned dark.

  Now, fifty years later, when I open my jewelry box and take out the half-dollar that’s tarnished with age, the cool, damp sand touches my fingers, the roar of the ocean returns, and the warm memories of my grandmother, like a gentle wave, roll into my mind. And the wind in my hair from the ride that I shared with my brother, on the big roller coaster in the Oz of my childhood dreams, touches my heart.

  Dolores Kozielski

  Saturdays with Granddaddy

  Since I was old enough to walk my granddaddy would take me to the beach every Saturday morning so we could share the sunrise and collect the shells that would wash up along the shore. I felt very special that he chose me to spend this time with him. This became our tradition. As if it were custom, he always wore the same wide-brimmed straw hat, long Bermuda shorts, and a white T-shirt. Two years into our tradition, he bought me a smaller version of the same wide-brimmed straw hat. He said that every seashell collector had to have this hat.

  I had the nicest collection of shells. We made all kind of things (lamps, picture frames, mirrors) with the treasures we found at the beach. I’ll never forget the way the water would wash over my bare feet, and on its return to sea it seemed to want to take my lightweight body with it. One particular Saturday morning after the sun rose and the sky had turned unyielding blue, we had been combing the beach for about an hour when my granddaddy reached down and said, “Look at this beauty. This is what you call real treasure.”

  I rushed over to see what he had found. One look and I knew this was quite a find. Granddaddy dipped it into the water and rinsed it off. As he held it up into the sunlight it glistened and gave a kaleidoscope effect of an array of rainbow colors.

  “That’s a ring,” I said.

  “Yes, it is, a diamond ring,” he said as he put it into his pocket.

  We quickly went back to searching for shells, because at age seven seashells seemed to be more important than the discovery of a diamond ring. Granddaddy and I continued our Saturday morning trips to the beach until I was about fourteen. He was getting older and driving was not his specialty anymore, and I decided that as a teenager I needed my beauty rest on Saturday mornings anyway.

  The day before my eighteenth birthday, Granddaddy called to ask me if tomorrow I could drive him to the beach so the two of us could share the sunrise and look for shells like we used to do. Just as I was about to protest, I remembered how every Saturday I would wait for him by the front door, and without fail, he was always there. Maybe he had forgotten that it was my birthday and I might have other plans, but I couldn’t deny him a trip to the beach. The next morning I arrived at Granddaddy’s house, and he gingerly made his way to the car. Dressed in his traditional shell-collector attire, complete with the straw hat, he was carrying a handled shopping bag.

  “Whatcha got in the bag?” I inquired.

  “Every shell collector has to have a wide-brimmed straw hat,” he said as he reached over and replaced my favorite Yankees ball cap with a new straw hat, identical to his.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  On the drive to the beach, we spoke about the weather, his health, and my school, but he never mentioned that it was my birthday, which I thought was peculiar. When we pulled up to the beach I helped him out of the car and we walked down to the shore. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and the darkness was giving way to the start of a new day. Granddaddy started reminiscing about when I was a little girl and how I had to show him every seashell that I picked up, even the broken ones. Giggling a bit, he described how he would answer by saying, “Now that’s real treasure,” with wide, encouraging eyes. He chuckled harder when he remembered how some mornings I would get so tired of walking, and when my little feet couldn’t carry me anymore, he would have to piggyback me all the way to the car. By the time he was finished with all the stories, the sun was soaring into a vast cobalt-blue sky. It was a beautiful morning, and the persuasive breeze made the eighty-five-degree temperature seem comfortable. Far in the distance you could see an outline of cumulus clouds building. Afternoon showers were a possibility. We walked down the beach together picking up shells along the way, just like we used to do.

  Granddaddy looked like he was getting tired so I suggested we head back. Agreeable, he turned around and said, “I have something for you.” I looked at him awkwardly since he hadn’t brought anything with him. He reached deep into his Bermuda shorts pocket and pulled something out. He put his arm around me and continued walking back up the beach. “I’ve been waiting for twelve years to give this to you,” he said.

  I was thinking it must be one of those rare shells we used to look for and he wanted me to add to my collection. He paused for a moment, held up his hand, and dangling from his fingers was the most beautiful diamond necklace.

  “Remember the ring we found when you were seven?” he asked.

  I nodded yes as my eyes welled up with tears.

  “I had it made into a necklace for you,” he said.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing—the diamond my granddaddy found all those years ago while on our traditional Saturday morning trip to the beach. As he placed the necklace around my neck he said, “Happy birthday, my precious granddaughter.”

  I never realized until that day that our Saturday trips to the beach were just as important to him as they were to me. As we walked back up the beach I said, “I’ve missed our trips to the beach. Would you like to come back next Saturday?”

  His eyes lit up like . . . well, probably the way mine did, every Saturday, all those years ago.

  Stefanie
Durham

  A Big Fish Story

  It was our first trip to Oahu, and by the third day we’d parasailed to unimaginable heights, windsurfed tsunami-type waves, and fought our way through the discount racks at a store with more loud clothing than a Shriner’s convention. That’s when I spotted the ad for Hanauma Bay, an underwater park where fish will eat right out of your hand.

  “Swimming in Hanauma Bay is like swimming in a giant aquarium,” the ad stated. Now that sounded more like the relaxing vacation I had envisioned.

  Moments later we were on a pristine beach, ready to slip into the warm aqua water, when I noticed the sign offering fish food for sale.

  “I’ll meet you out there,” I told my wife and hurried over to the stand.

  “Do fish really like this stuff?” I asked.

  “They love it,” the saleslady said.

  “Hmmm. Maybe then I should buy an extra bag and try my luck at fishing.” I laughed. She didn’t. So I simply made my purchase and headed out to the coral reefs.

  Perhaps it was because the advertisement had simply displayed one-inch photos of beautifully colored creatures called tangs and butterfly fish, but as I approached the reef, suddenly the fish seemed . . . too big. I whipped off my mask, figuring maybe some joker had painted big fish on the lens. Nope. Had they added some kind of magnification filter? I put the mask back on and looked at my bicep. Definitely no exaggeration there. I stuck my face back into the water. No doubt about it—these fish were huge! And they were everywhere!

  A large group of fish began to gather around me, and I suddenly felt like I was in a Rick Moranis movie called Honey, I Like Way Overfed the Guppies. Then one of the obvious leaders of the pack grinned, and I saw teeth. That’s when I remembered the food, which I had shoved into my fanny pack. Could they smell it? Or could they just sense my fear like other wild animals do?