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Salisbury Beach, circa 1950 |
“What time should I be ready?”---Nancy Kay
When we were kids growing up in northernmost Massachusetts, the winters were long and hard. Temperatures were beyond brutal, occasionally plunging below zero, and any day they skittered up to 32 degrees was considered a heat wave. The pavement was often so icy a walker had to take tiny little steps to avoid kiesterfall and driving on the stuff was suicide; no matter what you did, the car would refuse to stop, sliding and fishtailing down the road until confronted with a stubborn inanimate object. The salt which municipalities occasionally spread on the streets was largely ineffective and in time gobbled up the underbelly of your vehicle.
Then there was snow. Beautiful in photographs, great fun for fort-builders and sledders, money in the bank for ski lodges, but a trial and tribulation for everyone else. Bing Crosby might have been dreaming of a white Christmas but nobody was crazy about a white December 27th. Snow closed schools, burdening parents with a houseful of exploding kids. Roads were blocked, cars were buried in white stuff, businesses suffered. If you wanted to walk from your house to the street or free the vehicle in the driveway, there was but one means of deliverance---the common shovel. The notion of something as futuristic as a snowblower was as ludicrous as thoughts of a flying car. That meant everyone into the breach, including you. Oh, and just for fun, you had to shovel while looking up at daggerlike icicles smirking from the eaves, just waiting for a child-impalement opportunity.
The snow in Our Town would sometimes start as early as November and continue to report in as late as April. There were sometimes pictures in the Boston Globe of people hand-shoveling Fenway Park for the April 15 opener. But in spite of it all, through thick and through thin, amid ice storms and blizzards, in sickness and in health, we continued to play the same song in our memory banks---the one in which nearby Salisbury Beach beckoned us to the blue waters like a lusty mermaid, while puffy white clouds sailed over the heads of ice-cream-eating revelers. The vision was our mainstay, our mantra until still-chilly March, when we could no longer stand it another moment. We jumped in our cars like happy idiots on a fools errand. We were going to the beach, godammit, and that was all there was to it. There was no thought of swimming, little consideration of walking on the sand and maybe we wouldn’t even get out of the car, but we were going anyway. I think we wanted to make sure it was still there.
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Hampton Beach, 1970 |
The Sand And The Sea
On rare occasions, maybe once every five years, my father would rent a cottage somewhere between Salisbury and Seabrook beaches for a one-week stand. This was not a cheap proposition because the number of such rentals was fairly limited and my dad wouldn’t remind anyone of King Croesus. This meant, of course, that I would be confined to the same small quarters as my cantankerous sister, Alice, and we would have to play nice. It was easier at the beach, of course, as Alice was intoxicated with the place---with any beach, actually---and on her best behavior. I can still remember tromping down the sand with my father in early morning, hunting up driftwood for the cottage’s fireplace….and the friendly smell of the room with the warming flames.
Salisbury was not just a beach, but a playground of rollercoasters, Ferris wheels, penny arcades, pizza joints and bars, filled to the brim on weekends with every manner and make of traveler. I liked the Dodgems, even with the threatening warning signs that kids who crashed the little cars head-on would be evicted and subject to verbal abuse.
As a trustworthy Dodgem pilot, I never started anything. Invariably of course, some brute would T-bone my car while I was minding my own business and I was forced to take measures which might occasionally---but only occasionally, mind you---involve retribution via the dreaded head-on collision. The management naturally despised seeing their little cars smashing into one another nose-to-nose, and would shut off the electricity, stopping the cycle to evict the offenders. It was not unheard of for young drivers to engage in friendly fisticuffs on the way out of the arena. If you were unfortunate enough to have your parents witness any of this behavior, you were promptly exiled to the unthreatening carousel nearby. Despite the insult, I loved the singular music of the merry-go-round, which could be heard throughout the town from the time you left your car until you returned.
Occasionally, during these proceedings, we would temporarily lose Alice. She could always be recovered, however, at the nearest rollercoaster. No matter what amount of money you gave Alice, she would spend every nickel of it on the rollercoaster, whipping gleefully around abrupt corners, screaming bloody murder on the sharp descents, throwing her arms up over her head in verboten areas. Alice Marie Killeen was a rollercoaster addict and there was no cure for the problem. Oh, pish tosh, you say, just harmless fun for the kiddies, but I have news for you. Recent studies have concluded that after 200 or more coaster rides at an early age, over 90% of riders turn into Republicans. Ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall.
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Key West crowds gather for the celebratory sunset. |
The World’s A Beach
Technically, of course, a beach may be a sandy area near any reasonable body of water, but everybody knows that’s not the real thing. The true beaches require oceans, salt water lapping on sand, prominent waves crashing along the shoreline. When Doctor Beach, whoever he is, publishes his annual list of the world’s top beaches he doesn’t consider the modest strip of sand at Lake Winnipesaukee or the mini-shore at Baldpate Pond, nor should we. If we are willing to make a single exception, we might be inclined to celebrate King’s Beach on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, a magical realm where early morning visitors can watch the vapors rise from serene waters in extraordinary stillness and no longer wonder why the Washoe tribe talked to their gods there.
Unlike Doctor Beach, we do not rate these special places, we appreciate them all, from the frigid shores of Old Orchard Beach in Maine to the driftwood-strewn sands of Rialto Beach in Washington state. From Atlantic to Pacific, oh the feeling is terrific on the boardwalks of Atlantic Beach and Venice, Ocean City and Santa Monica, St. Augustine and Malibu.
The best place in Mexico might be Puerto Vallarta’s busy beach where enterprising businessmen sell fish-on-a-stick. Certainly, the top spot in Jamaica is Negril, a hedonistic retreat for the young and the young-at-heart. In Florida’s Key West, the natives and guests gather on the boardwalk each night to celebrate the sunset and gawk at performance art. Sinners actually drive on the strand at Daytona, a crime for which St. Peter has been known to assign miscreants to the Down escalator.
We in the Sunshine State are particularly blessed. The Panhandle is rife with white sand edens, including the celebrated Grayton Beach between Panama City and Destin. Just offshore from Clearwater is the exceptional Caladesi Island and further south on the Gulf is St. Petersburg’s fine people’s beach, the underrated Pass-a-Grille. If you like quiet, there’s lovely Sanibel Island, general headquarters for avid shell-hunters. Amelia Island, outside Jacksonville, offers a unique world of its own and Ponte Vedra, further south, presents plenty of wide open spaces. There’s no end to the possibilities. Don’t let the television news films of Florida beaches gorged with young drinkers and would-be lovers scare you, those people are looking for action, not so much for beach.
During these times of trial and separation, we hide in bunkers and pull down the shades, hoping to deter The Plague. But the beach has charms to sooth the savage beast….sun to diminish his energy, winds to disperse his venom. The beach is waiting, calling, promising delivery. If you’re in warmer climes, bring a picnic. If it’s cold, take along a blanket. You can’t go wrong. Your worst day at the beach is equal to your best day at most alternatives. Moreover, you can make sure it’s still there.
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Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, current day. |
Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Salty
The beach is many things to many people. To some, it is a way of life, a religion, a permanent residence. To others, a brief reprieve from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But very rarely, perhaps once a century, the beach might be an ally in avenging a dastardly act.
Only once in my life have I been stood up on a date. The culprit was Roberta (Bobbie) Guillemette, a beautiful, dark-haired young woman of French extraction who worked with me during a brief six-month stint at the IRS when I was 19. Roberta looked at me a lot at work, so I took this as an invitation to proceed and invited her to dinner. The night of the appointment, I drove 11 miles to her family’s apartment in Lowell. Her charming mother opened the door, flashed a friendly smile and told me she had no idea where her daughter was off to and she had never said a word about me. Well, as Gilbert Shelton was prone to say when ired, fuckledypooshit!
Next morning, Bobbie sat as far away from me as possible at work. One of her pals named Rita Tingle (a name which should be patented immediately) told me Bobbie had panicked and chickened out at the last minute. “Turns out she’s a little afraid of you,” cackled Rita. “Well, that’s just RUDE, Rita,” I sniffed, “and I’m in a snit about it.” Weeks went by and Bobbie and I had no further contact. Until….
A pal named Jacques Guerin and I were perambulating the streets of Hampton Beach, just over the New Hampshire line from Massachusetts when I heard a voice in the distance call out my name. It was the evil Roberta Guillemette, approaching fast with a gal pal. Apparently the duo had been abandoned in the non-alcoholic depths of Hampton while their companions drove off to the wetter Salisbury Beach a few miles down the road.
“Bill,” she pleaded, “we’re stuck out here. Can you guys give us a ride to Salisbury”
“Sure,” I said. "But you know what this means, Bobbie?”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “But please be gentle with me.”
Now, ordinarily I am the last person in the world to push a woman in a direction which she’s reluctant to go. But there is a fair price to be paid for crimes of abandonment and impoliteness and Bobbie was willing to pay it. As it turns out, there was merely a few minutes of smooching involved and the victim showed little reticence to cooperate. By the time we got to Salisbury, it was clear Bobbie Guillemette was not afraid of me any more. We left the girls off at their requested spot and I never saw her again, but she did blow a parting kiss. Chauffeur Guerin smiled in appreciation of the evening’s unexpected events and turned to me. “Ah, the beach,” Jacques sighed, “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the saints and the sinners both play.”
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Top: Santa Monica's iconic pier....Bottom: Venice Beach postcard. |
Wouldn’t It Be Nice? (Brian Wilson)
In the Age of the Pandemic, there are few refuges safe for footloose vagabonds. But there is still The Beach….vast, open and in many places uncrowded. As North-central Floridians, we are blessed with a plethora of choices, many within a 90-minute drive. The sands of Vilano are unsullied and available. For a meager few dollars, Anastasia Island is waiting. The rocky shores of Washington Oaks are open for business. The endless miles of sparsely populated beaches throughout the lengthy Florida Peninsula provide succor for pilgrims, replenish starving souls, bring smiles to the faces of children. Time to get the woodie out of mothballs, dust it off and drive to glory.
“It’s those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same.
With all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn’t beach we would all go insane.”
An ancient mariner told me that.
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The elusive Bobbie Guillemette, age 20. |
That’s all, folks….
