Member-only story
MEMORIES
A Day at the Ocean
A summer day in 1954
I think the last time my wife and I went to the ocean was probably in the late nineteen eighties. It was not long after that when we started vacationing in the Massachusetts Berkshires instead.
Yesterday I was sitting in a parking lot while my wife was at her physical therapy session. My car windows were open, the sun was playing hide and seek in bright cumulus clouds. Gusts of wind blowing in the windows reminded me of days at the beach.
My first memory?
The picture above is of my older sister, born seven years before me. I thought the location might be HorseNeck Beach in Massachusetts, but it turned out to be Duxbury. It was 1954; I would have been six.
A Cooking Pit
I imagine this would be totally forbidden today, but I remember my father digging a pit for coals and seaweed to cook corn and perhaps some other food. My sister told me that my mother had prepared baked beans and hot dogs, which also warmed up in the pit.
The Dunes
Again, probably verboten today: I remember exploring the sand dunes behind the beach.
My sister says we stayed until sunset and stopped for ice cream on the way home. I was probably sleepy; I don’t remember that.
I’m sure we went other times. There was one time I almost missed:
A Forgotten Child
The story of forgetting the youngest child amused us all for years
pcunix.medium.com
I daydreamed in my car, the wind flowing through, taking me back to childhood. Not long after that trip, Massachusetts was hit by Hurricane Carol. I remember standing in my mother’s bedroom at an open window. We could smell broken branches long before Carol hit. That was quite an experience.
But mostly the waves
I think I spent a long time that day sitting at the edge of the beach, feeling the waves crash in over my legs and then recede. It must have been quite a long time because I remember still feeling that ebb and flow when I went to bed that night and can bring that feeling into my thoughts even today.
Our DNA in Words is for stories about you and your family. Your kids, your parents, your siblings, what you learned from them or about them, how you learned it. What you know, what you wish you knew about those who are gone. Memories, recollections, interviews, regrets, joys, humor — you decide.
