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Etc - The Endless Summer
06/26/2011 - By Eric Tucker
Eric Tucker reminisces about summers past
In 2011 we have had a winter featuring tremendous snow piles followed by spring pollen that piled even higher. As winter’s chill and spring’s pollen melt into the past, embrace the present – summer is here! As we grow older, time seems to move quicker because we remember less and less. That perfect idyll of an endless summer, or anything close to it, becomes ever more elusive. How do we bring back those summer days when time stood still in a good sense (not like power point slideshows)? One way is to remember one of the many blessings of living in Monmouth County: the beaches.
First let’s picture Monmouth County years ago, when city folk would come to stay. I’m talking about the time before cable and air conditioning; back when “summer” was a verb. The rich and powerful escaped the typhus and malaria of Paterson and Newark to summer in their own little slice of heaven in places like a personal favorite of mine, Elberon, NJ. Did you know that after taking a bullet in the gut, President Garfield went there to die there one summer? It’s that nice there! Did you remember there was a President Garfield? I wonder if the first lady brought the kids over the Long Branch pier to win him a stuffed animal or a Zeppelin T-shirt. It certainly would have lifted his spirits.
Memories are fluid, as this article demonstrates. They condense into a simple picture for clarity’s sake. Yet, as I recall, each summer week day, when I was a wee lad, my mom would pack up the red Coleman cooler with cream cheese sandwiches on Pepperidge farm white bread. That cooler, along with her boys, the beach umbrella, and a heavy wood and canvas chair, went into a Pontiac Catalina. (We had two.) When we got out of the car, minutes later, we were in paradise – The Takanassee Beach Club, in Elberon. I remember each day there as an endless summer, as we frolicked in the sand, surf, pool, and lake. Sadly, you can never go home again. Seriously. I think they’re supposed to replace the Takanassee Beach Club with townhouses, taking advantage of the vibrant real estate market. Of course, I’m not one to complain about anything. Time marches on.
At the Takanassee Beach club, the sun was never too hot, thewater was never too cold, and the jelly fish were never too disgusting. When the waves pounded our little frames into that painful strip of stones and shells on which they broke, we felt no pain or fear. Adrenaline erased that and drove us back into the water.
However, we did not limit our beach outings to Takanassee. All the beaches in Monmouth County have been stupendous! The club must have tried to raise their membership fee one year, driving those inclined to seek economy to such beach towns asAvon-by-the-Sea, the Grove known as Ocean, andAsbury Park.Asbury Park was named for a world-renowned Methodist missionary. However, some of us locals associate it with someone we knew as a “boss” (small b). That’s right;Asbury Park was the birthplace of the consummate straight man Bud Abbott. He used to boss comic Lou Costello around something terrible. I faintly remember initiating a movement to rename the town in Bud’s honor, Abbottabad or something like that. Imagine postcards and record albums featuring “Greetings from Abbottabad, NJ.” Publicity like that, no town needs.
As the adrenal gland atrophies over the years, appreciation of some aspects of the local beach life decreases, while it increases for others. Forgive me for being a wuss, but the water may not be warm enough to swim in until Labor Day now. Even then, it’s hard to get in without getting splashed. Yet our beaches are still the best thing going for many reasons. First, they’re close to home! Also, my sinuses don’t bother me there. (Remember getting tossed around heels over head by a wave and, once you finally resurfaced, the ocean water running out your nose? My neti pot - a device used to clear out the sinuses with saline – always brings back that memory.)
As the legendary Steve Miller sang, “You’ve got to go through {heck} to get to heaven.” The July sun at midday can be as heckishly hot . After surviving that oppressive sun for hours, once it drops a bit, around 3:30 or 4:00 pm, there is no better summer activity than to relax in your beach chair with your skin covered in sand, salt, dried sweat, and SPF 50, contemplating the vastness of the universe, inspired by the limitless view of the mighty Atlantic. Yes, at that point you’re a survivor - with the cocktail hour fast approaching. What more do you want in life? It generates a great sense of accomplishment after having done very little.
While cruising various beach fronts with the children I point out historic landmarks. In Ocean Grove: “See that section of boardwalk? Used to have a Perkins on it. We saw the Lemon Sisters and Victor Borge in that auditorium. He killed!” In Long Branch by the pier (which is gone): “They used to have batting cages; now it’s so fancy here.” In Asbury Park: “In the days beforeWrestle Mania and wrestling pay per view, I saw Chief Jay Strongbow and Ivan Putsky in that building for six bucks. Midgets were on the bill, too.” It’s a rich history and those kids, they impress easily.
How, as a people, can we, the movers and shakers, create for our own children, spoiled though they already are, memories of an endless summer that last a lifetime, as it were? (I don’t recommend using so many commas to an amateur.) These cherished memories should develop organically. For example, I had my kids watch “The Endless Summer,” the classic surfing film I loved as a boy (though it omitted our beaches).
They up and left part way through.
I guess each generation has to make their summer memories for themselves.And populate it with the people and places they choose.
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