Spit, Sand and Sun Tattoos
On the Beach. For those of you unfamiliar with the literary
references, see also: Nevil Shute and his novel of the same name (later also a
movie). Published in 1957, almost exactly when this story begins too…
All of my earliest and happiest memories are on the beach. A
tradition in my immediate family that pre-dates my birth by a couple of years.
The annual pilgrimage to Ocean City Maryland. We lived in a suburb of Washington
DC, at the corner of Virginia and Day Avenues in Silver Spring. My two older sisters,
Sue and Anna and a bit later, my younger brother, Michael were all born there. Some
ten years or so later, we were joined by my youngest brother, Peter. My parents married in 1956 and there are photos
of them here, ttaken (I believe) shortly after they married. They are so filled
with youth and happiness. From that time
forward there are family photographs, year after year reflecting the joyous 2
weeks we spent on the beach every single summer of my childhood and into my
teens. I don’t need the photographs to recall the sights, sounds and smells of
the happiest time of my life. They live forever in my mind.
The trip would always start by loading 2 weeks’ worth of
gear into our ’63 Pontiac “Safari” station wagon. Shouts of “I get the front
seat!” signaled the start of an approximately 2-2 ½ hour journey east on U.S.
Route 50, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the ocean. At that time, there
was only one span that crossed the bridge. The second would not be built until sometime
in the mid or late 1970’s. The trip was peppered with bored whining voices
repeating “are we almost there yet?” It wasn’t that far but it seemed like an
eternity. We would make just a couple of traditional stops along the way. The
first would come just after we crossed the Bay Bridge in Easton, Maryland at the
H&G Restaurant. A traditional, family style restaurant where breakfast was
served all day. Of COURSE in our minds,
the place was named for my dad, Henry. So… H&G must mean “Henry and
Gelbmans.” It was ours for at least that moment every summer.
Reloaded, relieved of hunger and full bladders emptied, we
would continue, passing through Salisbury Maryland, which we called “Feathertown.” So named for the multitude of white chicken feathers
that littered the grassy shoulders and medians of the highway flying off from
the many tractor trailers carrying caged, live chicken from the chicken ranches
terd scattered up and down the Eastern Shore. Salisbury was then and still is
home to the Perdue family chicken magnates.
In those years, fields and fields of sweet Silver Queen corn and
watermelons stretched out on either side of the highway. One of the other stops along the way would be
one of the ubiquitous fruit stands for fresh corn on the cob, and usually orchard
grown peaches (which I still have a weakness for).
We always knew we were close when we made the other main
stop in the small town of Berlin Maryland. Just off the highway, on the right
was the A&P grocery store. A&P stood for “Atlantic and Pacific” tea
company. Much later they would become “SuperFresh” but they would always be “A&P”
to me. A&P – to this day – still makes
the 8 O’clock coffee brand that I still drink religiously. With 4 little Gelbman’s
trailing behind her, Mom would stock up on things that we mostly never had in
the house any other time. I remember in particular, the “variety pak” of little
cereal boxes – six little individual cartons – sugar pops, frosted flakes, corn
pops, fruit loops, apple jacks and rice crispies (we added our own table sugar
to the last). You could cut the little cartons on the side, using the little perforations
in the shape of a capital “I” tear open the inside waxed paper and pour your
milk straight into the little box. We NEVER had those at home. Also – sour ball
hard candies and oreo cookies. Envelopes of bright red Koolaid powder. Hires
Root Beer. It was a sugar bonanza for
two solid weeks. One last stop to make:
English’s Chicken for a giant bucket of fried chicken. Another Eastern Shore
staple – sides of coleslaw, potato salad and green beans (that no one but mom
would eat given the choices).
Reloaded and stocked up, we made that last bit of the less-tha-
ten-mile journey in reckless, raucous uproar. We knew we were finally “almost
there.”
As we crossed over the small drawbridge that crosses over
the Assawoman Bay into the downtown inlet of Ocean City we would all crow, “I
can smell the Ocean! I can smell the Ocean!”
In fact, while there may have been a briny, fishy smell wafting in the car
windows, what we really smelled were the sun baked, creosote planks of the
boardwalk a block or so away. But that was the smell of the Ocean for us. And
for me, still is. As I recall it now,
Ocean City only extended up to about 28th St. Though it would grow
further up the coast every year with multi-story motels, then towering condos
as I got older.
It always seemed to me that we arrived just ahead of sunset.
Upon arrival and the chore of unloading of the car, it was off for a long walk
along the beach – sun sinking into the west – bayside - and fully dark by the
time we returned, with buckets full of shells and toes caked with sand. Dinner was the cold fried chicken, a fight
over who slept where and off to the tub to get the sand and sweat off our tired
little bodies.
The next morning and every morning thereafter, was the same.
Up just after dawn, cold cereal out of little boxes - mine invariably corn pops
or sugar pops, everything else got too soggy for my taste. Perhaps I’d have Fruit
Loops when faced with no other option though I did not like that it turned the
milk blue with it’s artificially blue dyed “fruit.” Eac of us with a big glass
of ice cold orange juice. Then - straight into our bathing suits and terry cloth
beach cover-ups, flip flops, gathering beach towels as we dashed down to the
beach to set up our “camp.” Mom would
gather the rest of the gear and meet us there a bit later.
Sometime after we’d gone to bed the night before, now that
the car was emptied, Dad would take the pile of inner tubes we always had down
to the gas station to get them blown up. Dad was in the tire business (till the
day he died) and we ALWAYS had inner tubes. Mostly oversize truck tire tubes
with long valve stems that had to be bent down so they didn’t jab you in the
thigh. Sometimes we had the GIANT earth mover tire inner tubes. The kind you
can put a dozen kids on. We were very popular at the beach. The smell of hot
rubber and carbon black is another evocative smell that instantly will take me
back to the beach. We also had rubber rafts for “surfing” on though I generally
preferred (and still do) body surfing. Boogie boards were not a thing in those
days. Neither were swim goggles. Vendors
rented beach umbrellas and also rubber and canvas rafts of better quality than
the cheap dime store versions mom had brought.
Mom would haul down the rest of the days gear (I don’t know
where dad was, probably still in bed, or on the “throne” reading the paper?). Big, red, metal encased Coleman Cooler and a
giant thermos of ice and Koolaid. More
cold chicken, hard pretzels, green apples, sour ball hard candies and oreos. The
staples of our diet for two solid weeks.
Dad would eventually appear. He would haul out the itchy wool Army blanket
that usually lived in the “way back” of the station wagon, together with some
aluminum beach chairs, mostly with nylon woven straps – somewhat sagging and
frayed.
From 8:30 in the morning til at least 5 p.m. that’s where
you’d find us all. Sun screen? Not a chance. I don’t know if it even existed in
those days. At most, Coppertone with the kind of naughty “Coppertone Girl” with
her bathing suit bottom being pulled down by her dog to reveal her white
behind. Usually, nothing more than baby oil slathered on head to toe. Later, thick
layers of Unguentine brand zinc oxide ointment smeared on our noses to keep the
sun from charring what remained of our skin. Another evocative smell seared
(literally) into my memory. After a day
or two in the sun, burnt to a crisp, we would don plain white tee shirts to
keep the sun off, including when swimming in the ocean. I don’t remember ever drinking water.
Koolaid, or at perhaps lemonade or ice tea for the adults (mom and dad were not
teetotalers but they rarely indulged in alcoholic beverages).
All day. Every day.
I do not have any recollection of NOT knowing how to swim.
None at all. I do remember mom plopping our tiny little butts into inner tubes
and swimming us out beyond the breaking waves. Scary and exhilarating, it
seemed that the ocean must be at least 100 feet deep there. Mom was, I think, at her very happiest
swimming in the ocean. If ever there was ever a meaningful “full immersion”
baptism, that was it. For all of us. Scrubbed by salt and sand, tossed in the
breaking waves, we were cleansed of all sins for sure.
I have many, many happy memories with mom at the beach. But
a few with Dad also stand out. One of them, my favorite was his “spit &
sand” tattoo. He would lick his finger and with the spit, trace our names on
the top of our thighs or it out on our backs between our should blades. Then he
would dust it with sand and blow the excess off. After a few hours in the sun,
we would be sporting a “sun tattoo” with our names written in the pale skin
under our now tanned bodies. Dad had a Navy tattoo on his forearm. It was – in those
days – still very clear and I remember it well. It was a huge sailing ship – a frigate
of some kind – emerging from a cloud bank.
It would later blur and fade into a blob but not for many years. Dad was
also the master of kite flying. Each of us had our own kites and he would help
us get our flying fleet in the air. Once they were up, he would pick up bits of
flotsam and jetsam on the beach – a paper plate, an empty soda can – and somehow
affix them to the kite string and when the wind caught them once on the taught
string – he’d send them up the string as “messages” to our kites.
The coolest thing of all was having him read the semaphore
the life guards used to communicate from lifeguard chair to chair up and down
the beach back in those days. He learned semaphore (flag signaling, and morse
code) in the Navy. He taught us the alphabet, but we couldn’t read the
lifeguards signals fast enough. He probably couldn’t either and very likely
made up all the things he said they were saying. Mostly gossiping about the pretty
girls walking up and down the beach (because… they would invariably wander by
our encampment just a moment or two later so – had to be true, right?) Mom did
a lot of eyerolling.
Come sundown, we’d trek back up to our condo, fight over bathtime
and then off to the boardwalk. Or the amusement park, Jolly Roger. Really, it is no wonder I’m a diabetic today
given that for two solid weeks every summer my diet consisted mostly of sugar.
Cotton candy, candy apples, saltwater taffy (which I could not bear), fudge, Caramel
Popcorn from Dollies, chocolate covered frozen bananas (probably the healthiest
thing I ate). And fries. Boardwalk Fries
from Thrashers! The secret is peanut oil. And NO ketchup allowed. They don’t
have any and if you ask for ketchup they’ll growl and frown at you. Vinegar and
salt are the only condiments you’ll get at Thrashers. Jolly Roger, with the giant pirate standing
and straddling the gate, should have made us all puke up that smorgasbord of
sugar but it didn’t. Mom, like some
visitor from another world that I didn’t recognize, was just as fond of the
roller coasters as she was the ocean. Sue and Anna also loved them but I was
not (and still am not) a fan. I preferred the gravity defying Rotor or “Tilt-a-Wheel
– a cylinder cage you could stand inside, with your back to the wall, and when
it would spin, it would tilt, in my memory, completely sideways, while the centrifugal force pinned you to the
side. Then they would drop the floor out as you spun suspended through space. Or the equally gravity defying Zipper (which
would come close to making me lose my oreos!). None of us were drawn to the more
sedate ferris wheels or spinning tea cups. The bumper rides allowed us to vent
a lot of aggression towards eachother and others. We would occasionally team up
to batter some poor unsuspecting stranger.
Dad meanwhile, with little Michael in tow, perhaps pperched
on his shoulders, was off on the hunt for carnival prizes. Neither one of them
was fond of rides – both got queasy and not fond of heights. (Dad could get seasick
on a floating pier – no idea how he managed in the Navy). Off those two went to
shoot targets, throw balls, toss rings and such for stuffed animals or other
prizes for each of us. One of those longstanding stories retold for dozens of
years family gatherings was the time he was throwing balls at a guy in a dunk
tank and when they guy jeered at him, “c’mon four eyes! You can’t hit me!” Dad nailed him all three shots. In those days,
Dad wore those then-popular heavy black, square frames so popular in the late
sixties and early seventies.
On other nights, or rainy days (though I don’t recall
anything other than brief thunderstorms in the late afternoons) it was cards. Interminable
games of cards. Beginning with Old Maid
when we were very small, graduating to “War” or “Slap Jack”. Eventualluy
playing “Crazy Eights” , “Bloody Knuckles”
or “PIG” (which is played with spoons). Later we’d get into more
sophisticated games of rummy and gin rummy. Ultimately Hearts here we learned how
to play with a trump suit, and later, Spades in which we learned to bid with a
partner. All ll leaving me well prepared to learn Contract Bridge more recently.
Finally worn out, hardly able to keep our eyes open, the
final nightly ritual. Out would come the giant, cobalt blue, glass jar of Noxzema.
Cool, soothing Noxzema! On every inch of
our sunburnt little bodies. Taking turns rubbing that eucalyptus smelling balm
everywhere. Probably the worst possible thing for sunburn as it basically served
to dry out the skin. Which was just fine with Dad. The next night he would take
some pleasure in peeling huge swaths of burnt skin from our necks and across
our shoulders. Not the flaky, scaly kind. Big sheets of still slightly moist
skin. This is kind of gross now that I
think of it, but we were forever peeling and it felt good to have someone do it
and relieve the itch while he was at it.
No doubt we read before the lights went out. We ALWAYS read.
Constantly. Everywhere. All the time. Like swimming, I have no recollection of
not knowing how to read. Or, being read to by Mom (which is probably how I
learned to read to begin with). We didn’t like to have Dad read to us. He got
all the voices wrong.
Conked out for the duration only to wake up early the next
morning and do it all over again. Two solid weeks, every single summer.
For all the fights and squabbles, with my siblings over the
years, and with my parents as well, seemed to disappear during that summer
interlude. As the years went on, and I became deeply angry and resentful of the
family I grew up in and ultimately became fully estranged, I forgot these sun-drenched
days and sugary nights. Days and nights when we were so very happy, joyous and
completely free. Joyously free.
They come back to me now. Grateful for every minute of them.
I am happy to say that I reconciled with
my parents well before they died. I made peace with my siblings, but we are not
close (and I remain estranged from some).
I look to these memories especially now, to remind me –
every day – what it means to be happy, joyful and free. And to work to return
to that reality. So I can write about THESE
things. The laughter. The love. The carefree innocence.
Hope you’ll join me. See you On the Beach. The beach of my memories and hopefully NOT
Nevil Shute’s version.
