August 3, 2022
Last week, our daughter took
her grandchildren to the very same beach that, when I was a child, my father
took us.
It’s a beach on the
south-western shore of Lake Ontario, and from what I can tell—from Jenny’s descriptions
of what it was as like—it certainly has changed since the last time I saw it,
which would have been at least thirty years ago.
In its heyday, the beach was more
than just sand that ended at the water’s edge. There were concession stands,
where one could purchase French fries, footlong hotdogs, cold drinks and the
inevitable souvenirs, including beach toys. There was a small amusement park, with
about a half-dozen rides, and those rides were geared for the under ten crowd.
I recall from my childhood a busy place with lots of people and traffic. Since
I would have been only about seven or so the last time Dad took us there, I’m pretty
sure there were other attractions that I wouldn’t have noticed at the time.
We usually went to a beach
about twice a year. Once to Lake Ontario, and once to a park that was on the
shores of Lake Erie. The latter was for a picnic hosted by the company my
father worked for, Studebaker-Packard, a picnic that took place at Crystal
Beach.
I barely recall the times at Crystal
Beach, but oh the memories I have of our days at Lake Ontario! The water is
colder at this lake than it is at Lake Erie—something that really surprised our
daughter. I never thought to warn her, but it’s always the case, because Lake Ontario
is a whole lot deeper than Lake Erie.
Now, as then, the beach and
the parking are free. Back then, there were five of us. We never had much money
to spare, so my parents would make a proper picnic lunch, with a little something
extra. There would be lots of sandwiches, not just PBJ or bologna or egg salad,
but sometimes salmon salad, and they were the best sandwiches ever. As well,
dad would pack his Coleman stove, and would have brought all he needed to make
pan-fried potatoes—the something extra.
My mother once told me that
the aroma of those potatoes cooking in bacon fat made everyone around us drool.
I remember that my parents would bring a big thermos of ice-cold lemonade, or Freshie
(another brand name for Kool-Aid) for us to drink, but sometimes we’d be
treated to soda, purchased at one of the stands.
In those days, you didn’t burn
in the sun as easily as you do now. We didn’t have “sunscreen”, so much as we
had “suntan” lotion. We’d slather it on and hope not to get too badly sunburned,
and even after several hours in the sun, we usually weren’t. At the end of the
day, before the sun set, we would do something else at the beach that surprised
my own kids years later when I told them about it: we’d wash up. Yes, you took
a bar of soap into the lake and washed. It wasn’t just us, either, because as
you looked up and down the beach you saw many people indulging in this—and some
folks even had shampoo in the water too.
That, my friends is the down
side of what they call the good old days. And yes, indeed, I am at this moment
most definitely rolling my eyes thinking about it. I was just a child, but one
would have thought that science would have progressed far enough in the early
1960s to say “don’t do that”.
By the way, my daughter
informed me, as I read her this, that not this time, but the time before when she
went to the that beach, she saw a couple of families with soap in the water. So, science has progressed, but I guess not
everyone got the memo.
I’m not particularly bothered
by the fact that I seem to be at that part of getting older when I’m recalling how
things were, “back in my day”. Actually, just the opposite is the case. I
suppose the longer one lives, the more experiences and memories one has in the
brain. It’s hard to find them when you’re just looking around for them. But hear
of something that could be considered a clue, and sometimes, those sweet
moments just pop back right up to the surface. I think that’s one of those
unwritten bonuses one gets for getting older.
That’s my story and I’m
sticking to it.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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