A Day At Jones Beach
One of my happiest memories from childhood is that of spending a whole day at Jones Beach on the south shore of Long Island. (See map.) It is not a private beach. It was designed by Robert Moses and is maintained by the state of New York. A State Beach. A long, white, sandy beach. It is immaculately clean and tidy. Employees in white outfits go around picking up debris with a trash-picker. It is usually quite crowded, with grown ups and children in bathing suits, relaxing and having fun.
In those days when I was perhaps ten or eleven years old and my cousin, John Alfred was six or seven, (see picture) his mother, Auntie Rita would frequently drive us from their summer cottage in Wantaugh to spend the whole day at the beach. That continued for several years. Occasionally my mother would accompany us, though she usually stayed at home in Pittsburgh, PA, working as a lawyer. Much later when I asked her why she didn’t accompany me to NY at Christmas time and for summer vacations, she said, “I have to stay home to earn the money for your vacations.” She wanted me to have a “sense of family,” since I didn’t have a Daddy. Once when she was with us and we were approaching the beach, she rolled down her window, took a deep breath and said, “I smell the ocean!” She and Auntie Rita grew up in the various boroughs of NY, the children of poor Austro-Hungarian immigrants. They probably loved days at the beach as much as I did.
I can still remember those hot, humid, languorous days, lying in the warm sand to get as “brown as a gypsy,” splashing in the waves, building an elaborate sand-castle with my cousin, a sand-castle which was then quickly demolished by an oncoming wave. I remember how I learned to go out beyond the crashing waves, where with my feet on the sea-floor, I learned to let the oncoming wave gently raise me and lower me, instead of crashing over me and knocking me down. But that might have been later on.
We always had a colorful beach umbrella and blankets to lie on. Mother, if she was with us, and Auntie Rita lay comfortably in beach chairs under the umbrella while John and I played in the ocean.
At lunchtime we ate hot dogs and hamburgers with crispy French fries. I usually drank a big milkshake or an ice cream soda, which I loved. Then John and I played paddleball. Maybe that’s why I loved tennis so much in later years, and even now at 95.
In the late afternoon or early evening, we would often take a shower, change our clothes and stroll over to Zach’s Bay. There, a scenic stage was floating on the calm water about 10 feet from the shore. We, and the other members of the audience sat on bleachers on dry land. I remember one night when Mother was with us, we noticed a big, yellow, full moon, about to rise. We wondered if it was part of the scenery or the real moon. We made a bet. Mother said it was part of the scenery. I said it was the real moon. It rose!
Every summer the Gamblings, Uncle Jack, Auntie Rita and John rented a summer house on Long Island. As his income increased, that is his radio program became more and more popular, that is people bought more Pepsi-Cola and Broadcast Brand Corned Beef Hash, as he told them to do, the rental houses became bigger and more expensive. First on Long Island’s south shore, later on the north shore in Manhasset, where he finally bought a mansion, previously owned by the President of Long Island University. It had a magnificent view of Long Island Sound and a private beach.
I’m now 95 and John Alfred died years ago. But, I still remember with nostalgia that modest cottage in Wantaugh, from which Auntie Rita drove us year after year to Jones Beach. Those lazy, unforgettable, sun-drenched days, when we were young.
“Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end….”