A Trip to the Shore
From my hilltop I can see forty miles of Pacific Ocean. That shoreline from Oceanside down to San Diego or even from Oceanside north along Camp Pendleton to Dana Point is arguably some of the nicest stretches of beach in the world. There is something about the beach in Southern California that is integral to the way of life. For us, while we occasionally take a ride over to the Del Mar dog beach or to Vigalucci’s Italian Restaurant on the beach in Carlsbad, just seeing that forty miles of ocean on a clear day is enough of the shore for us. Neither Kim nor I are particularly beach people. We honeymooned in Eleuthera in the Bahamas and even spent one day taking a private boat ride to a private and secluded beach on one of the tiny islands that dot that part of the archipelago. We spent the whole day on the beach with only a towel, an umbrella and a cooler of food and drink and I have to say it was a fun and special day, even if I did get some sand in my shorts. In general, I have done lots of beach vacations all over the Caribbean and Bermuda (where I have been about fifteen times). I was even a presidential appointee to the Caribbean Basin Initiative for the U.S. Government, which allowed me to visit just about every island in those azure waters, That all being said and done, I am decidedly still not a beach person.
My oldest son Roger is like me in some ways, but not like me in many other ways. His mother was very much a beach person. Her summers for the past forty years have been spent from Memorial Day to Labor Day at a place called Sun and Surf Beach Club in Atlantic Beach on the Southern Shore of Long Island. Long Island is pretty much one big sand bar, at least along its south shore. The topography consists of a long, narrow sand bar that stands guard against the ocean waves and leaves a series of bays between that sand bar and the mainland of the island. Atlantic Beach, and specifically Sun and Surf are at the Western end of the Long Beach sand bar before the next sandbar of the Rockaways takes shape. It is a pleasant and special spot that belies its proximity to New York City and it’s hustle bustle. Sun and Surf is an old world sort of club where everything is weathered wood that gets painted white every few years. The cabanas are set in horseshoe bays with the most expensive ones closest to the ocean. they are so prized that they rarely change hands and get passed down from one generation to the next. Everyone optimizes the design and use of their 120 square feet of cabana with kitchens, showers, bunks and seating arrangements. The cabana occupants spend a lot of the summer at their cabanas and even sneak in a few overnights despite that not being a sanctioned use of the cabana.
The children of cabana holders grow up spending their entire summer on the sand. They might spend time in the pool or on the tennis courts as well, but they are surrounded by the finest and whitest sand in the world and cabana life is about as beach as it gets. My two older children grew up that way and at that beach club and beach sand is literally in their blood. For my oldest son, Roger, it was such a big part of his life that he took his first job at nearby Jones Beach, working the recreation concessions for the state park. During those years and after his mother and I separated, I bought a house out in the Hamptons in a sweet little village of Quiogue. I wasn’t on the beach, but the beach was nearby and the vibe was totally beach-like. I owned that house for fifteen years and Roger held his rite of passage out there after his high school prom. Once Roger moved to New York City and I sold the Quiogue house, he shifted his focus to the Jersey Shore. As a kid who got taken to countless theme parks, he developed a taste for the bells and whistles of the boardwalk and no one does boardwalk like the Jersey Shore. When I think of the Jersey Shore Boardwalk, whether it is Atlantic City, Asbury Park or Wildwood, they all share the same elements, epitomized by the playing of skeeball.
I was taken to Asbury Park for a day after the 1963 World’s Fair visit. I spent a summer working in Atlantic City as a hotel houseboy on North Carolina Avenue (just down from the Chalfonte and Haddon Hall), living in a rented room a few blocks away on New York Avenue. I even spent a day or two at Wildwood at Roger’s urging several years ago and I survived. But the shore is quite incidental to who I am and I go mostly to be with family that likes it more than I do.
About a year ago, after a couple of disappointing and difficult years living on Staten Island, a shore community that never really seemed like the shore to Roger or most other people, Roger and his wife Valene decided to leave New York City and move south to the shore. They talked about and looked at every stretch of shore from Perth Amboy down to Cape May. I stayed out of it because my criteria for where to live were simply not aligned with Roger’s and I knew how important where he lived was to him. He and Valene finally settled on an even more distant shore point across Delaware Bay in the town of Lewes, Delaware. I can’t say I had ever even heard of Lewes, which is near Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach. Kim and I came down to visit Roger and Valene last year right after they had moved here and before they had settled in. The area seemed quite bucolic and more rural than I expected Roger would like, but they seemed to feel good about the move.
Since then, both Roger and Valene have settled into Delaware and we came down for a few days to visit them. I will start by saying that Lewes and the surrounding area is a very pleasant part of the country. It has all the fun and active elements of the shore with all the natural beauty of a place where the country meets the sea and where real people make their lives. We are staying in a charming inn, not so far from the new house that Roger and Valene have bought nearby. They still have work to do to reshape the house to their specific needs and aesthetic, but it is a large and wonderful home at a price point more like what you see on House Hunters on HGTV than anything you might find in NYC or San Diego. This is an area where real people live and can afford to live. Roger has a great job running a family fun center attraction (which suits him perfectly) and Valene works at a local retail coffee shop while she sets up her Face of Grace facial business (which will be on the ground floor of their home).
Kim and I are very impressed by how Roger and Valene have repotted themselves. They have chosen a wonderful place to live that may well suit them long term. I hope it does. I am still not a shore person, but Roger is and I am glad he could find a path to set himself up in an area that suits himself so well. And I will be happy to make regular trips to the shore to visit.