BEACH KID MEMORIES

Carefree to be, as a bird that sings;

To go my own sweet way . . .

                          ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE

     Commenting on my childhood, my mountain-boy husband often says, “You had the greatest life as a kid.  You lived on the beach, you went there any time you wanted, you could walk to it,” etc.  And then I will answer, “But we didn’t have air conditioning, it was terrifically hot, and we constantly sweated like sinners in church!”  But finally I have to say, “I was just trying to make you feel better, because I did have a great childhood on the beach.” 

     We lived on Clearwater Beach from the time I was eight years old until I was twelve, from 1956 to 1960.  My mother and I had returned from Alabama after she and my dad split up a couple of years before.  After staying with my grandparents in town, we eventually moved to a garage apartment about half a block from the beach.  It was located at the home of a very warm and kind family from Cuba.  They had a shaded grassy garden that separated their large house from our apartment over the garage.  I seem to remember a little fountain there too.  They let me play in the garden all I wanted. 

     Being a redhead, Mom wasn’t a “sun worshiper,” but she would often walk me over to the beach on the weekends.  Sometimes we would go for lunch at the Palm Pavilion, her old high school hangout from the 1940s. I had learned to swim when I was about five or six years old in Alabama.  In Clearwater, when I was about eight, the Red Cross would pick us up from school and take us over to the beach for swimming lessons.

     Later, when I was nine years old, my mother married a very nice man.  I consider him my father today.  We moved into his house at 628 Mandalay Avenue, on the beach side.  Mandalay still divides the beach and the bay.  It was the main drag, although it didn’t seem real busy up our way.  It was scattered with a few Mom and Pop motels and businesses, and had a family feel.  

     Every block or two, there were little side roads made of ground shells and sand – our access to the beach.  I often went there by myself to play if I couldn’t find a friend to go with.  I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t really good at telling time yet, although I had been given a watch.  I  would just swim, play in the sand, etc., and somehow I knew when it was time to go home.  Despite the “don’t talk to strangers” rule, I was given permission to ask some nice lady with her family what time it was.  This was supposed to be a rare exception.  I can’t remember when the beach wasn’t full of people except in winter time.  Yet it never seemed crowded.

     I don’t ever remember my mother coming and finding me, so I must have been pretty good about getting home when I was supposed to.   It was boring to stay there all day if I wasn’t with a friend, anyway.   I do remember having certain boundaries, and I couldn’t stray too far from our area.  There were Australian pine trees on one side and a house that was my boundary on the other.  I would set my towel in the shade of those pines among the fallen burrs for my “reserved spot.”

     Mom probably told me that I couldn’t go out in the water past my waist.  I would “body surf” if we were fortunate enough to have some waves after a storm.  A lot of us did that.  Otherwise, everyone knows that the Gulf of Mexico is usually very calm.

     I remember something exciting and unusual – a shark fin had been spotted in the Gulf.  The lifeguard blew his whistle for everybody to get out.  There was a lady floating on a plastic raft in only ankle-deep water.  I remember her screaming and yelling for her husband to come drag her in.  Everybody was staring at her, and I remember thinking it would be faster if she just jumped off the raft and ran in!  I don’t know if we were ever allowed to go back in the water that day, as we couldn’t go back in until we heard the lifeguard’s whistle.   I seem blasé about it, but the occasion was so rare that people were more surprised than scared.  The scarier part to me was always jellyfish season.  They were nasty looking and could give you a bad poison “burn.”  I would move at lightning speed if one of them brushed my leg; we would all get out of the water if we saw them in swarms. 

     To add insult to injury as far as my husband is concerned, I had access to a swimming pool courtesy of my good friend Diana.  Her parents managed the Surf Sun Motel across the street.   In later years, it was purchased and renamed the Royal Canadian, and is still there today.  We were allowed to play in the pool as long as we didn’t bother the guests.   I remember us running up and down the outside stairs; if we were lucky there was a vacant room and we would play in there.  (I have a feeling this happened only in the off-season, when there were very few guests.)  So having the beach in the “back yard” and a pool in the “front yard” is another reason for my husband’s “envy.”

     At school, we were the “beach kids” when it came time to line up for the buses, although our grammar-conscious teachers called us beach “students.”  This was at North Ward Elementary in town, where all “beach students” were zoned.   Every morning our school bus made the drive along the causeway, crossing the bridge onto the mainland.  As we drove along the causeway one morning, I remember thinking to myself that I lived in a beautiful place.  But it was a fleeting thought, as we were fascinated and excited watching the daily dredging in the bay that was to become the foundation for Island Estates.  It was a big, new “daring” development , and its progress was on the news nightly.  It seemed scary to me, as I heard adults saying that it was never going to work, it would be unstable, etc.  There was a boy in my fifth grade class that lived in one of the first houses built there, which seemed rather “exotic.”  Now, well over sixty years later, Island Estates is still there. 

     Diana remembers what we called the “The Spear Club” that our friend Sonny Bobo started.  He was a friendly and cheerful boy, sadly gone now.  There wasn’t much to our “club” activity.  We would take palm fronds and somehow turn them into “spears.”  I don’t remember doing much with them except I guess standing around having “duels.”    

     We were often at the Youth Center over on the bay side, very shady and piney.  All sorts of fun lessons were available.  You could learn to sail a pram there.  For those unfamiliar with the term, a pram is a small personal sailboat.  I sure did envy the kids who had them.  They said it was so much fun to take your pram out on the bay, and of course it would be!  They had races too.  I never even asked my parents about this.  Although my father owned an old “trawler” which he used for fishing once in a while, I was sure that my thrifty parents were not going to invest the time and money.  But I’m still sorry that I didn’t ask!

     Diana and I also walked ourselves to church.  It was called Chapel By The Sea, just a few blocks down.  It was interdenominational, and is still the only church on the beach.  My parents weren’t church goers – a little unusual during the 1950s.  Diana and I were in junior choir, though I think I was only in it for maybe a year.  I loved to sing, but I confess that the main reason I wanted to be in the choir was so I could wear a robe.  My parents would pick me up after church once in a while if it was raining.  I also remember my father taking me to church if it was bad weather.  He was a good and kind man, and never refused to take me.  He just didn’t want to go himself, for whatever reason.  He was born in 1915 and raised a Quaker.  But that’s a story for another day.

     We belonged to a Girl Scout troop, up towards the north end of the beach at our friend Sandra’s  house.  Her mother was our leader, and was a very sweet lady.  We had fun, and I remember that we went camping one time at Phillipe Park in Safety Harbor.  My parents were chaperones and actually camped overnight with us.  My father loved to camp and my mother was a good sport.  We girls had fun running all over the place in the dark. 

     My mother probably drove me to Girl Scout meetings, as they were after school.  I did ride my bike to my piano lessons, further north in the Carlouel neighborhood.  That was the way it was; we rode our bikes almost everywhere.  The only restriction I remember was my mother not letting me ride my bike in the heat of the day if it was unusually hot. 

     There were some sad occurrences during the “good old days.”  In the fifth grade, our friend Mary (and fellow Girl Scout) became very sick with rheumatic fever  She was confined to bed for five months.  Our class got her a plant, and my mother brought it home.  Like all girls, I had a basket on my bike, and I rode up to Mary’s house on Acacia to deliver it.  I remember her mother serving me some delicious Greek cookies in their kitchen, the first time I had ever tasted them.  I became a lifelong fan!  Mary has since told me that rheumatic fever is now basically wiped out, thankfully along with several other diseases.

     There was also a “haunted house” up that way, although someone just happened to live there.  It was a big, beautiful Mediterranean style house – I don’t know why we thought it was haunted.  Maybe because it was large and no one was ever seen there.  Diana and another friend were brave and actually went up and knocked on the door, pretending to sell Girl Scout cookies.  (They just made that up.)  Diana was a lot more daring than I was.  She said a lady answered the door and saw right through their “scheme.” 

      Many Saturdays I rode my bike to the Pier Pavilion, a nice big public pool right on the beach.  I would stay all day, usually including time at the miniature golf course located right in front of it.  I would work up my courage to jump off the big high diving board at the pool.  Having a line of people waiting behind me was good motivation.  The one time I dared to dive from that height caused quite a wallop to my head when I hit the water, and parted my hair perfectly down the middle!  I was probably about ten or eleven then.  My mom always gave me money for a hot dog and to play miniature golf.  Then I would ride my bike home, happily tired but usually sunburned.

     As I look over what I’ve written, it reads like a case for Child Protective Services(!)  Despite what it looks like, our parents were far from lenient.  All I can say is that’s “the way it was.”  I guess the majority of our mothers were at home, but they didn’t have time to drop everything and take us places.  It took all morning for my mother to remove the wax from the kitchen floor and re-wax it, for example.  She did have a washing machine, but no dryer. When we moved to the mainland into our new house, the big excitement was having a dishwasher.  But my mother still didn’t have a clothes dryer for the next year or so.  She hung everything out, as most of our neighbors did.  And still no air conditioner!  Finally, with our house next to an orange grove and away from the Gulf breezes, my parents broke down and put an air conditioner in the living room and their bedroom, which reached down the hall and cooled my room somewhat.  But it was better than nothing!  None of my schools were air conditioned, except for the auditorium at the high school. 

     My older grandchildren regard those days (politely) as prehistoric.  They almost can’t believe me when I tell my stories, and they too envy my childhood that had more “freedoms.”  I try to tell them about the bad things also, but somehow I can’t help dwelling on the “good” in the “good old days.”