When my parents were MUCH younger and only had two children, they would summer in a bungalow somewhere in The Highlands. Grandma and Grampy, Mom's folks, rented a bungalow just up the row from where we were.
Summers were magical. Dad would take us fishing off one of the piers after stopping to buy a cardboard box of bait, basically flash-frozen killies. My (perhaps false) memory is that my sister was focused on fishing, fearless, and had no trouble using the killies as bait. Her wimpy older brother, not so much.
Our bungalow community had its own beach (they all did in Fifties) and we would dig for hours, encouraged by Grampy, to reach China. He would even help us dig and we worked fervishly to see a real Chinaman and were never discouraged that it didn't happen.
A highlight every summer was going to the softball fields just below the Twin Lights for an always amazing exhibition by genuine New York Yankees baseball players (!) My memory says they were Bill ("Moose") Skrowon, who played first base, and long-time catcher and full-time character, Yogi Berra. However, the pair did not merely play baseball with whatever adult team was out there; they played Donkey Baseball.
In today's world, where business is sports and sports is art, no one running a professional team in any sport would allow any of their stars to ride on the back of burro. But this was the Fifties and we had a Cold War going on and Eisenhower in the White House. What can I say? We were easily amused.
If you summered farther North than the Jersey Shore, you rooted for the hated Boston Red Sox, and if farther South, your heart beat for the Philadelphia Phillies. We were smack dab in the middle of Yankee Country (the New York Metropolitans did not yet exist, and both Brooklyn's Dodgers and the New York Giants had exited the Empire State for California), and getting to see any of our idols was a thrill nearly beyond words. Yankees players were gods. And this was their ambrosia.
It's taken me my whole life, until now, to appreciate the marvel of Yoo-Hoo. And to be honest, even after that, I still don't get it.
-bill kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment