Summertime Forever
By Mary Lou Ardrey
Way back in the early forties, when the whole world was in turmoil, there was a quiet little place on the Long Island shore. This friendly little farm town was evolving into a seaside resort. Summer bungalows settled in peacefully with the old established farmhouses.
The small town of Flanders had a firehouse with a truck that looked like some other town’s cast off, a one-room schoolhouse, only to the eighth grade, a tiny general store that sold just the bare necessities, and a little white church with a steeple. Each of them was no larger than the average garage. Time was just not moving as fast out that way and some friendships made as youngsters went on to last a lifetime.
I remember those hot summer mornings when the shrill sound of the harvest flies reminded us that summer was almost over. This meant that our summer friends would have to say their goodbyes until next year.
My summer buddy, Ethel, was standing in the shade of the pine tree in front of our bungalow. She was swinging a small milk can. It was time to go down to the farm and pick up the milk.
Each morning we strolled barefoot down the sandy road to the farm at the end of the road. The sand was cool on our feet until we came to a spot where the trees didn’t shield the sand from the hot sun. Then we hopped and skipped quickly through the burning sand. Just ahead of us was the old farmhouse, and when I say old, I mean really old. I think they would call that a saltbox structure. Old Mike owned this duck farm and worked it with just the help from his cousin Martha. It was waterfront property and probably worth a fortune now. At the rear of the house was the old falling down barn with one cow. She gave enough milk for their use and some for the local people too. We dropped off our milk cans for Mike to fill.
We never stayed and waited because the smell of the barn burned my nose.
We went up to the shed on the side of the house to see Martha and give our order for a duck for Sunday dinner. Martha was a wonderful cook. She must have weighed about 400 pounds. She actually had to squeeze through the doorway. She was a jolly old lady, always laughing. It's been said that Martha drank a little. I think she drank a lot. She raised the ducks, killed them, plucked and stuffed and cooked the ducks for many families’ Sunday dinners. I recall the odor of kerosene from the huge ovens. It’s funny how I can remember these things so clearly.
There is one more thing I remember about big Martha. A few days a week she worked on other farms. A pickup truck came for her and she rode by in the back of the truck wearing a big straw hat with a flower on it. Now that is a memory no one could forget. Martha always reminded us to bring a jar for the gravy when we’d come to pick up our duck on Sunday morning.
My mother cooked fresh vegetables from the farmer who came by in his truck on Saturday. Our Sunday dinners were truly a gourmet treat.
When we got back to the barn, old Mike had our milk pails filled. We each paid him a dime and we were on our way. Sometimes we stopped to see if the beach plums were ripe, but most times we just stopped to pick and eat the blueberries growing alongside the road. We couldn’t stay too long because we were told not to dilly-dally or the milk will spoil.
Ethel and I remained best friends all through our teenage years and then we didn’t see each other for long periods of time, although we were in each other’s wedding parties and our children became good friends. Sometimes we weren’t in touch for five years or more, then one of us would drop a line or call and we carried on a conversation as if we had spoken the day before.
Many years later I remembered a talk I had with Ethel’s parents at her wedding. They had retired and moved to a new home in Florida; a wonderful place that reminded them of our summer homes on Long Island. It was quiet and rural with pine trees and beautiful beaches. The waters were full of fish and crabs. They had a home on Lemon Bay. When I was visiting my daughter in Tampa, I insisted that we find this wonderful Lemon Bay place. But there was no such town on any of the maps.
All I knew was that it was south of Sarasota, so off we went searching. Finally we discovered that it wasn’t a town, it was the water off Englewood called Lemon Bay. We stayed at a motel on the beach and fell in love with Englewood. When I got back home to New Jersey I told my husband that I had found the place where we should retire. Many, many times I told him.
A few years later, when it was time to retire, we took a trip and explored Englewood. We loved it and bought our home. What a pleasant surprise it was to find that Ethel and her husband Bud had retired here, too, and lived less than a mile from us. Our friendship has picked up where we left off and that is just another case of the circle of life.
Back In The Day
By Jodi LaVohn
When I was a teenager in high school in the late fifties, there were no metal detectors, security guards or name tags for visitors. You could go by the school, talk with the teacher, take cupcakes on your kid’s birthday and even sit in on their class. Occasionally, two children disagreed. When that happened they took it outside after school, a fist fight ensued and after the fight they shook hands and walked away. Problem solved.
Now, if two kids disagree, one might bring a gun or knife to school, hence the metal detector, or maybe indulge in a drive-by shooting. I don’t remember children being stressed out or slipping into depression to the extent they had to commit suicide or take innocent people’s lives with them when they killed themselves.
The basics, reading, writing, arithmetic were taught and apparently it was enough because many went on to college, and then to good jobs. While there were a few young girls who became pregnant while in school, the numbers were vastly different than now. Big surprise- no schools gave out free condoms and there were no doctors arguing that girls could have abortions without their parents' consent.
Of course at that time becoming pregnant and unmarried was disgraceful and the normal course was to slip out of school and go for a visit to great aunt Linda’s house, then give the baby up for adoption. There were few single teenage mothers in those days. Some of them actually married the daddy who was their high school sweetheart and wonder of wonders; they stayed married for many years.
Drugs in school were virtually unheard of and the few who tried them, were discreet about it. Beer was the thing. The high school boys had beer and were daring about it, but there were not many DWI accidents back then. Most of the boys had beer to celebrate winning a big football game.
Back then, parents were the difference. Parents were involved in their teenager’s lives. Most of them knew all their children’s friends and even chaperoned parties. Yes, there were actual adults chaperoning parties in those days. No chaperone, no party.
Life was simpler then. There were always guys who tried to make out with you, but a simple no was enough and surprisingly they always asked you out again. There was a distinction, there were “good “ girls and “bad “ girls. The “good girls” went to dances and were homecoming queens. The “bad girls” saw the “good girls” boyfriends after they took the good girls home.
Girls were held to a code of honor having to do with a good reputation. A reputation was important then and a bad reputation could make all kinds of problems. One important problem, boys didn’t want to marry a girl who had “been around." That was not the girl they took home to meet Mother.
Yes, the 50s kids lived without MP3 players, Playstations, and cell phones, and life was amazingly simple. The 50s kids went on a first date and it ended sometimes with a kiss, sometimes with a handshake, but there was always a second date. The 50s kids' parents knew where they were, who they were with, and what they were doing, and while some got in trouble and sneaked out, most of us enjoyed our safe environment and grew up to be happy, although possibly a little naïve, adults.
*Jodi is retired, a 70 year old grandmother of three. She has a book published and several articles published in 50 Something Magazine and Funny Times.