A Summer Day in
Charlestown
By
Heidi Tony
The
summer I was ten, my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at my
grandmother’s cottage on the Northeast River in Maryland. We made the two hour trip down from our home
in South Jersey in the baby blue Cadillac with the once-fashionable flashy fins
in the back. This muggy July morning,
the car was an oven and the old upholstery gave off a faint odor of something
oddly sweet, maybe dry rot or some ancient source of mildew. There was, of course, no air conditioning, so
the windows were open even as we sailed down Route 40 over the giant span of
the Delaware Memorial Bridge. The wind
whipped my hair into my eyes and threatened to rip the pages from the coloring
book I was working diligently to complete, picture by picture from front to
back, finishing each image with a bold outline using the black crayon - a
technique I’d admired one of my friends using.
(And yet, somehow, I did not grow up to be completely obsessive
compulsive.)
My
mother made the unfortunate decision to wear a sleeveless shift dress made of
paper as her traveling outfit. I’m not
sure why anyone thought paper clothing would be a good idea, but this was the
sixties before anyone conceived of the “reduce, reuse, recycle” slogan. Instead, the catchphrase was
“disposable.” Disposable diapers
lightened the housewives workload on laundry day so considerably, why not do
away with the need for laundry at all?
My parents were adventurous sorts and they’d try almost anything once -
Tang, shake-a-pudding, hot Dr. Pepper, avocados (and then attempting to root
the pit by suspending it with toothpicks in a glass of water) - so of course,
my mother had to try paper clothing.
As
we rode along in the stifling car, perspiration got the better of the wood pulp
fashion and a rip began to form on the armhole.
My father caught sight of it and couldn’t resist temptation. He reached over and gave it a little tug. I laughed in shock, but not for long. My mother was furious. She saw no humor in the fact that her
oh-so-modern dress was now flapping in the wind across her chest. I can’t remember exactly what happened next,
but it involved a lot of yelling on my mother’s part and smirking on my father’s,
followed by stony silence from both for the remainder of the trip.
Once
we left the highway, we traveled down a country road for a bit, stopping at the
tiny, ramshackle general store that marked our arrival in Charlestown. My grandmother had her groceries delivered
from this store, which fascinated me. So
upper-crust! In particular I remember
the Jif peanut butter (better than the store brand my mother bought) and
double-wrapped Arnold white bread. That
was my breakfast of choice at the cottage - toast with peanut butter topped
with crispy bacon. Trust me, it was
delicious. I grabbed a cream soda from the faded red chest cooler by the front
door. I have no idea what my parents
bought. Maybe cigarettes. Before the Surgeon General came out with his
warning about smoking, both of them were smokers. The butts of Mom’s filtered True Blues with
her lipstick impression mingled with
Dad’s Camels in the ashtrays of our home until the government report
came out, and then they both quit, cold turkey. Their hard-headed personalities
were both a blessing and a curse.
After
the stop at the store, we continued our journey on the dirt road that led to my
grandmother’s house. It was just one
road that followed the outline of the Northeast River as it wound its way to
the Chesapeake. The homes built along
the river at that time were not grand, by any stretch of the imagination. They
were little more than fishing shacks with big porches facing the water. But to me, it was paradise.
The
backyard was packed dirt with a few weak blades of grass and moss near the
trees. The dense canopy of leaves
overhead provided a cool respite from the summer heat, but little encouragement
to a lawn. Close to the street was a
brick barbeque that, as far as I know, was never used for anything other than
burning the trash. Another unused
feature of the backyard was an old outhouse that served as a sort of garden
shed. It both fascinated and repelled
me. It didn’t smell - the cottage had
indoor plumbing for a few decades by the time I started coming around - but the
original wooden seat was still visible behind the rakes and shovels stored
there. What had it been like to have to
use it, I wondered? What if you had to
go in the middle of the night? Did they
really use an old Sears catalogue in place of toilet paper, like I’d read in
“Little House on the Prairie”? Ugh! Just
the sight of that building gave me an uncommon appreciation for flushing
toilets and soft rolls of Charmin.
As
you approached the back of the house from the road, you first saw the kitchen
and bathroom annex that had been cobbled onto the original building, very much
like an afterthought. Passing that on
the right you entered the house up a worn wooden step to your left. Alongside the step was a yellow rectangular
wash tub with a few inches of water in it, which anyone with bare feet or flip
flops was expected to step in to rinse off the dirt from the backyard or sand
from the beach, in an attempt to keep the floors clean. Don’t get the wrong idea, however. My Nana was no clean freak. (In stark
contrast to my father’s mother, who though I’m sure cared for me, never made me
feel particularly comfortable. In her
house, filled with glass knickknacks and African violets, I was expected to
look, but not touch.) The cottage, however, was loved and lived in and it
looked it.
We
arrived early the day of the anniversary party and parked in the tall grass
across the street from the house. I
remember walking from the blinding hot of the field across the dirt road into the tree-shaded coolness of the backyard
and my grandmother coming out to greet us.
I had reached that awkward stage (which lasted for a long, long time in
my case) and was uncomfortably self-conscious.
I hated the sailor-style polyester dress my mother insisted I wear
(looking back, I’m just relieved that it wasn’t paper.) I was hot and sticky
and my black cats-eye glasses (chosen because I thought they’d make me look
like my glamorous older sister - they didn’t) were sliding down my nose. On top of all that, I was uncomfortably aware
that the smiles my parents had pasted on their faces were only for show. They were still giving one another the silent
treatment and it could go on for days.
My grandmother, bless her soul, erased all of
this misery by holding her arms out to me and declaring, “When did you become
such a beautiful young lady?” Even at
this late date, I’m not sure if she truly found something attractive in my
appearance, or if she just knew that’s what I needed to hear at the moment. No matter.
It made me happy then and still does today. And the take-away lesson for me was this -
never miss an opportunity give someone a sincere compliment or word of
encouragement, for you never know just how much those few simple words might mean.
Copyright 2012©
Heidi Tony
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