Beaches Are Us . . . circa 1959

If you're born in Rhode Island, the beach is never far away. To be a kid with access to a sandpile as big as the ocean itself (or so it seemed), possibilities are endless: multi-turreted sand castles, wide moats, mythic labyrinths and tunnels, and plain ol' deep holes to jump in an out of while your mother tries to read her Agatha Christie mystery or her fashion magazine on the blanket anchored with big round stones so the wind or the hungry sea gulls won't carry off the baby, our picnic lunch, our plaid Tartan thermos jug full of lemonade, or our towels. 

It's the summer of 1959. The beach is our destination almost every weekend.

My father drives us in his "new" 1953 Chevy with white-walled tires, shiny chrome, and a steering wheel as big as a hula hoop. Seatbelts haven't been invented yet, so we sit in the back seat untethered, but well behaved. The drive to Scarborough Beach not far from the Point Judith Lighthouse takes us about 20 minutes when we take the back roads and catch Route 1A in Wickford.   

We are a family of six: mother, father, three girls, and the new baby boy.  I am eleven years old, my sister is six, my other sister is two (going on three). The baby boy in the cotton-lined wicker basket with the mosquito netting over the top is almost four months old. He wears a cloth diaper and a miniature baseball cap with a Red Sox emblem. No one can mistake him for a girl.

My mother is thirty-one. When she walks down the beach, men stare at her, but nobody whistles because she's swinging an infant in a basket a few inches above the waves.

I'm the oldest so I help out by taking my little sisters down to the water where a line of big black stones holds back the heavy surf. My sisters take hands and toe the swirling water at their feet, then they run back giggling and shivering. They never go in past their ankles. The ocean water, even in the summer, is cold.   

After a full day in the sun, we looked like lobsters. Red backs. Red shoulders. Red noses. Nobody had heard of sunscreen; they used suntan lotion. We washed off the sand in the outside showers, found our clothes and flip-flops, and piled back in the car. Half the beach came with us.

On the way home, we stopped for fried clams at the Clam Shack in East Greenwich. In another 10 minutes, we were at our doorstep, shoulders throbbing from our sunburns, pockets full of sand and little white stones.

June 10 Birthdays . . .

With many humble apologies to the Writer's Almanac and Garrison Kiellor who posts poems and birthdays every day of the week all year long . . . I added a b'day for today. See #2.

1. It's the birthday of Judy Garland, born Frances Ethel Gumm in 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where her father operated the only movie theater in town. She starred in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Meet Me In St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and many more movies. (from Writer's Almanac, June 10, 2009)

2. It's the birthday of Ted Ciesla, a lifelong resident of Coventry, RI, where he taught science at the local high school and also coached the baseball team for more than 30 years. Born in 1920, Ted was a veteran of WWII.

As a young man and a student at the University of Rhode Island, Ted won many state and regional diving competitions. For many years, he spent his summers with his wife Jan teaching swimming to underprivileged children at Lake Tiogue. Ted had four children, all excellent swimmers, including Meredith Pond, a fan of the Writer’s Alamanac.

Ted loved baseball and especially the Boston Red Sox. On the night before he died, Ted watched the Red Sox trounce the Baltimore Orioles in overtime. He died at home in his son’s arms the following morning. Ted’s favorite song was “Moonlight in Vermont.”

He preferred to make his own clam chowder, but in a pinch you could talk him into going down to Galilee for a piping-hot bowl “New England style” and some clamcakes at Champlain’s near the Block Island Ferry dock.

3. It's the birthday of the children's author and illustrator Maurice Sendak born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928.

His parents were Polish immigrants, and as Maurice was growing up, many extended family members died in the Holocaust. So his parents were constantly grieving for their family back in Poland, and they were worried about Maurice, who was a very sick child. He almost never went outside — most of what he knew about the world outside his bedroom came from visiting family members, from the view through his window, and from books.

His dad read to him before bed every night, and his mom was constantly hovering around, making sure he was all right.

So when he eventually became an illustrator, he oftentimes painted a moon in the background as a symbol of his watchful mother. He started drawing, got a job in high school drawing the Mutt and Jeff cartoon strip into comic books, and went on to art school.

When he was 19, he illustrated a physics book, Atomics for the Millions (1947). Then he worked for years designing the window displays for FAO Schwartz while he took night classes at art school.

And eventually he started writing and illustrating his own books for children, books about normal kids who end up in surreal settings where strange things happen, books like Where the Wild Things Are (1963) and In the Night Kitchen (1970). Maurice Sendak has illustrated more than 90 books.

He said: "You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them." (from Writer's Almanac, June 10, 2009)

New Year, New Day

Here's to the promise of a new year . . . Resolutions? Hmm . . .

I'd like to spend a week on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, go to Maui for the 2009 Humpback Whale Count, and finish writing that book about Rhode Island in the 50s . . .

Oh, right, and I do have a job to go to. Luckily I enjoy that work and being part of a great team of writers and designers. It's hard to find a job you really enjoy. I'm lucky.

Did I tell you my first newsletter project was in 4th grade? Yes, you remember, The Knotty Oaker -- our school newsletter.

If I remember correctly, I was editor of that newsletter throughout 4th grade -- that was back in 1957.

A grammar school for first grade through 8th grade, the Knotty Oak School was originally constructed as a high school for kids in the Coventry area.

That same year, my dad led the new high school's baseball team to it first division championship in more than a decade. I was the team mascot and bat girl. I had a mad crush on the team's pitcher, Kenny Wilkinson, and all the cheerleaders were jealous that I got to sit on his lap before the game.

Fourth grade was my first year at Knotty Oak. Quidnick School, not far from my grandpa's place on Hazard Street, was my school for grades 1 to 3. Surviving 3rd grade with one of the Barr twins is a whole other story that includes "What Happened to Bradley Leonard Behind Miss Barr's Upright Piano." She'd step out from behind there with her ruler high in the air hissing, "Who's next?"

I guess most of us made it through 3rd grade -- skinned knees, poison ivy, schoolyard battles, losing your best baseball cards (Willie Mays). By the skin of our teeth, I figure.

On a more current subject, everybody I know is psyched for the new president.

Kate Clinton is calling all hands to participate in a "clean up" at the White House on the eve of the Inauguration on January 19, which is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

We're all supposed to bring "cleaning products" down to the Elipse, and then start scrubbing the old guard out and the new administration in.

Should be fun! For more information, visit Kate's Web site at KateClinton.com.