Avalon, 1960s

Avalon, New Jersey is sleepy place even at the height of summer in the early to mid-1960s. Memories are the fragmentary, vivid ones of a seven-year-old boy.

Mom and Dad and three other couples build a house on the beach. One of the other dads was an architect so they build most of it themselves. Dad, the oldest of the

grownups, hammers away all day and even at night, as the others have cocktails. He likes the labor, away from starched shirts and the office in Philadelphia.

The beach is not the main beach, but it is a beach. You couldn't swim in the water. Fast, shifting currents, sudden drop off. Nightmares of being stranded on a sandbar. There were clams and older kids taught younger ones how to find them and dig them out. Throw them sidearm on the sun-baked sand and the thick shells crack open. Little fingers dig out the meat and toss it in the air for a gull, waiting, hovering, to catch and eat in flight.

Kids rise at dawn, put on their trunks and walk on the beach. Clumps of seaweed. Pieces of wood. No trash, no plastic then. Sometimes a small dead shark the kids believe has been killed by a noble dolphin in a thrilling underwater fight, like in Flipper. A child's version of good versus evil.

Flipper

Bicycle trips to the little store. Sitting on the crossbar, another boy pedaling. A bare foot gets caught in the spokes of the front wheel and stops the bike with a skid. No damage, which is hard to believe now, at an age and condition where thinking of falling causes a shudder.

The store which had a counter, stools. Breakfast and lunch. Little boxes of cereal opened in a way that made them usable as bowls.

Candy. Sugar Daddies, Sugar Babies, Turkish taffy. If the bar of taffy was cool you, smack it on a hard surface and it breaks into pieces. Other times, bend it and unbend it until it breaks like fatigued metal, paperclips. It's wrapped in aluminum that if not extracted finds a filling and causes mild torture.

At dusk, jeeps with fogging machines drive down the street at a jogging pace to keep the mosquito population down. Kids run in and out of the clouds of whatever it was they sprayed.

Darkness fell late, not far from bedtime. The jetties smelled of oil, the big posts holding their structure painted with it. A big rock thrown on another big rock makes sparks.

During the day the kids run around and get severe sunburns. At night, they go out seeking adventure while the parents stay in, drink and listen to Tom Leher's That Was the Year That Was. "So long Mom! I'm off to drop a bomb! So don't wait up for me. Although you may swelter, down there in your shelter, you can see me! On your TV!"

Tom Leher

The kids know the lyrics but not the meanings.

Mother's best friend's father takes the boys to get haircuts. Women then wanted kids with John John Kennedy's hair. The kids come back with something shorter than crew cuts. The mothers are furious. The boys don't care.

Entrusted with Dad's Navy dog tags. A bad idea. A new rule of physics learned: Spin something on a chain and let go, it goes farther than if thrown. Somewhere deep in the sand of a New Jersey beach are dog tags with Dad's serial number and the word "No Name" where the middle name goes. He didn't have one.

Crabbing in the bay. A fish head on a thick string, a net. Throw back the females, keep the males. Later, Dad steams the crabs and clams. Dad, born in 1920, never went hungry but times in Philadelphia had been uncertain enough that he appreciates this bounty of free food.