After we finished making the Popsicle stick jewelry boxes, the loopy potholders and braided key chains, after we wore out the Chutes and Ladders and Candyland games, lost some of the jacks and scraped our hands on the concrete while playing with the jacks we still had, after we ate blue Popsicles from the ice cream truck, and on a very, very lucky day, a Drumstick cone, after all of that, when the swings felt dull and sticky and our moms said no for the one-hundreth time that we could not go in the public playground pool - this being the age of polio - then we sat back glumly wondering if the day would ever come. The best day of the summer:
The day we went to Spring Lake.
If the neighbors looked out their windows on any given summer night in 1960 or so, they'd probably see two little girls sitting on ornate brick front steps plucking leaves from the hedgerow and talking with animation about many things, but mostly, planning ahead to that one end-of-the-summer day when they climbed aboard a school bus with dozens of other children and headed north to Burrillville and Spring Lake.
It was a day to carry a new beach bag, stuff it with a sandwich, Stateline Potato Chips and a package of Fruit Stripe gum, then set off down the hill to the concrete lot playground, beating the bus that would arrive to carry us by an hour, so that we could be first in line - and get the best seat.
For at least six unscheduled hours, we had water to swim in, a dock to leap off, warm sand to rest on, and a penny arcade where the flashing lights and screaming sounds of the games made us giddy with laughter. It was heaven.
No concrete. No parents. Just fun.
Spring Lake was our one-day freedom trail that had nothing to do with history, apart from our own. We made memories there, though there are few if any photos to prove it. No one had a camera, let alone a portable telephone that also took photos. But there was a curtained photo booth that snapped four black-and-white candid shots of us looking silly, those strips of our 10-year-old faces long gone, except when we rewind our thoughts.
That adage about the two best words in the English language being "summer afternoon" would have confused me at age 10. I would have said: "No sir! The two best words are Spring Lake," joy a bus ride away somewhere in Rhode Island we assumed, we didn't really know for sure. And it didn't matter. It looked like and felt like those idyllic summer places from the movies.
Perhaps, like summer itself, Spring Lake has reached mythological proportions in retrospect. Because it wasn't, and isn't, elaborate, it wasn't sophisticated or exotic, but it was summer vacation and camp combined into one contented day, and it was enough.
We would run past the little cottages, up to the lockers smelling of hot sun on coal tar. Sometimes we'd stretch out on the slated boardwalk, the heat seeping into our already tanned skin, our faces filled with thunderstruck relief. We were here, finally.
After suffering through the heated weeks, we were on vacation for a few dizzy hours. Apart from the bathhouses and lockers where we left our beach bags, getting a key on a stretch bracelet to wrap around our wrists, little outbuildings stood just back from the waterfront, one after the other. Next to the penny arcade, there was a place to buy hot French fries sprinkled with vinegar and salt. We'd take them to a picnic table to sit in wet bathing suits, these fries a 10-year-old's equivalent of a lobster dinner, their aroma better than their taste.
We liked Spring Lake for the very things it wasn't: Not seaweedy or salty, not rocky or rough with shells. The sand was hand-raked and clean, the water calm and brisk, sharper at first plunge than hail in January. Fed by cold springs, the water was icy, and the hot sun didn't do much to alter the temperature.
We'd scream from the dock and jump in - unless pushed by someone older who was then reprimanded by a lifeguard. Depending upon life that summer, it might be the only time we actually plunged into open water, or flew down the curvy slide, which was worth the exhaustingly long wait standing behind other kids, only one allowed on the ladder at a time.
Later, much later, we'd put great effort into arranging our things on a towel, stretching out on the smooth sand pretending to sunbathe. For a few minutes. There was no time to waste.
The penny arcade stood waiting, and we were allowed to enter sandy and wet to revisit the frightful clown puppets who watched our every move as distorted mirrors twisted us into odd shapes. We'd run from one game to the other - the bowling game, the boxing game, the gypsy fortune teller, the game with the steering wheel that let us pretend to operate a car, each game like the lottery we'd never win. Oh well, next time.
Too soon we'd hear the counselor's whistle. Time to wrangle with wet clothing in our own little lockers, and line up to have our names checked off. When we climbed back on the bus with a wet bathing suit wrapped in a soggy towel, summer seemed to end.
Autumn would be whispering into our water-logged ears, though the thick trees on both sides of that old road were still deep green. The quiet bus would drive us away from summer as our heads rested back with a little sadness. We knew we wouldn't be returning, though we wondered with hope if our fathers or older siblings would drive us back to Spring Lake one more time, keeping possibilities alive.
As we bounced back toward home, we knew we were headed not just to our own kitchens for supper, but also to September, school uniforms and orderly classrooms.
One year, we didn't realize we wouldn't be going back at all, that summer would mean jobs, and life beyond the little places like this tucked away everywhere, places that hopefully won't change too much, even though we do.
New little children took our places in the penny arcade, making goofy faces in a camera booth, while others shrieked happily from the waterfront.
More elaborate summers would unfold for us until the day came when our own little girls, flushed from the heat of a steaming July day, looked to us and asked: "What did you do in summer when you were a little girl?"
"You mean after we made Popsicle stick jewelry boxes, and loopy potholders and wore out the Chutes and Ladders and Candyland games?
"Well, let me tell you about Spring Lake..."
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