With hub and without

Beginning in the waning years of the sixties when I was not yet in my teens our family vacationed at Hampton Beach, NH, each summer during the last two weeks of August. The first few years we stayed at a three bedroom cottage painted a milky yellow. It was named The Kay. My grandmother, Nana, who was the hub of our extended clan spent the entire two weeks with us. My aunts and Uncles who lived relatively close by in Lowell, Mass, visited us nearly every day. They did so with my cousins in tow. We had a grand time and I knew what it meant to be happy and carefree. I didn't even mind my sunburn which I got nearly every year within the first couple of days of hitting the beach. It meant I got to hang out with Nana who confessed to me that I was her favorite. She would slip me thick white peppermints and dollar bills for the penny arcades and tell me all about the joys of growing up. She would confide in me until the worst of my sunburn had passed and I was once again able to return to my family's blankets just beyond the sandy dunes.

Each morning we'd spread out those blankets and beach chairs on our spot in the sand. It lacked only an X to mark it. The adults would slather up with sunscreen and oils redolent in coconut and sun themselves. They would make idle chatter and reposition their chairs to the changing arc of the sun. My cousins and I meanwhile would play with our toys in the sand. We would do so until the heat of the day forced us to brave the waves with frigid temperatures that seemed to indicate that they came directly from the Arctic circle. We would body surf and splash each other with chattering teeth as we waited for the next big wave to take us into shore.

Lunch time back at the cottage was orchestrated by Nana. It was a good humored and chaotic affair of cold-cuts, chips, pickles, and soda which my cousins called pop. We'd eat until sated and then lounge around on the porch and play with our dog Toto until once again heading back to the beach.

Our second summer at Hampton Beach I fell achingly in love with the teenage daughter of one of my mother's friends from childhood. I was smitten with a dry throat and a throbbing chest in the immediate moments of seeing her. So moved was I I gave up my army men as a show that I too was all grown up. As fate would have it one night she was a babysitter for us kids while the adults went out on the town. I was so overwhelmed by my feelings for her I stayed in my room breathing erratically and too afraid to venture into the room where she sat doing what ever it was that big girls do. I stared at my door willing her to come to me. I did so unsuccessfully into the late hours of the evening.

My father took Toto for a run on the beach each morning. And on Saturdays and Sundays he would bring home donuts from Sullivan's Donuts. You had to get there early our father told us. A line started forming before it even opened, this donut shop that was run by old man Sullivan and his two daughters who were both nuns. Whether it was due to the nuns or not we were all in agreement, as corny as it sounded, Sullivan's donuts were heavenly.

Every four years the Olympics coincided with our vacations. In Sixty-Eight we huddled around the small black and white television and listened to my father rail about the embarrassment to our country as three black American athletes lowered their heads and raised their black gloved fists in a show of black power. Four years later Munich saw us stunned and dumbfounded by a world gone horrifically awry. Then there was Olga and Nadia and unheard of perfect tens. And we were moved by their sprite spirits into believing that the world was not so bad after all.

The summer I was thirteen we moved from The Kay to stay at a larger cottage, 5 P street, rear. It was then that I investigated what it was that adults saw in drinking. Taking an empty quart size soda bottle I filled it with generous pours of gin, whisky, rum, and scotch. Booze was booze after all. With a liberal addition of cola to the mix I drank the God awful beverage down. I was not a pleasant drunk. I was quite obnoxious. Within no time at all I was down town standing at a second floor railing and spitting on the crowds passing below. Then I weaved into a penny arcade spitting on pinball machines. The proprietor caught me by the collar. He told to stand where I was while he went for a rag. The moment he was gone I was out the door. I ran in loping and stumbling steps for 5 P street, rear. I got home tottering and said I was going to bed and went upstairs. When my head hit the pillow the room began to spin. I raised the screen of my bedroom window and stuck my head out. My father who was directly below me washing dishes watched as my vomit hit the kitchen window that was opened horizontally.

In the spring of the year I was sixteen Nana was stricken with cancer. She did not tell us however when she found out. She waited until after the last two weeks of August. She withheld the news because she did not want to ruin the vacation for everyone.

There was a void after her departure, one that none of us could fill. We still had fun, gathered and jostled one another around the cold-cuts and chips, got sunburned, and tracked in sand from outside. But Nana was gone and you could feel the emptiness. There was no longer a hub and the course of our lives seemed not as true. We continued on for several years. But then my siblings and I reached the age of majority and vacationing with our parents lost its charm. We begged off joining them.

Then some twenty years later with a sepia toned glance at our days at The Kay I rallied my family around the notion that the chance of us all vacationing together might not come again. We booked a condo for seven days. The weather was questionable through out the week with rain, scattered sun, and blustery wind. There were tensions too between us. The family fabric that had frayed over the years through private demons and miscommunications seemed ready to tear completely apart. At week's end the best I could say about the vacation was that we got through it. The afternoon following that trying week I went for a run and ruminated over all that went wrong. At the end of my run I sat on a bench and bursted into tears. That winter my mother died. The ensuing years would find me pining for those early days at Hampton Beach and The Kay when I was still innocent and wished as I told Nana more than once that our vacation could go on and on forever.