Down the Shore

By Adam Brownstein

“How’re we doing, Frank?  Getting close???”

“Nearly there, Mrs. B.  Just need to fenaggle a bit down below.  You’re almost there.”

“OK.  Not sure how much longer we can hold on.”

The exchange between my mother and Frank, the Doorman of 2727 Palisade Avenue, occurred during a sweltering August morning in 1975.  The parlance may have indicated that my mom was birthing another child and that Frank was the obstetrician.  In reality Frank was helping to stuff the last pieces of luggage and a thrift shop high chair (for my two-year-old brother, Todd) into our tan Oldsmobile Cutlass. Our annual pilgrimage to Cape Cod, like most holidays, inculcated an age-old need to “bring everything”.  

“Alright, Mr. and Mrs. B! You’re all set!” Frank gleefully exclaimed, beads of sweat flowing freely from his bellman’s cap.  “Have a great vacation, and see you in September!”

The Cutlass now packed to the gills with what all of our worldly possessions, eased out of the circular driveway.  We lumbered north on the Henry Hudson Parkway, merging with the incessant summer traffic of I-95 before breaking free at the Sagamore Bridge.  Crossing over the Cape Cod Canal I gazed out the port side window at something called the Christmas Tree Shoppe, a visual mainstay that I, as a young Member of the Tribe, was forbidden to enter.  

As we drifted East on the Mid-Cape Highway my eyes scanned for traces of sand that lined its soft shoulders.  Near the Barnstable Exit I caught my first glimpse of it, brown and thin and wondrous.  A portent of things to come . . .  sandcastles to build . . .  grains to be washed from our feat with bars of Irish Spring in the outdoor shower.

Passing Hyannis and Exit 5, my mother beckoned me to wave hello to Rose Kennedy, who no doubt sensed the presence of another dynastic family while sipping tea in her shoreline compound.  My mom always admired the Kennedy clan for setting up shop on pedestrian Cape Cod rather than the hoity-toity Vineyard.  

“It’s Rose’s way of keeping in touch with the People, Adam,” she imparted.  “Remember that.”

Veering south on Exit 9 (now renamed to Exit 82 to denote the distance from the Rhode Island border), we made a brief stop at the none-descript vacation rental office.  I guess it was none-descript because Todd and I always remained in the sauna-like Cutlass while my dad quickly picked up the keys.  The inside of this ancient brick-and-mortar predecessor to Air BnB would forever be a mystery to me.

We then made the drive on Lower County Road to our beach cottage.  We rarely stayed in the same rental more than one summer, but these shantys always adhered to certain requirements that my parents laid down.  

Firstly, these were no beach-side estates.  The spots my parents chose were modest bungalows typically a ten minute walk from the public beaches of Harwich Port.  Schlepping our Kadima sets, sandcastle pails, Igloo coolers and beach chairs for our parents made it feel a lot longer than half a mile.  Such are the miscalculations of a child.   

Next, the design sensibility of the cottage was always greyed-out cedar shake shingles on the outside and ungapatchka on the inside.  My parents favored the odd mix of nautical buoys, lace doilies and shot glasses with expressions like “I can’t remember buying this in Amsterdam.”   Most of the owners of the rentals were Irish Catholic, so sometimes we encountered a countenance of Jesus in the hallway or over the bar in other spots.

“Just remember, he was a nice Jewish boy,” my mom advised me.

An assortment of board games added a measure of cheer as well as a nod to the pragmatic; it seemed to rain non stop one week out of four during our vacations, and a spirited game of Trivial Pursuit made us almost wish for inclement weather.  Outdoor showers were a must, yielding an intoxicating mix of salt sea air, Prell and Irish Spring. 

Location was also important.  Beyond being a short walk to the beach, it was key to be within striking distance to Bonatt’s Bakery (home of the 1,200 calorie melt-o-way pastry), Thompson’s Clam Bar, Kreme & Kone (the best clam belly rolls around), Clancy’s Irish Pub (which I have referenced previously about my Dear Uncle Bern in this space)  and The Port Cinema Movie Theater.  The latter ran “Jaws” during the entire summer of 1975, causing me to be weary of entering the bathtub much less Nantucket Sound.

As I grew older the rentals got swankier, and one year our family actually built a house on the Cape.  Still close to all of the choice spots, but this time we were beachside.  After I graduated from college, the afternoon matinees and penny candy store pilgrimages gave way to more substantive memories.  I learned to appreciate long walks on the beach, and the best ones were with my stepmom, Linda.  I had a lot on my mind back in those days, and she always enjoyed helping me to try to unpack it.  They say that when you blend families together the art of listening helps to forge real bridges.  Back in those later days the simple pleasure of having a cold Molson Golden lager with my dad felt even better out of the deck with the wind whipping up from the Sound.  It was a time to slow down and ponder the future.

When I left the U.S. in 2014, I wondered if I would ever find a breezy summer vibe quite like the Cape.   Strangely enough, I sort of found a solution. It started about a year ago during a Sunday supper at my in-laws house.  Something caught my eye amidst the dishes of fresh watercress, yuzu-drizzled hotatte, potato salad and tallboys of frosty Asahi Super Dry.   It was a color pamphlet that unfolded Ricky Roma style to reveal epic ocean sunsets, a beckoning hotspring and a well maintained tennis court.

“Sorewa nani?” I inquired to my father-in-law, Takashi.

“Ah, it’s a condo we are thinking about buying in Chiba,” he replied.  “Really nice place!  Wouldn’t it be good to go to the beach together???”

Over the years I have developed the habit of instantly looking at my mother-in-law, Emiko, whenever my father-in-law sprung one of his ideas loose over dinner.  While there was a lot of eye-rolling over the times he chose to buy a small truck and a cowboy belt, on this occasion she nodded in approval.  It was a not-so-subtle tell that made me dig around for my swim trunks and Vuarnet cat eyes in giddy anticipation.

The year went by swiftly, and sure enough, my in-laws got their spot down the shore.  Rumor has it the previous owners of their unit were major minor rock stars during the Bubble. For O-bon this week my wife and our three-year-old son loaded up the car and headed east across Tokyo Bay on the Aqua Line for our inaugural summer visit to “South Shore Rally”.  The official moniker of the apartment building is Avail Shirohama, but now that we were the landed gentry of a 700 square foot seaside palace, it was apropo to give it a name with a bit of pluck and provenance. 

Arriving late after a long work day, we began with the ritual of unloading the car and traipsing through the lobby with our luggage and beach floaties.  I felt instantaneously at home when I was confronted by an enormous medallion emblazoned with the ferocious image of some kind of sun deity.  Later on during the trip I was informed by the condo staff that the original architect wanted to convey a sentiment of great power mixed with hospitality to the denizens therein.  The aesthetic totally worked, bringing me back to an encounter I had with an enormous blue dolphin in the lobby of . . .  wait for it . . . The Blue Dolphin Inn on Cape Cod.  

Entering my in-laws’ condo transported me with Proust-like speed to my happy childhood.  The bright and cheerful flat was adorned with an abundance of tchotchkes. Branded champagne flutes of different sizes mixed in with framed photos of six precocious grandchildren and the statuette of a very proud owl.  On the wall above a quaint library of Japanese and English paperbacks was a full cut out cover of Paul Simon’s less-than-epic “Born at the Right Time” studio album.  Above that was a framed poster featuring a WASPy old guy in khakis with the saying “You don’t stop playing golf when you get old.  You get old when you stop playing golf.”

As I dozed off to sleep on the tatami room floor, the gentle cadence of the Pacific hummed in and out like an echo of days gone by.

Our first full day at South Shore Rally imparted more rituals in the familiar.  After several decades I found myself once again schlepping beach balls, folding cheers and Igloo coolers on the short but painful walk to the beach.  

When we arrived at the beach we greeted by sinewy and sun-drenched lifeguards who kindly advised my admiring wife that there were gusty winds to be expected and to be careful.  I tried to draw her attention to my brawny effort to carry all of our beach gear but she was not having it.  Her look of disappointment in seeing me after the lifeguard posse was akin to watching someone glance tenderly at the meat cart at Peter Lugers only to be tragically transported to the “old cuts” freezer section at Costco. 

Once we set up our basecamp tarp on the beach, my inner three-year-old was unleashed, wading at the water’s edge, catching hermit crabs and scanning the horizon for an incoming ice cream truck.  And so too was my more current 52-year-old child, taking cat naps between heady chapters of Daniel Kahneman’s latest master work, “Noise”. 

The trip down memory lane continued late in the afternoon when I invited myself to join my wife and mother-in-law to visit the storied Chikura Seafood Market.  Just like George’s Fish Monger in West Harwich, MA the place was a Mecca of treif, and we made our pilgrimage count hauling in a dozen hamaguri giant clams and two flats of tender ika fished from the Sea of Japan.

That night our family engaged in the tradition of my father-in-law and I attempting to start the barbecue only to have my wife, a closeted pyromaniac, take over to save the day.  With the coals now burning hot, we settled in for a leisurely evening of noshing and talking.  Hearing the banter of my wife, son and machatunim mixed with sound of the waves and the summer breeze filled me with a sense of what the Germans call ​​glückundwunderameer which loosely translates to “the profound pleasure and whimsy of being next to the ocean.”  

Ray Dalio has his “principles” for figuring out things like multi-century geopolitical cycles and “The Changing World Order”.  And I have my principles for the beach. Local seafood.  Cold drinks. Colder ice cream.  Heady non-fiction and junky spy novels. Uno and Scrabble. Fishmongers and convenience stores close at hand.  Ungapatchka decor for sure.

Most of all, life down the shore offers us a chance to connect with those that we love and cherish.  We share stories with one and other.  We laugh and cry together.  We take in the sunrises and sunsets together, not saying a anything, but feeling everything. 

I’m guessing this sanguine seaside vibe has something to do with evolution.  About 370 million years ago our fishy ancestors began to crawl out of the primordial ooze and onto the shores of a beach not unlike South Shore Rally.  Somehow being close to that juncture helps us to stop, slow down and connect.  

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This post is dedicated to my late uncle, Richard Osney, who passed away this summer.  I wish I could have connected with him a little more.