“Kids, your mother and I have decided to rent again on Mashnee next summer, but this time for six weeks (ears a-blaze!)... unless you’d rather try summer camp? (Pause for silence ~ ha, we didn’t think so.) Ok, so it’s unanimous!!”
“Now, renting for that long is going to be quite expensive, so I’m expecting both of you to forgo allowance and get summer jobs to earn your spending money. Even little jobs, ok?”
“I know what!” I proposed immediately, “Maybe I can get some car-wash supplies and wash cars for people? Remember last summer when Uncle Ted gave me four bucks to wash his car and his neighbor came over for me to wash his? Bet I could get even more!” I was enthused.
“Ok, Jimmyrocket,” Dad agreed. “That’s not a bad idea. So I’ll sponsor your first order of car-wash supplies to get you started, and then you’re on your own. Ok, buddy, we can go into Buzzards Bay on our way down.”
“And what about you, Alison?” he asked, drawing a blank stare from my sister.
“Umm, honestly, Dad, I really hate to work. Sorry.” I nearly fell on the floor.
“I think I heard you say babysitting,” Mom interjected flatly, her tone conveying the fact that this was not a suggestion.
“OK, great, then it’s settled.” Dad got in the final word as my sister rolled her eyes.
Just like that, we were heading back!
And so we did. The year was 1966 and I was eleven. We rented for six weeks that second summer in a typical cookie-cutter cottage, this one offering bright red shutters and a slightly larger backyard, located at the top of Leeward Road right behind the rental office. Everything about that summer was great, everything about every summer was great. I couldn’t even recall what life was like before Mashnee, if you call it a life.
The following year, 1967, would be our third consecutive summer on Mashnee, and we spent eight weeks in the same cottage, since we loved the large corner lot and slight view of the ocean. Mashnee felt like home now. My home.
Each summer was as amazing as the first, maybe even better, as my familiarity with the island and our group of friends grew. It would be nothing to see groups of ten to twelve shoeless kids grouped together, maybe smoking punks or holding sparklers, while traversing the island streets, or headed to the beach, or to The Club, or wherever, it didn’t really matter. Hordes of kids just having fun.
Those first summers were a blur of constant movement and activity. My group of summer cohorts grew; my summertime favorite-things-to-do list grew, as my love affair with everything and anything Mashnee, had blossomed.
Many of the kids I met those first few summers became my best friends and constant summertime companions, sorely missed once Labor Day hit. Initial introductions may have been a little awkward, but Mashnee summer reunions were the best thing in the world! Mostly taking place at The Club, with a myriad of bear hugs, hair rubs, chest bumps, or good old-fashioned noogies added for emphasis.
Each Saturday, rental check-in day, was met with as much anticipation (along with some bittersweet sadness as it was also check-out day), as was the summer itself. It was like celebrating a brand-new summer each and every week. Who didn’t love summer? Waiting each week for the extra-special gifts of friendship and the bonding of summer comrades. The most precious gifts ever!
So many kids to meet. Most of them renters, but a few whose parents owned cottages… More envious of them, I could not be! Each kid was a character.
Rick “The Stick’’ Ginsburg, was a year older than me and about a two-feet taller. His nickname was a testament not only to his height, but his unusually long torso as well. Rick had short, wavy blond hair, and bright blue eyes that tended to squint, whether it was sunny or not, and he walked with a slightly crooked gate.
Rick was from a family of shoe workers from New Bedford, and was a street-smart kid, who took great pleasure in reminding us of that fact. He was also a bit quirky. He collected old funky hats and loved to wear them. He owned several in a variety of faded colors; each would look absolutely dreadful on anyone else, but somehow they perfectly fit his face and facial features. It was also fair fodder for our verbal onslaughts! He also played the most annoying harmonica you’ve ever heard! Just one more thing to tease him about.
But throw in knee-length, plaid shorts, and an untucked polo shirt, along with whatever stupid hat he was wearing, and a talent for cooking the best (ok, only) Kielbasa I’d ever tasted, and, well, that was The Stick.
Stick’s parents had purchased a cottage a few years earlier. Theirs was white with red shutters, making him not only the tallest, but also the most senior kid in our group. Rick was a real cool guy, loved the Rolling Stones, loved to party, loved to tell tales and enjoyed stirring a bit of trouble, or persuading others to commit miscellaneous offenses at his orchestration and personal amusement.
Rick also had an occasionally hot temper, came out of nowhere, sometimes white-hot, especially when we were occupying ourselves trying to screw with him or his damn hat. Then he would strike out with those nine-foot octopus arms, (There must have been twelve of them!) and, believe you me, you wanted no part of that! But he was usually a lot of fun. Quirky fun.
As was fairly typical for boys our age, with little to no provocation and an even lesser amount of logic, we liked to run our mouths at each other with an often colorful barrage of foul-mouthed insults, usually concluding with an exchange such as...
“Hey, Jimmyrocket?”
“Yeah, Stick?”
“Your mama sucks cream of wheat out your dog’s bee-hind,” a typical Rick reply intent upon pushing my buttons.
“Well yo’ momma stuffs, ummmm, your head right up her arse.” My retorts weren’t nearly as clever as his salvos. “Old Crotchety Man of Stickness.” Zap! Right back at ’em.
“That’s gonna cost you the back of my hand across that baby puss-face of yours, young Rocketforshit,” would spout Rick.
“Well, Sir Frankenstein (that really pissed him off!), that’s gonna cost you that stupid-looking top hat!” My attempts to snare it normally fell way short despite my desperate leaps, because he was just too damned tall, oh and ugly! Zing.
And on and on it went...
Sparring back and forth nonstop.
Day after day.
Week after week.
Month after month.
Summer after glorious summer.
Chapter 17
Knock
The year was 1968, and I was officially a teenager! Bar-mitzvahed and all.
We rented again for the entire summer (yay!). This time on Rope Walk near our cousins’ cottage; ours was weathered with navy blue shutters.
The O’Connor family was back running the snack bar; Betty was out front making floats and frappés while barking out orders and cursing inattentive newbies. Marylou was in back flipping hot dogs, burgers, and occasionally shooting middle-finger birds at people who annoyed her. Marylou’s brother Crazy Eddie was bopping around doing a little bit of everything, in between giving extra hard “noogies,” “red-hot back slaps,” and throwing us younger kids over the hedges at every conceivable opportunity. Especially me.
From the clubhouse to the pool to the beach, to crab-hunting to ping pong to softball to football, to the playground to walking and running around the island a million times a day and back again, we were always on the move and almost never home. Which was just the way we liked it.
