Of course, kids are always saying stuff like that, but they’re usually wrong.
Chapter 3
Clubhouse
The sun was still high in the early July sky, so Alison and I were definitely feeling the heat as we helped unpack the car. Suffice it to say my mom had seriously over packed for a one-month vacation, but the gnawing impulse to bring the matter to my dad’s attention was met with a menacing death-stare, forever dubbed “Dad Eyes,” accompanied by an exaggerated silence, having the desired effect of shutting us up. So yeah, we quit complaining.
While we were STILL settling in and fighting over beds (They were identical.) there was a rat-a-tat-tat knock on the screen door, which bounced open in its ill-fitting frame. It was my aunt, uncle, and two favorite cousins there to greet us with massive hugs and high fives all around. (Fine by me, our cousins Lauren and Laura were older and totally cool.)
The girls quickly grabbed Alison and I by our more-than-willing arms, and promptly dragged us outside. The wobbly screen door with its thin wood frame slammed shut behind us, clipping Alison’s heel on the way out.
“Hey, guys? Let’s get out of here!” suggested Laura.
“Yeah, we need to show you the clubhouse. It’s where everything is and where everyone hangs out. There’s all kinds of stuff there. We call it ‘The Club.’ It’s really cool!” added Lauren, my pretty, older, jewelry-making, hippie cousin, who was quite familiar with cool.
So off we went, walking down the middle of several small streets, then cutting through a few backyards, with my cousins waving to seemingly familiar faces, who waved back with matched jubilance.
My favorite part of Mashnee was yet to come!
We actually heard it before we saw it; the unmistakable sounds of summer fun! Loud excitable voices and laughter joyously released into the saltwater-scented air, set adrift like hot-air balloons floating toward meteorological destinations unknown. You could feel the precipitous energy building with every step.
And then, there it was. Appearing before us like a Phoenix rising out of the sea, was a vision I would never forget. Not just a singular clubhouse (aka The Club) as I had imagined, but an entire activity center sprawled over a large parcel of land abutting the ocean. With e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g imaginable.
My senses were sparkling as I attempted to digest the kaleidoscopic scene.
The clubhouse was the hub of activity. A large two-level wooden structure. The board and batten siding on the building had been finished with an overly thick coat of cedar stain, resulting in a more or less rusty-colored building exterior. Nevertheless, cheerful, white-edged, royal blue awnings went well with the color, and the canvas flapped loudly in the offshore breeze. A long staircase led up to the entrance.
The Club included a snack bar outfitted with three perpetually busy pinball machines. Youngsters would eagerly ante-up their dimes and quarters to claim “next” in a game room which served double duty. In addition to the pinball machines, there was a jukebox just across the room, and all kinds of “specially priced” water floats tacked to the walls. The snack bar with its long linoleum counter and six or seven round plastic stools lay straight ahead.
Just a few steps upward, that area of the clubhouse flowed seamlessly into the Boat ’n Bottle Bar, adorned with knotty-pine paneling. Numerous “For Adult Members Only” signs were prominently displayed throughout that section (OK, fine, we get it!).
Downstairs offered a game room with two well-worn ping-pong tables, their frayed edges reminiscent of discarded shark’s teeth. The tables would be set up for play during daylight hours then folded up to make room for family activities during evening hours. We would spend a million hours in this room, perhaps two million.
Outside and adjacent to The Club was a large and inviting in-ground saltwater swimming pool, with a bright ocean-blue bottom and a diving board.
Naturally there were rules and procedures to follow and there were lifeguards who took their jobs seriously. Which apparently led to the abundance of cautionary signage, made from wood and hanging just about everywhere. We would learn firsthand about the penalties handed out for not obeying each and everyone of these warnings.
Topping the list of cardinal sins were:
NO RUNNING!! NO JUMPING!! NO PUSHING!!
NO SHOVING!! and absolutely NO CANNONBALLING!!
There were more rules, of course. But the rule for which I’d gain local fame for repeatedly breaking happened to have been seen by one of the writers for the Bourne Town Gazette. He’d been having a drink in the bar at the time, overlooking the pool, and thought it might make a fine human-interest story, about the young boy with long hair below, who got repeatedly yelled at for not wearing a bathing cap. A mandate he was clearly never going to heed.
What he had witnessed was one of my many confrontations with the notoriously ill-tempered and oft confrontational owner of Mashnee Village, Mr. Reginald G. Knight Sr., over his personally enforced rule, which seemed specifically directed at me:
NO LONG HAIR ALLOWED IN THE POOL
WITHOUT A BATHING CAP!
Killjoys.
About the pool.
Upon entering, aspiring pool-goers would immediately be met by the attending lifeguard, and depending upon the time of day, it might either be Pete Jones and his perpetually spinning whistle, the always horsing around Crazy Eddie O’Connor, or the all-American-stick-to-the-rules-no-nonsense, except-for-every-once-in-a-while-they’d-throw-you-in-the-pool brothers, Darren and “Buddy” Billings, whom we nicknamed “The Enforcers.” All the lifeguards were required to collect the pool goers’ 4 x 6 cardboard pool cards upon entering and deposit them into their corresponding slot in the “Pool Attendance & Check-In Board,” which hung on the wall over the lifeguard’s chair.
The renters would be assigned yellow index cards with their cottage number handwritten across the top in thick, sometimes streaked, black marker. Green cards were assigned to owners with their last name and first initial marked across the top. Each card went in the appropriate slots to list all authorized users, making for further cutting-edge security.
The huge pool gradually sloped from a shallow end within easy reach of the concrete stairs, to the roped-off deep end (nine feet at the deepest level) which was equipped with a metal ladder and a four-foot-high diving board (Remember fellas, “No Cannonballs!”).
The pool was always a center of noise and commotion, added to which was the intermittent high-pitched whistle of reprimand from the lifeguards, along with corresponding shouting.
On the far side of the pool and patio area (the side nearest the beach) there was a wide grassy area separated from the beach by fast-growing hedges of schipka cherry laurel. We often jumped over the plants (or were more often tossed over the hedge, by the older kids) in our quest to reach a short, paved path which led to the soft, sandy beach just a few glorious steps beyond.
Colorful chaise lounges, in all their pastel glory, sat together on the beach, chained to small posts in the sand to keep them from being blown away. Every chair seemed to have a bright, cherry umbrella attached. The warm, salty waters of the sea offered a roped-off swimming section complete with three orange, heavier-than-hell floating rafts, each chained for all eternity to the ocean floor below.
In summers to come, one of our favorite pastimes would be getting enough kids on one end of the float to tip, and eventually flip it. (Mind you, it probably weighed 200 pounds and it was anchored to the ocean floor by a heavy rusty chain.) The basic goal of the exercise was blatantly simple: “Don’t get hit on the head and die.” It was great fun. We didn’t die. ’Nuff said.
The beach itself was bordered by a small jetty of ocean-fatigued rocks extending out thirty or forty yards at low tide, far fewer at high. This cluster made for prime horseshoe crab catching at high tide, then turning over rocks to expose desperately fleeing fiddler crabs once the tide went out. Deep gashes to feet and fingertips notwithstanding, to the victor go the spoils!
Directly to the beachgoers’ right was a short concrete footpath, with knotted roping on the sides, leading to a platform then down a steep flight of temporary stairs (painted fresh yellow by the lifeguards every summer!) which led to the pier and boat dock below.
