Back in the Day with My Girlfriends

Lor, Maur & I dug our feet in the sand and stayed until the clock struck 7.

Bike on Main Avenue. 

Don't they both look wonderful? And until I see a photo,
I never realize I'm a head taller than they are.

Lorraine, Moey and I have been trying to get together since the last time we saw each other....several months ago. But this time, we all cleared our calendars and had a full day on the beach in Ocean Grove.

I used to live in that small seaside town--from age 25 to 30, when I moved and married H. As a young woman, I dreamed of living by the ocean but loved working in the NYC magazine world--so decided to get an apartment on the Jersey Shore and commute to Penn Station.

My rent, for a nice one-bedroom in a house converted into 5 apartments, was $425 a month. My monthly NJ Transit rail pass was about $150, if I remember correctly. I commuted from the nearest train station in Asbury Park, about a 15-minute walk from my apartment. The train ride was about 1 hour and 40 minutes; my commute was around 2 hours door to door.

My boyfriend at the time joked that the town was known as "Ocean Grave," because it was quiet, dry, religious [Methodist Camp Meeting Association, which was foreign to me] and had a lot of older residents. I didn't care. My Dad drove with me to look at the apartment after I found an ad in the newspaper. I loved it. I baked, listened to the John Denver cassettes my brother Will had bought me, had my friends and Sis come visit a lot. Within a year, I met H. [in New York] and then he loved to visit. We biked on the boardwalk, cooked Sunday dinners, walked to the beach.

We've been married nearly 25 years, and Ocean Grove is really different now. Its gingerbread architecture is spruced up and painted. Perky flowers are everywhere. Main Avenue is lined with cute shops--a stylish cheese place, bakery, Victorian store. The boardwalk is smooth, not splintery. And it costs just $8 to get on the beach.

Yesterday's fun list:

1. We met by noon. Staked our chairs in the sand, walked over to Nagles [the old apothecary, now cafe and ice cream place] for lunch. We love to chitchat, that's for darn sure. And old friends like this, we remember each other's parents, houses, lives....what we had and had not.
2. Back on the beach, we did what we wanted. Moey sat and rested under the umbrella she rented. Lorraine and I stood in the surf--it was clean and clear, not too cold, full of swimmers. One guy, around our age, tanned and kind of cute, kept riding the huge waves in and washing up by our feet. All three of us were cracking up. You have to do it, he said, laughing. Later, I wished I had struck up a conversation with him. Lorraine deserves a good man. I hadn't realized he may have been her type.
3. I took the plunge. It felt so good! For all the times I've been to the seashore this summer, this is the first time I swam in the ocean. [At the Cape, I swam in the pond.] The waves were BIGGGGG. I went far enough out so I could rise with them and they crashed after they passed me. But sometimes they came so fast, one after another, that I had no choice but to duck under the foamy crest--and get clobbered, to use Dad's word. Neptune brashly stole one of my bobby pins.
4. We sat and talked in the sand. About Saint Mary's, our teachers, our high school friends and high school crushes. About our parents--mine are both gone; Lorraine's wonderful mom is still in Lor's childhood home but sadly, she has dementia; and Moey's parents [who will forever seem young to me] both still live in the Dumont house she grew up in. We talked about our kids, our siblings, TV shows, college, Facebook, books, movies, memories. We noticed the beautiful clouds and the true blue sky. The old fishing pier was to our right. We talked about the cars that are supposed to drive themselves, and about reclining movie theater seats. We laughed and laughed as the sun backed off. L & M both look so beautiful and young to me. I am so glad they are still here, still in my life.
5. Pizza and a scoop. At 7, we reluctantly packed up and left the beach. We drove past my apartment to check it out. Then we had small individual pizzas at the Pizza Shoppe and ice cream, ordered from the girl at the window at Nagles. I had some special flavor--campfire something, with peanut butter ice cream, marshmallow, graham crackers--and it was excellent. Maureen had what she has always had since we were girls, wherever we went--pale green chocolate chip mint. 

Beach-day tired, Moey & I said goodbye to Lorraine, who had to drive 45 minutes west to get home. It was an hour north to my house and another 30 minutes to Moey's.

Good times. Good, breathe-in-the-air, bask-in-the-sun, never feel alone again good times. We might try for a day in September.

Hope your Friday is nice.