I used to go to the Jersey shore every summer, starting when I was very young, and by very young I mean in utero. My mom was a stomach sleeper and the summer she was pregnant with me, Dad scored major points by digging a little hole in the sand for her swollen belly and putting a beach towel over it so she could lay face down, something she hadn't been able to do for a while.
My paternal grandparents made possible these vacations by renting a beach house. They started with one-week rentals, then two, then eventually all of July. Whoever in the family could come and join them would. People might come for a weekend, multiple weekends, a week, or if you were extra lucky, the whole month. It was a great way to spend time with the extended family. Sometimes I wonder what the statistical odds are that you can truly like all your relatives or if it's such an improbability I must be the jerk and just don't know it. Let's assume I'm not and am instead just very lucky in that department.
My grandparents also had multiple lifelong friends that would come visit, and I always enjoyed spending time with them too. I really admired that about my grandparents. They and their friends were great about keeping each other actively in their lives, for the entirety of their lives. It was unusual to go somewhere with my grandmother and not have her run into someone she knew, including when I traveled with her in Europe. Once, my grandparents, sister, and I rented a 4-person bike, one of those covered surreys, and were riding along the Ocean City boardwalk when my grandmother made us stop, stating she saw her friend's sister and wanted to go say hi. We waited and waited while they happily chatted. When she finally returned, we asked how the woman was. She replied, "Oh, it wasn't her." What was my grandmother talking to a perfect stranger about all that time?
Usually, one set of my grandparents' friends, the Dolmans, came for a few days over the 4th of July holiday. I was particularly fond of Mr. Dolman. Some adults don't interact much with you when you're a kid, but he always took time with me and was very sweet. Despite them coming for Independence Day, he didn't like the fireworks because they reminded him of the bombings he had experienced in World War II. I feel like he said he knew General Patton, and maybe even that Patton had attended the Dolman's wedding. That's a major reason why I wanted to write down some of my memories. Is it possible I knew someone who knew Patton? It's a crime I don't fully remember. I want to get these stories down before my own past further erodes. And maybe someday my nieces will wonder, did Mom and Aunt Barb survive a hurricane in 1996? And they can look at this and see, yes. Yes, they did.
That year, my grandparents, sister, and I were at the beach house and the Dolmans arrived for the weekend. Right away you could tell Mr. Dolman was not his normal good-natured self. A friend of his had just passed away and not only was he sad about the loss, he was also anxious about the upcoming funeral because he had been asked to deliver the eulogy. I can totally relate. I don't like public speaking either. At all. We all tried to boost his spirits, and my grandmother even invited six other mutual friends over for the 4th of July, thinking, the more the merrier.
Several days later, my grandparents were stunned to get a phone call informing them Mr. Dolman had died that afternoon of a heart attack. At his friend's funeral!
Mr. Dolman's funeral was later in the week and my grandparents weren't about to miss it or the opportunity to support Mrs. Dolman. My sister and I hadn't packed anything remotely funeral appropriate, so we all agreed we should stay put. We would only be left alone for about 36 hours when my grandparents traveled back to Philadelphia to attend the service. We were certainly old enough to take care of ourselves. What could go wrong? Well, I'll tell you. Hurricane Bertha.
July is an unusual time for a hurricane to hit, and doubly unusual for it to hit so hard so far north. But hit it did. We sat inside and nervously kept our eyes on the sliding glass doors which were dramatically bowing inward with the wind. You wouldn't think glass could bend so far and still stay intact. We also watched roof shingles blow off the house, which I'm sure is upsetting if you own, but is oddly fascinating when you rent. When we still had power, we watched the Weather Channel since we were only 3 houses down from the dune and we weren't sure if there would be a storm surge coming up and over and down our street. What we would've done if they'd announced that was going to happen, I have no idea, but we would've been informed. Roads were flooded from all the rain. The storm's force was best summed up by a weatherman standing on a beach south of us. He reached down and picked up a coconut from the sand. He stated the obvious, coconuts don't grow anywhere near there. Lord only knows where that blew in from.
In the end, the storm was more fascinating than scary, but I confess I did briefly wonder how tacky it would have been to wear shorts to a funeral, really.
As a new blogger, I wanted to double-check my grammar and found some free software to run this through. Not only has it not clarified for me if it should be "the Dolmans wedding" "the Doleman's wedding" or "the Dolmans' wedding" it's informed me the story is not engaging and the delivery is off. Now I'm shook, but that's it. That's the story I have to offer you today. I'll assume I'll get better with practice, and you can suffer through it without too much hardship in the meantime.
