Those were the days

A former classmate of mine recently posted some pictures of her recent time at the shore -- Ocean City, NJ to be exact. 


One of my favorite places.


I remember as a child and into my teen years, Uncle Joe Egitto would arrive at our home at around  8 a.m. and we all would squeeze into his automobile, throw some blankets and a basket full of lunch food into the trunk.  We would always go to the boardwalk for dinner.


Our favorite beach was the 9th street area until that grew too crowded and then we went south to 21st street beach. 


No matter how cold the water was, our day at the shore was always so much fun.  Sandwiches that collected sand as the wind blew strongly enough to stir up the sand.  Kool-Aid (strawberry flavor).  A beach umbrella if we got too hot. 


Never did we get any sun tan lotion put on us -- Did they even have such a thing back then?  If we got burnt, when we got home, mom would wipe us down with Witch Hazel, which cooled us off and by the next morning our red skin was a nice shade of tan. 


Aunt Annie and Uncle Joe were so much fun.  Uncle Joe would make sure if we got into the icy water he was there to keep us afloat.  (if the water temp was 72 degrees, we thought it was warm -- and the degrees were always posted)


How did we get into the chilly water?  Well, we'd run from where our umbrella was into the water, screaming when we took those first steps into the ocean, then after a few minutes we would be acclimated to the water temperature.


Aunt Annie usually had a game with her, or she would help us with our sand castles. 


A day at the shore.  It was so much fun.  I wish I lived closer to Ocean City so I could just sit on the beach and water the younger generation have the same fun as I had as a child.


ttfn