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Riding Down Memory Lane
Rain Cloud Follows, my trusty Yamaha FJR 1300 motorcycle, needed new tires for the upcoming Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition. The closest shop I could find with both the tires and the time to change them was in Taftville, CT, a nice fifty mile ride from my house. By riding small back roads to get to the shop, I easily increased that fifty mile ride by another thirty or so.
Andy, the service manager for Center Sports quickly slipped new sneakers on Rain Cloud Follows and sent me on my way with a smile. Now, with that final expedition preparation out of the way, I found myself in my favorite of predicaments. The rest of my day was free, giving me ample time to explore, and I had brand new tires in need of a good breaking in. The clear blue skies were inviting, and the warm day begged to be fully exploited. With no destination in mind, I let the bike take me on a lazy back road tour of Western Connecticut, winding past farms, fields and forests. A few happy hours later, I found myself meandering along Route One, on the southeast coast of the Kingdom of Rhode Island, not too far from the tiny seaside town of Matunuck, Carpenter’s Beach Meadow and the beach house where I spent many a care-free childhood summers roasting on the beach, goin’ crabbin’ on the rock jetty and racing my bicycle through the dirt roads of our tiny community. I decided to stop by to see what had changed.
Long forgotten memories instantly flooded back, mostly of the ‘old gang’, including Gary Nadeau, the big kid that taught me to wheelie my Huffy, my best friend and fellow mischief-maker Kenny Vottalato, who always used to try and sneak into the Friday Night movies at the Seaview, more often than not getting caught and sent home, Margarita, the ancient lady next door that spent all day every day reading romance novels, always tearing the page out of the book immediately after she read it, portly Chipper LeClerc, who constantly complained that when we played Superfriends, my brother and I took the ‘good’ superheroes (I was always Batman, my brother Eric usually chose to be Spiderman) In protest, Chipper would choose to be Wonder Woman. And of course, unforgettable Kerri Bianca, the girl that dominated all my nine year old dreams, the goddess who, in my mind was so radiant, so incredibly beautiful, so absolutely perfect that just to look at her made my head, my heart, and other various body parts ache. Whenever Kerri was around, no matter the circumstance, I never failed to make a complete fool of myself.
As I slowly rode up and down the side streets, I found myself at the old playground, and another memory, another ghost of the past came back to me. Bill was the friendly old man that shared a trailer bordering the playground with his sister Mary. One morning, I rode my then pride and joy – my Huffy, the bicycle that came adorned with a huge Number 56 racing plate on the handlebars, the bike I won in a Cub Scouts raffle, the bike that, in an unknown act of foreshadowing, I immediately decked out with playing cards in the spokes to sound like a motorcycle, my ticket to freedom – I rode my Huffy to the playground. Bill was sitting on his porch eating breakfast, when he saw me he offered me what would turn out to be my first real job. Bill said he’d pay me a dollar to ride my bike up to Maroney’s to get him his morning paper. A dollar! Back in those days, that was a lot of money for a kid. Think of all the candy I could score! Even though I wasn’t technically allowed to ride my bike to Maroney’s all by myself, I reasoned that the payoff Bill promised was worth the risk.
It wasn’t. When my parent’s found out, they were furious, and stormed down to Bill and Mary’s trailer to give him a piece of their mind. When they met, however, a Beach Meadow friendship developed, as they often would, for, as idyllic as it may sound, there really were no strangers in Carpenter’s Beach Meadow, just friends you hadn’t met yet. Back then, the worst thing a ‘stranger’ would do is slip you an extra dollar so you could sneak up to Maroney’s and gorge on Charleston Chews and Pop Rocks until you felt sick. From then on, if I was missing, my parents knew I could most likely be found near Bill and Mary’s, running an errand or eating ‘flobby’ bacon – Mary’s specialty and Bill’s favorite meal.
The walls of our tiny cottage on Seventh Street West were nothing more than thick cardboard. Every wall was warped and buckled from the damp ocean air, the windows didn’t close all the way, and hot water was always a premium. My brother and I slept in the only room in bunk beds, my parents ‘room’ also served as the kitchen, dining room and living room. They slept on a pull-out sofa bed. We didn’t have much, but we didn’t need much. It was the best way a kid could possibly grow up, safe and secure with plenty of room, a trusty bicycle for exploring, and an entire ocean only a block away.
Days ‘down the beach’ had a soothing regularity. Wake up, tune the black-and-white TV to one of only three channels we could get in Matunuck, watch ‘The Price is Right’, eat flobby bacon with Bill and Mary, then go to the beach for a full day of swimming and sun. With our daily fill of sun and sand castles, the gang would ride our bicycles around the neighborhood until five, when MASH was on. Freshly picked ears of corn from Carpenter’s Farm always went perfectly with dinner, and most days would finally end as we fell asleep to the sound of the Point Judith foghorn wailing through the night. If it rained, we’d go into Wakefield and watch a movie and get ice cream. I remembered that in those days, my all time favorite thing to do was ride my Huffy to look at the ocean right before a big storm blew in. The anger and violence of that ocean, that same ocean I swam in almost every day, never failed to impress me.
The lazy, hazy crazy days of summer seemed to stretch on forever back then. Every day followed the same rhythm, and we had no idea how good we had it. No cell phones, no internet, no pointless interruptions, nothing but sun and fun, it was a time and place where you didn’t grow up any faster than you needed to. You could leave your door unlocked without worrying. Kids could roam free without a problem. Nothing bad ever happened, at least not that I knew about. The West Side kids would innocently taunt the other kids with our chant – ‘The West Side is the Best Side! The East Side is the Least Side!’ (Honestly, we really were better than them. Still are.) Those were the days, indeed.
Inevitably, as they always do, things started changing. Margarita passed away. The Vottalatos put their cottage up for sale. Liability issues forced the cancellation of everybody’s favorite weekend, BeerFest. One summer, my brother and I decided we’d rather stay at home with our friends, that we were ‘too old’ for the beach house. That season, somebody punched holes in our cardboard walls, broke in and stole the only valuable thing in the place, a wall clock. It became evident that times really were changing. My parents sold the tiny beach house in the beginning of the next season, which, in a stroke of excellent timing, was the season a hurricane destroyed the beach. We’d still drive to Matunuck to visit Bill and Mary from time to time, though those visits dwindled as time marched on.
Even more has changed there now, seemingly for the worse. There is a huge cement wall where our beach used to be. I stood on it and watched as that ocean I used to swim in crashed up and over it. I saw that the only ‘real’ beach remaining is a tiny patch of sand without a lifeguard. The Seaview is boarded up, the era of twenty-five cent Friday movies replaced by Blockbuster and HBO. Maroney’s is now a surf shop. The baseball field that used to host Beerfest now hosts about fifty campers, all renting their summer slice of my former stomping grounds. I rode over to Seventh Street West and was a bit saddened to see our cottage now has real wooden walls and windows that close tight. Even worse, it sports a satellite dish on the roof. The owners probably have high speed internet in there too. So sad to see.
And worst of all, Kerri Bianca was nowhere to be found.
I stopped for one last look at the old place that held so many of my great childhood memories. As I sat there enjoying those memories washing over me, a little kid came tearing down Seventh Street West on his bicycle, heading for the playground where Bill and Mary’s trailer used to be. I gave him a friendly wave as he passed, shifted my Huffy into first, slowly let out the clutch, and headed for home.
Author: frenchy
3 Responses to “Riding Down Memory Lane”
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Thanks for not telling the story about the rock…..again.
…I now realize how lucky we ALL were to spend those summer days there…your memories brought them all back to me, too…thanks for sharing that…love ya, Dad.
The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys!
What a great blog….