July 4TH week in a beachfront town is always the most crowded week of the year. This little burgh I’m in has an off-season population of roughly thirty-thousand. But this week, and peak weeks in August, they somehow manage to shoe horn over three hundred thousand into town. Makes getting around much more difficult, especially since there is only one main road going through town.
We were rather fortunate forty-five years ago to grab up a small lot with location, as getting out to the major highway this week makes every trip a nightmare. The usual twenty minute drive off-island to the golf course can take an hour on the July 4TH Holiday week. Our place is strategically located so that we can walk to multiple bars, the super market, and restaurants.
So last night, to get out of the house for a change, we took a five block walk to a sprawling Bayfront bar for a cocktail, and to watch the sun set over the expansive bay.
Wandering across the completely filled parking lot, and threading your way through the crowd at the hostess stand, you’d think there wasn’t a problem in the world with the economy. Some tourists were dressed to the nines as they say, their sunburned red skin glowing in a nice dress, or crisp white pants and polo. Tourists here for the week, and enjoying one of their vacation nights out to dinner.
Others looked as if they’d just thrown on the dirtiest Tee shirt from the pile, and pulled on a pair of cargo shorts. This particular Bayfront establishment built a big kiddie park inside, with slides, and other kiddie diversions. So the place attracts families.
As we meandered through those waiting for a table to dine, we tried not to trip on children running under foot, or bumping into parents stopping on a dime to peer into their iPhones. When we found the first Tiki hut bar it was chaos. We waited about ten minutes to try to flag down a bartender, but it was madness.
So we left the sand filled outdoor portion of the restaurant and headed into one of the bars inside. We were fortunate, there was a chair available, and ample space adjacent for me to stand. We ordered a cocktail and beer. Since I wasn’t sure we’d stay there inside, or wander back out to one of the Adirondack chairs overlooking the bay, where you could watch the beautiful sunset, I paid for the round upon arrival. With the requisite twenty percent tip, actually just a bit more, the bill rounded nicely to a cool twenty-five dollars.
I looked around. Families waited patiently for a table. Children darting about. The place was full, and sunburnt tourists down for the big Holiday week took selfies and group photos with the expansive bay and setting sun in the background. My wife was asked to take family photos and obliged. Everyone seemed carefree, happy, joyous even, out on a beautifully warm evening, with the sun setting in a clear blue sky.
After another round a chair opened up, and I was able to sit. A dozen oysters called my name, and the wife decided an appetizer would do, in lieu of dinner. So after a second twenty-five dollar round we had a seventy dollar round with a dozen raw oysters and an app.
I tried to look at faces, especially when the check was presented, and they bent to sign the bill. No one flinched. I saw no shock and awe over the price presented. Perhaps the many tourists out and about on vacation had budgeted for their week, and they were going to enjoy themselves no matter what.
I heard no talk of our President and his dementia. I heard laughter, and conviviality. There was not a mention of the economy, no one seem fazed by prices, the economy, no one seemed worried at all.
I was amused as a server kept coming in, and filling small pitchers with sprite, and then pouring in grenadine, making pitchers of “Shirley Temples”. I asked him about that, amazed that they’d need to serve “Shirley Temples” by the pitcher. When the patron next to me said “didn’t you see the kiddie park out front”? I had seen it, this wasn’t my first visit to the place, but I didn’t realize their “love” of children had extended to offering kiddie drinks by the pitcher. The server dropped a handful of maraschino cherries on top and raced away, clutching three pitchers at a time.
Perhaps a beach town during July 4TH week is not the place to gage the sentiment of the nation. Or even to determine whether or not inflation is raging and devastating families. People tend to splurge on vacation. Even if they are living on credit line dollars. At twenty-one percent interest. They’ve looked forward to this week all year, and are going to just suck-it-up and pay the freight.
It was smiles and happiness all around.
I guess I’m just old, and having to adjust to a twenty five dollar round of two drinks is a new paradigm I’ll have to get used to. Though, for the life of me, I can’t imagine that everyone can afford to get out and enjoy themselves regularly at those prices. A night out that eats a quarter of your take-home weekly pay seems to me to be unaffordable.
But apparently I’m just old and out-of-touch.
These days I wake up this time of year and I’m just amazed that another 4TH of July is gone past. For me, Memorial Day, the 4TH, and Labor Day mark the season. The calendar may say Summer starts on June 21ST, but for me it has always been Memorial Day. With a trek and stay at the seaside town for the season. The 4TH a middling point, with the feeling that half the Summer is gone, and worries that the second half will go even more quickly than did the first half.
The dog days of August will be upon us soon, with unrelenting heat. And those days of a cooling June breeze that felt like nature’s own air conditioning will feel like a distant memory. Then Labor Day and back-to-school. Another season passed.
When July 4TH slips past so quickly it gives pause to consider just how fast these seasons go, and are going. They definitely move faster as you age.
A close friend of my wife’s is facing health problems, pretty severe health problems. She may be on her last of the Summer seasons. My heart hopes not, my head says otherwise. She is a wonderful woman with a beautiful family, I’m not sure her age but perhaps seventy. Seventy used to sound “old”, but now that it is a whisper away it feels like middle aged.
Maybe that night out was good in more ways than one.
Instead of waking and railing about how we are now rudderless as a nation, how the Deep State has delivered us a demented President, how they’ve wrecked our economy and run a lousy cocktail and beer to twenty-five dollars, maybe it is time to step back, slow down, and not rush this beautiful season.
Soon the corn will be as high-as-an-elephant’s-eye, and the tomatoes will be in season. The last of the cantaloupe will still be around, and soft crabs will be plentiful. And I just thought about it, there is some leftover Rita’s Delight cake in the fridge, that would make a nice breakfast. Especially while the wife is off walking the pups, and I don’t have to hear that cake for breakfast is a bad choice.
Time to stop being a cranky ass old man wailing about politics, and enjoying Summer.
At least until tomorrow.
nice change. I like your range. You should sing the praises of more things, people and events. Did you read the Douglas Murray at the Free Press today? Eulogy for Viviane Leigh. Kind, gentle, eloquent and beautiful. These go together.
This 4th of July I wound up in the ER. It wasn’t the first time I had an injury on a 4th of July. Last time lead to a pin in my finger and 20 stitches. This time, ruptured eardrum. Oh well.
It’s nice to have a break from politics and the whack-a-mole action of polemical partisanship. Smell the roses, take in the bigger picture of life’s sprawling vista of panoramic beauty. Good piece, Michael.