Bungalow Style

I'm writing this as I wait for the Comcast guy to come to my "shore" house (actually my mom's retirement village house which we decided not to sell). 


Since we use the house primarily in the summer, it's time to upgrade the cable and internet services. Or is it? 


As I relax in this quiet house, sitting on the enclosed back porch, I recall my own summers growing up at the shore. When school let out in June, we headed south for my grandmother's bungalow and spent lazy, happy days there until mid August. 


Everything was "bungalow style": meals served directly from the pot to minimize dishes; house designed to maximize the number of sleepers it could accommodate, with a pullout in the main room and the occasional cot on the porch. Mornings were relaxed and meant sleeping-in, a hearty breakfast, some chores, such as sweeping the rooms for the sand that inevitably got tracked in or walking down to Julian's Market for milk. We were always excited to see the Dugan Brothers Bakery truck parked at the end of the court of bungalows and hear the man yell  "Dugan--Baker--Breadman," as he walked the rows, toting his baked goods from house to house. My favorite were the chocolate cupcakes, topped with a generous slab of perfectly flat icing. The challenge was to get a bite of both frosting and cake without tipping the frosting plank and dislodging it from the rest of the cake. Too much sugar? Too many calories? No one seemed to notice.


Every day was a beach day, starting around noon. Yes, I believe that's the peak sunburn time and we had our share. Coppertone was the only suntan lotion I remember and it probably had 0 spf. You could coat your nose with white zinc oxide, like the life guards used, which blocked out everything, including any fashion sense which became critical as I approached adolescence. 


Bungalow style also included these rules: no TV, no phone. Part of vacation was getting away from it all and even when I was in college, we were still without a phone. You walked to the corner phone booth with a pocketful of change. Were people really that out of contact?  


Not having a TV did not bother me as much, as the number of TV stations was limited and summer meant reruns. As kids we would play hide and seek and run around outside or play cards or games, with the occasional treat of going on the rides at the boardwalk. In the teen years, walking the boardwalk and hanging out by the juke box was a nightly ritual. Less this sound too idyllic, I will point out that sometimes you got stuck just sitting on the rockers on the porch, listening to the relatives talk and tell the same stories over and over and over..... I retreated to the only chair with a decent reading lamp and gladly abandoned the old timers for the pleasure of a good book.


So what does vacation really mean? Are we "getting away from it all" when we bring all our technology toys with us?  Do we need to be on the grid, instantly available, still on the 24-7 clock? Or should vacation be like running away to an exotic location, a desert island, a different world, even if we're still in NJ?


A part of me still remembers the simplicity of a summer spent with nothing much to do but hang out and enjoy the beach, get sand in your shoes and accumulate stories to tell the friends back home. 


Hope all of you have a great summer and find time to just "be".  (...and yes--- to my family: we have wi-fi and 70 channels, so it's safe to come on down.)