Forty Year Difference

In my twenties Memorial Day weekend was the start of my summer share house with my friends. After work on Friday we would all drive out to Rehoboth in the horrible holiday weekend traffic in anticipation of a great summer at the beach.

I would make the beds in my pink Marcia Brady room. Changing out the bedspreads that came with the house for prettier floral comforters. The stuffed animal prizes I had won the summer(s) before wac-a-mole were still lined up on the rafters of my room. I swear the owners of our North Shore Home must never have gone in the bedrooms that lined my side of the house because everything was just as we left it the summer before. I could have left the comforters from one summer to the next, but never did.

I would bring my beach bike and put it in the outdoor closet along with my beach chair. On weekend mornings I often would ride my bike to the blue moon bakery and get lemon blueberry danish before they sold out and bring them back to my friends who were still asleep from the night before’s activities.

Eventually people arose and we trekked out to beach, coolers, chairs and towels in tow. Never did we have an umbrella. This was the eighties. We often recognized other young people from previous summers, but as a house of ten, we were a well formed group unto ourselves. Happy to tell stories and ride waves until it was time to go back and shower and make dinner before we went out for the night. Sometimes we stayed in and sat in the hot tub that was the center of our screened-in outdoor lanai. Then we just told more stories at a louder level over the jets of the hot tub.

Oh how times have changed. Today Russ and I cleaned out the cabinet under the kitchen sink and were thrilled with that activity. We stayed home all day puttering around, eventually I showered in the late afternoon and just put on my night gown since it was four in the afternoon.

The only thing that has stayed the same in the last forty memorial days is that I did not get around to showering until the late afternoon.