Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes
Best Days: A day at the beach
Best Days: A day at the beach
My mother, grandmother and I sometimes liked to go to the beach on weekdays when the rest of the world was at work. My grandmother would come
downtown to our small apartment the night before. I loved those evenings and nights before the trips to Riis Beach on Long Island. They were like holidays that
we had proclaimed.
After talking about life in Barbados — once home to my grandmother and my mother — the conversation shifted to preparing the food for the next day’s
beach outing. If store-bought chicken was finger-licking good, then the chicken my grandmother and mother cooked was elbow-licking good. Then there were
deviled eggs made with just the right amount of mayonnaise and a dusting of paprika; potato salad; cod fish cakes; coconut bread or sometimes one of my
grandmother’s special marble pound cakes. My mother and grandmother would make hot coffee with milk and sugar and pour the mixture into a tall, skinny
thermos. Those were the days when thermoses were lined with delicate glass as thin as Christmas tree ornaments.
Then morning arrived after a fitful night of pretending to sleep with the smells of chicken, coffee and home-made cake walking through the little apartment like
real people. Aromatic apparitions that did not disappear with the advent of a new day. My grandmother and my mother would arrange the food in baskets and
there were always things that I had not seen prepared the night before. Like the big, round, green thermos that was surely older than I was. The thermos that kept
cold things cold, like Welch’s grape juice with just the right amount of water added because the stuff was too expensive to drink straight. Then the ice cubes, a
little sugar and fresh lemon wedges.
And we somehow got it all to bus that stopped on Avenue D. and 10th Street at the edge of the projects and right across the street from the chicken market
that was still standing and still in operation where Polish women and Hungarian women with bad teeth and colorful head scarves bought fresh eggs and freshly
killed of live chickens. It was the place where Black mothers sent their terrified urban offspring to brave the stench and the large men with silver teeth and
bloodied aprons who dunked just-killed chickens into rusty 55-gallon drums filled with putrid tepid-hot water to scald off the feathers. And when there were no
chickens to kill or feathers to pluck, these were the same men who filled cartons with eggs with a little chicken poop for a touch more authenticity as if any more
was needed.
The city bus eventually arrived and took us to a large train station. Maybe Penn or Grand Central where we got on a train that was leaving the city. The train
station resembled the New York City subways, but it was grander. Maybe it was Grand Central Station. We got on the train. It ran smoother than the usual city
trains and it made far fewer stops. The people looked different, too. White men in suits with glasses reading newspapers. Several dark-skinned Black women who
looked tired and angry. My grandmother greeted them. They had the same accent. She told them we were going to the beach and they smiled. It was almost a
secret smile. Like a sorority smile. Maybe it was the smile that West Indians smiled when they thought of home and the sea air that connected islands and
continents.
We gathered our things and got off the train at some magical spot and walked down steep, winding steps to the sidewalk that was white concrete sprinkled
with silver glitter dancing in the morning sun. I could hear the thundering of the ocean not too far away and smell the salt air. It was like no other air and a
reminder that smell doesn’t really happen in the nose even though that’s the body part we associate with smell. Smell happens somewhere in the deeper recesses
of the nasal passages where tiny receptors take messages to the brain to interpret and store for future reference. Smell has the potential to reduce any moment in
time to the present, past or future. A whiff of salt air can catapult you back 50 years to a day at the beach. Just think. One partial inhalation can obliterate five
decades. You feel the smell somewhere in your chest even though scientists tell you that the connection is almost certainly imagined. My response is that most,
if not all connections, are almost certainly imagined. The city buses by the beach were familiar. They kind of looked like the buses on the lower east side but
their colors were brighter. They were painted white and turquoise and the smoke that came from their tailpipes was hot but invisible. It was a parallel universe.
And finally — after what seemed like weeks of travel— we were at the beach. We got off the bus and the sound of the waves crashing on the breakers and shore
made my body tremble with excitement. There was a little shop right by the entrance to the beach. You had to walk down a few steps to go inside. It was a tiny
store filled with colorful beach pails and shovels, towels, sunglasses, sandals, a few inflatable toys and other things to capture the attention of kids as if the ocean
weren’t enough. My grandmother, my mother and I usually stopped in this store. It was part of our ritual. We rarely bought anything. But this day we did. My
grandmother and my mother bought me a wonderful metal pail with sea shells, starfish and other sea creatures painted on its side and, of course, a shovel. They
also bought me a pair of little rubber sandals so I could walk on the hot sand and over broken clam shells with impunity.
Riis Beach wasn’t nearly as crowded as Coney Island Beach. We didn’t have to compete for a spot to lay out our blankets and set out our baskets and bags.
Plus the ocean sounded louder at Riis. Maybe the voices of people muffle the song of the ocean. As soon as we got set up, my grandmother made a quick trip to
the shower house and returned in her swimsuit and white bathing cap. Then she was out in the surf floating over waves and swimming towards the horizon until
her bathing cap looked like a tiny bouncing ball in a silent-movie sing-along. Thousands of symmetrically shaped and beautifully colored half-shells were strewn
all along the damp sand of the shore. It was fun to imagine the little animals that once called those shells home. Many of the shells were from clams or mussels
but once in a while I’d find a bigger shell. One big enough to put to my ear and hear the ocean even when the ocean was far away. Even while sitting in my
room in the projects. Even while sitting in Madison, Wisconsin, thinking back on a day at the beach.
downtown to our small apartment the night before. I loved those evenings and nights before the trips to Riis Beach on Long Island. They were like holidays that
we had proclaimed.
After talking about life in Barbados — once home to my grandmother and my mother — the conversation shifted to preparing the food for the next day’s
beach outing. If store-bought chicken was finger-licking good, then the chicken my grandmother and mother cooked was elbow-licking good. Then there were
deviled eggs made with just the right amount of mayonnaise and a dusting of paprika; potato salad; cod fish cakes; coconut bread or sometimes one of my
grandmother’s special marble pound cakes. My mother and grandmother would make hot coffee with milk and sugar and pour the mixture into a tall, skinny
thermos. Those were the days when thermoses were lined with delicate glass as thin as Christmas tree ornaments.
Then morning arrived after a fitful night of pretending to sleep with the smells of chicken, coffee and home-made cake walking through the little apartment like
real people. Aromatic apparitions that did not disappear with the advent of a new day. My grandmother and my mother would arrange the food in baskets and
there were always things that I had not seen prepared the night before. Like the big, round, green thermos that was surely older than I was. The thermos that kept
cold things cold, like Welch’s grape juice with just the right amount of water added because the stuff was too expensive to drink straight. Then the ice cubes, a
little sugar and fresh lemon wedges.
And we somehow got it all to bus that stopped on Avenue D. and 10th Street at the edge of the projects and right across the street from the chicken market
that was still standing and still in operation where Polish women and Hungarian women with bad teeth and colorful head scarves bought fresh eggs and freshly
killed of live chickens. It was the place where Black mothers sent their terrified urban offspring to brave the stench and the large men with silver teeth and
bloodied aprons who dunked just-killed chickens into rusty 55-gallon drums filled with putrid tepid-hot water to scald off the feathers. And when there were no
chickens to kill or feathers to pluck, these were the same men who filled cartons with eggs with a little chicken poop for a touch more authenticity as if any more
was needed.
The city bus eventually arrived and took us to a large train station. Maybe Penn or Grand Central where we got on a train that was leaving the city. The train
station resembled the New York City subways, but it was grander. Maybe it was Grand Central Station. We got on the train. It ran smoother than the usual city
trains and it made far fewer stops. The people looked different, too. White men in suits with glasses reading newspapers. Several dark-skinned Black women who
looked tired and angry. My grandmother greeted them. They had the same accent. She told them we were going to the beach and they smiled. It was almost a
secret smile. Like a sorority smile. Maybe it was the smile that West Indians smiled when they thought of home and the sea air that connected islands and
continents.
We gathered our things and got off the train at some magical spot and walked down steep, winding steps to the sidewalk that was white concrete sprinkled
with silver glitter dancing in the morning sun. I could hear the thundering of the ocean not too far away and smell the salt air. It was like no other air and a
reminder that smell doesn’t really happen in the nose even though that’s the body part we associate with smell. Smell happens somewhere in the deeper recesses
of the nasal passages where tiny receptors take messages to the brain to interpret and store for future reference. Smell has the potential to reduce any moment in
time to the present, past or future. A whiff of salt air can catapult you back 50 years to a day at the beach. Just think. One partial inhalation can obliterate five
decades. You feel the smell somewhere in your chest even though scientists tell you that the connection is almost certainly imagined. My response is that most,
if not all connections, are almost certainly imagined. The city buses by the beach were familiar. They kind of looked like the buses on the lower east side but
their colors were brighter. They were painted white and turquoise and the smoke that came from their tailpipes was hot but invisible. It was a parallel universe.
And finally — after what seemed like weeks of travel— we were at the beach. We got off the bus and the sound of the waves crashing on the breakers and shore
made my body tremble with excitement. There was a little shop right by the entrance to the beach. You had to walk down a few steps to go inside. It was a tiny
store filled with colorful beach pails and shovels, towels, sunglasses, sandals, a few inflatable toys and other things to capture the attention of kids as if the ocean
weren’t enough. My grandmother, my mother and I usually stopped in this store. It was part of our ritual. We rarely bought anything. But this day we did. My
grandmother and my mother bought me a wonderful metal pail with sea shells, starfish and other sea creatures painted on its side and, of course, a shovel. They
also bought me a pair of little rubber sandals so I could walk on the hot sand and over broken clam shells with impunity.
Riis Beach wasn’t nearly as crowded as Coney Island Beach. We didn’t have to compete for a spot to lay out our blankets and set out our baskets and bags.
Plus the ocean sounded louder at Riis. Maybe the voices of people muffle the song of the ocean. As soon as we got set up, my grandmother made a quick trip to
the shower house and returned in her swimsuit and white bathing cap. Then she was out in the surf floating over waves and swimming towards the horizon until
her bathing cap looked like a tiny bouncing ball in a silent-movie sing-along. Thousands of symmetrically shaped and beautifully colored half-shells were strewn
all along the damp sand of the shore. It was fun to imagine the little animals that once called those shells home. Many of the shells were from clams or mussels
but once in a while I’d find a bigger shell. One big enough to put to my ear and hear the ocean even when the ocean was far away. Even while sitting in my
room in the projects. Even while sitting in Madison, Wisconsin, thinking back on a day at the beach.