My Summer Girl

My Summer Girl

“I have watched you on the shore. Standing by the ocean's roar. Do you love me, do you surfer girl?” ~ the Beach Boys.

Brian Wilson had his Surfer Girl. I have my Summer Girl. I’ll call it a draw.

It’s not officially summer until I can sneak a peak at Marie’s celestial sun tattoo as it peers out from one her cute summer dresses sitting between her shoulder blades near the nape of her neck.  As an homage to her love of summer, light and the beach she opted for this image to commemorate birthday #40.

This past week found S&M down the Shore in Brigantine, New Jersey for birthday #60.

We should have been celebrating her milestone birthday with her family in the warm Caribbean waters nearly 1,300 miles from the AC Expressway exploring Turks & Caicos, Sint Maarten and some other cool tropical islands. It turns out the world had its own plans this year. Our Plan B was here. Back to where it all started nearly 30 years ago in this quiet beach community just north of Atlantic City. Sometimes you can go home again.

While my summer romance with Marie started in 1979.  Our summer romance with Brigantine started in the late 80’s.

Those pre-Lauren summers in our 20s were defined by Buffett and Brigantine. It was our unique definition of “Summer” that only a few close friends could comprehend. Let me try and explain….

In the Spring of 1988, we moved back home to South Jersey and settled in Magnolia. A few weeks before Memorial Day that year, Marie drove to the Island to purchase our seasonal beach tags saving us ‘homeowners’ with a new monthly mortgage bill a couple of bucks. From Monday through Friday, we would take PATCO into Center City working for the “Man”. On the weekends, we were fixing up our first ‘starter’ home.  Starting our modest version of the “American Dream”.  Remember that?

However, every other Saturday or Sunday, we would play hookey, pack up our brand-new gold Honda Accord with our beach toys (remember Pro Kadima?) and head east on the (White Horse) Pike. Two “Shoobies” in search of our personal Endless Summer down the Jersey Shore decades before that MTV series would premier. Our final destination was 14th Street South, Brigantine Beach.

Walking around the downtown area after the rains subsided this past Sunday afternoon, Marie recalled when she and Lauren would head to the Brigantine Inn mid-week. She would pack up the Accord with my Grandmom Martino’s ugly but functional “Granny Cart”. Marie would then drag that cart overflowing with all the necessary beach supplies towards the beach while precariously holding Laur’s hand at all the crosswalks. When I arrived home from work that night, they would regal me with stories of their daily beach adventures, our bathroom decorated with wet bathing suits and brightly colored beach towels. I must admit, working for the “Man” that day, made sense to me.

Winters have always been tough for Marie as she’s battled Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) for many years. SAD is a type of depression that typically occurs in the late fall and continues through late spring. The lack of natural sunlight for certain folks causes the blues, loss of energy and apathy. As the sun returned to New Jersey with one extra minute per day starting with the Vernal Equinox annually in March, Marie slowly came back to life. As a result, we’ve always celebrated the end of Spring as our Summer Homecoming.

Needing a break from the Corporate Rat Race and the responsibilities that came with our new title of Homeowners, we booked our very first international trip to Mexico, March 1990. We bought resort wear from Bambergers (long gone, store), splurged on some tanning sessions (friends told us we needed a base tan traveling that far south, that early in the season), traded in our USD for Mexican pesos and headed south in a wicked snow storm on that Friday morning flight from PHL. We climbed Chitchen Itza (can’t do that anymore), snorkeled in Cozumel, rented mopeds (thankful Marie survived her wipeout navigating that roundabout).

Traveling abroad in our 20s, we were hooked. But we were “cash poor” homeowners who desperately wanted to start a family at 422 West Jackson Avenue. So, we would continue to visit Brigantine each summer. You can only be as slave to your new home for so long and remain sane. Every other weekend we would pack up our stuff and head to the Island for a much needed 12-14 hours of “Beach Therapy”.

Like a junkie needing his next fix, we craved the beach “high” these trips would provide. Each visit would help us balance our intertwined lives as we reflected on our demanding roles of parent, worker and spouse. We would walk that beach, sit in our beach chairs and temporarily escape the world back on the Mainland. Marie loved those day trips. And I loved her.

These brief hours represented the best prescriptions the best doctors in the world could never fill. The worries of our world floated out with low tide. When our fears arrived with the high tide, they were somehow less worrisome. That my friends, is the magic you experience down the Shore.  The ocean offers a unique life perspective that doesn’t exist back on the Mainland. Sometimes, you just need a Pirate’s map to find your individual ‘treasures’.

Another decade would pass us by. We would celebrate our 15^th wedding anniversary chasing the origin of all those Jimmy Buffett songs ‘island hopping’ down in the Caribbean. Pirate booze cruises, helming the 1984 (actual) America’s Cup sailing yachts (Master and Primary Grinders, respectively) and of course nearly missing the cruise ship while docked in St. Thomas were just a few stories we still laugh about. A few years later we would head to Grand Cayman for Christmas through New Years Eve. There was this thing called Y2K that threatened to end the world over some misplaced ones and zeroes. Marie thought I was crazy. I was. But I reasoned, if you only get to celebrate one Millennium in your lifetime, Seven Mile Beach was fine by me. How much fun did we have with Laur? Dancing on the beach when January 1, 2000 arrived. Another couple of adventures Marie and I laughed about this past weekend.

Suddenly college tuition and home improvement bills arrived in our mailbox at 8 Meadow Drive. So once again we returned to Brigantine. This time, I would book long weekends down here in August to celebrate Marie’s birthday. We extended the length of our visits which seemed to coincide the additional stresses of a new decade. These weekend trips greatly helped us survive this “Hamster Wheel” existence of our early 50s we had suddenly become unwillingly participants in. 

From the corner of my eye, I could see Marie begin to exhale as the Subaru approached the causeway bridge leading onto the Island. Instinctively, I rolled down the car windows to inhale that warm salt air. It immediately breathed life into our aching bodies and minds. We both knew we were home. Within a mere 24 hours, Marie was a different sea creature, alive and smiling. I was too. She was upbeat, full of energy and yes occasionally - even funny. I was the benefactor of this seismic shift in moods. The laughter and smiles came effortlessly. I was the luckiest bean-counter you would ever meet. 

We passed a new restaurant on the island advertising the best fish tacos in town. I remarked that no fish tacos will ever beat those we enjoyed in Laguna Beach during those two weeks we spent traveling through California celebrating my 50^th birthday. Marie smiled. The three of us (my family) had ‘finally’ made it out to the Left Coast that year, 2012. Hiking Joshua Tree and Yosemite, driving through Big Sur, hanging out in LA, concluding our trip in San Francisco and Napa. There is this photo of Marie and Lauren sitting on the back on our rented Mustang convertible having just concluded the 17 Mile Drive through Carmel and Pebble Beach. When I think of that summer road trip, I think of that photo and smile.

All those fantastic trips we were fortunate to share have somehow always led us back here……..

It’s Friday morning already. It’s time to go home. It came so fast. It always does.

I’m sitting alone in my Lifeguard Station tower watching the bright orange sun begin its daily arc into the pale blue sky when these and other summer memories of our past 40 years came rushing into my mind, like these green waves crashing in front of me right now. Given the current state of the world, I’m grateful we could spend your annual trip around the sun “Birthday Week” on a beach. I know now, what I thought I knew then - this is your favorite place in the world. You were born to live on a beach. I was born to be with you. You will always be my Summer Girl.

I’m thankful for all those other (in between) ‘milestone birthdays’ we’ve spent together grinding out a life’s existence of daily mundane chores and shared life experiences where the good times easily outnumbered the bad times. Examining our 40-year ledger, we’ve had one helluva a run. We’ve come a long way from that cramped one-bed apartment in Lindenwold. A poor college student and his always supportive Donut Hutch working waitress. But most of all I’m grateful for sharing a bed with you at the end of long days eager to greet the next day’s sunrise together, even if that ‘morning after’ included so many more rainy days that we never planned on.

I’ll walk on this beach with you until we can’t.

I would erase all your current fears if I could. New beginnings are scary the older we get, but rest assured there is nothing we can’t do together. Look at all we’ve weathered together so far. We always figured out a Plan B, in some cases a Plan C. COVID or not, this time will be no different.

Now - Let’s have some fun with these remaining unknown number of years left. Lauren’s found an amazing man who will protect her and love her forever. These kids will be fine. Another blessing duly noted. We are well into triple digits by now.

So, take my hand. Our someday starts today.

I was never so sure of this one thing, as I was on that crisp South Jersey fall afternoon, October 23, 1982.

It’s our time now.

“So whatever thrills you. Anything you love to do. Just say someday (we) will.” ~ Jimmy Buffett

Scott & Marie

14^th Street South

Brigantine Beach

#lovinglifeat60

PS – Thanks, Joe.