Thursday, August 20, 2009

P-House, the glory days of youth

I saw this quote the other day, "Youth is wasted on the young" and it is soooo true. As a kid I hung out. Thats what I did. I went to school, went to practice, went to hang with my friends, went to the movies, went to the beach club in the summer and did pretty much what I wanted within reason. And that my friends was my life. I had a fabulous childhood. I would go back and do it again in a heartbeat. In fact its days like today when I wonder what the fuck I'm doing with my life that I want to go back and do it all again. and again. and again. I never wanted to grow up. I liked being young. I liked it at the time and I new I liked it. I still dont feel grown up. Psycho docs prolly call it Peter Pan syndrome or something or other.

Yeah I birfed a kid and raised her but like I've said before, she was a friend. And we hung out a lot. I guess I was mommy-like when I was yelling about something or bugging her to pick up toys or get to bed, or when I was instilling those morals but somedays I feel like I wasnt really a "mom". I feel more like a mom now that she's older and out into the big old world on her own.

One of the best parts of my childhood was summers. Who didnt love summer as a kid?? Light out until 8:30, lazy days of crabbing off the dock, sailing my sunfish on the river and going to the Beach Club. I grew up on the Jersey Shore in a little town called (ironically) Little Silver. It was a small town. Everybody knew everybody and we all went to a beach club in the summer. Oh how we couldnt wait for that last day of school in June so we could go down to the club and get our cabanna ready with all our stuffs and prepare to swim with the crabs.

When I was younger, mom would take us down and you'd meet all your friends. Sometimes your friends would go to a different beach club than you but you'd all meet up eventually at a predeterminded spot. (I sometimes wonder how any of this happened in the days before cell phones!) And we would hang out. Yup, just chill. Lay on the beach, swim in the ocean for a bit, go in the pool, jump off the three diving boards (it actually had a high dive! lawsuit city now!)get something from the snack bar and then chill some more. Sometimes there would be Swim Team meets to watch. We got in our fair share of trouble too. I cant go into details here, it might still be an open case up there. 0_o

My beach club was Peninsula House Beach Club in Sea Bright. I loved it. It was a grand old place. Had a really nice restaurant and used to be a hotel waaaaay back in the day. It was ginormous. When we got a little older and where driving we'd all meet up and have drinks and party on the beach at night. Man I miss those days! We were members from the time I was little until the summer after my freshman year in college.

P-House as we used to call it burned to the ground one night in 1986. So sad. It was truly the end of an era for me and my friends. Shortly after that we found ourselves just moving on with life. Having kids, moving here and there. Yes we tried to keep in touch and now that facebook is around more and more of us are in touch again. Someone posted this picture yesterday and the flood of memories just blew me away.

I'd love to go back to those days. For real. This was the home of my youth.

Peninsula House Beach Club, Sea Bright, NJ (click pic to enlarge)

5 comments:

Edith Bunker said...

Dewey Beach Delaware for me, we visited family there. Loved it; sand in pants, sunburn, Sea & Ski suntan lotion(remember that stuff?).
Fish & Chips, Saltwater taffy,boardwalks, pinball machines, bumper cars, waves, waves and more waves all day long.
BOYS! they were fun back then, assholes.

Edith Bunker said...

oh yea, and some reading recommendations: (keeping it sorta light because I expect you'll be somewhat gorked out on the cheese)

Crime Type Stuff:
Michael Connelly's detective Harry Bosch books are usually good.
Karin Slaughter has some good ones, "Fractured" I think was one.

Historical Romance:
Diane Gabeldon "Outlander" series may be enough to get you through your entire convalescence, I LOVED those books, and they're all about 1,000 pages long, enough to keep you busy for a while.
Phillipa Gregory: King Henry & Ann Boleyn type stuff. "The Other Boleyn Girl" was GREAT.

"Water for Elephants" is probably the best novel I've read in the past couple of years.

Unknown said...

Oh Edith, BOYS!!! They were assholes then too. We just didnt care as much (you know those raging hormones weren't just for boys).

I had a few summer loves. Alas, they'd all go home to Ohio and forget about me. No "Grease" like ending for this Sandy. pffft.

ok, now to the book stuff. I went at lunch and got, Water For Elephants and Tryptich & Fractured by Slaughter.

I saw the Outlander series. Can I read them out of order?? Or do you recommend finding the first one and working my way through???

Edith Bunker said...

Yea, ok. they were assholes then too. I guess my tolerance was heightened along with the hormones.

You gotta do outander in order. it's worth it though.

Unknown said...

gotcha.