Remembrance of Glorious Past Summers at the Boathouse
You can always go home again in your memories
When I was a child, it wasn’t really summer without many trips to the beach or a visit to my grandparents Boathouse on the bay.
The house is no longer there, but in my memory it lives on as a magical place filled with fun, laughter and love.
Here’s a story I wrote about it a long time ago.
The Boathouse
Summer always reminds me of the time we spent at my grandparents vacation house at the Jersey shore. They called it the Boathouse. From the front it looked just like any other ordinary two-story white clapboard house.
But if you walked around the side you quickly saw how it got its name. Located right on the bay, the house was built over the water with pilings. It was called the Boathouse because boats were stored underneath the house in docking bays before the external docks were built and the porch enclosed.
Built as a honeymoon cottage, my grandfather inherited the house from his great aunt.
The best thing about the house was its unique construction. A forerunner of the modern duplex, the Boathouse was really two houses in one — each a mirror image of the other, interconnected by doors on the first and second floors.
My sister and brothers and I thought of it as a huge old-fashioned playhouse complete with a winding staircase, wicker furniture, antique appliances and a freestanding porcelain covered cast iron bathtub you could almost do a backstroke in.
A ship’s steering wheel adorned the living room wall and on the enclosed porch over the bay, a replica of a schooner sailed on the wood roll top desk.
Thin, knotty pine paneling covered the walls and ceiling and if you stared at it long enough, you could just make out the strange faces of gnomes and little animals peering at you from the dark wood surface.
The memories I like best linger on the time around dusk and the evening. We always liked to stay out late to play tag until the mosquitos covered our arms and legs, their stinging bites making us yell loudly and slap at them frantically as we ran for cover inside.
Sitting on the green wicker rocker on the dark enclosed porch, I would watch the moonlight dance playfully on the water and listen to it lap gently around the dock pilings, the rigging of the boats creaking ghost-like in the dark.
During full moon tides, when the water completely covered the docks, we pretended we could walk on water.
Dinnertime at the boathouse always reminds me of crabs cooking on the stove. The boiling water hissing and then a whooshing sound as the pot lid comes loose and a little blue crab turned bright red from the hot water jumps out of the pot and runs sideways across the floor.
And finally, lying in bed with my head resting at the foot of the old iron bedstead, listening to the muffled voices of the adults talking downstairs and looking out the dormer window, watching the moonlight glisten on the water as I drift off to sleep.
Key Message: You can always go home again in your memories and look at the past with child-like wonder whenever you like.
Linda Locke is a writer and mentor/teacher. She lives in Southern California in Ventura County by the coast with her husband and lots and lots of books. Want to become more visible as a writer on Medium? My course can help.
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