Fortesque

Once upon a time there was a quaint fishing island located in the great state of New Jersey. Two little girls were often taken there for getaways with their grandmother for fun in the sun on a private beach at their great-great uncle and aunt’s beach house.

Deep sigh!

Sounds so nice, doesn’t it?

REALITY CHECK!!! While we did have a lot of fun, it was through our ability to imagine and use our resources. The island was separated from the mainland by a marsh that bred mosquitoes, and evil biting flies. The house had no A/C, cable, nor water. There were very few kids, and they were the locals who thought we were nuts for coming there. Our private beach was usually filled with horse shoe crabs due to mating season schedules. When it wasn’t, there were pretty hard core fisherman gutting fish on the beach and discarding the remains right there.

Let’s break it down for ya!

THE BUGS!

The mosquitoes were bad. We always had citronella candles out the wazoo. Despite the plague of mosquitoes, NOTHING compared to the flies. NOTHING. Regular flies are pesky, but we had mean, green, biting machine flies. They bit us through our clothes. They bit us in the house, outside, in the car, at the store/diner/bait and tackle shop (it was only store on island), they bit us in any location, on any part of our bodies. By the time we left we would be terrified at the site of a fly. Literally, any flying creature and we would run screaming like an ax murderer was after us. God forbid we were in the car (which did happen- and was almost tragic)

DIAGRAM 1: THE GREEN FLIES!

Literally, running for our lives from the flies.

A/C, CABLE, WATER

There was one window unit, but it barely kept us cool. We were hot a lot. It was an old house, and my great-great aunt and uncle were old school. So cable was not coming along with the deal. I am sure because they also did not want to pay for cable at a house they aren’t always at. We did have rabbit ears though. (Fancy, I know) The water is a bit more complicated. Apparently, at some point in time the whole island protested the water company. I have no ideas when this happened. The 70s maybe? Well, once everything was settled my uncle was not having it so he kept his off. He was all about sticking it to “the man.” And there was some super secret Macgver way to manually turn it on. However, “the man” eventually caught on so we could only do it sometimes. When we had no water we went to the dock and filled jugs and jugs of water up and took them back to use for flushing the toilet, cooking, brushing our teeth, and really cold “showers.” Essentially, we were camping out in a house. Oh, and there was ALWAYS sand in the bed. Always. Drove us all nuts.

DIAGRAM 2: LACK OF AMENITIES

The TV only showed static, it was hot, and we always had jugs of water galore! There is nothing worse than an ice cold shower from a water jug.

ENTERTAINMENT

Finding other kids to play with was like finding buried treasure. For the first few years I remember going, I don’t even remember seeing other kids. We fought over other kids, like they were the last morsel of food on earth. The beach, as I mentioned, was often COVERED in mating horse shoe crabs. Which, if you have ever seen one you know, are scary looking. Very Jurassic indeed. They look like giant beetle helmet monsters. When they weren’t mating there were usually dead ones left scattered on the beach. If they get caught on their back they are stuck, and the seagulls eat them alive, or they dry out. We would sometimes see one flipped over, but legs still moving, and grab it by it’s tail and throw it back in the sea. And of course there were the fisherman. The beach often had piles of fish guts and smelly stuff. There were hooks all over the place, and random trash sprinkled here and there. When it was high tide, the water came up to the wall in front of the house, so our play space was even smaller: a 10x10 square of sand in front of the driveway.

DIAGRAM 3: WHAT DO WE DO?

Where for art thou fellow children to play with?

Not fun.

Oh pooh

In summary, it was an interesting place for kids. My sister, my two cousins (Jen and Tiffany), I and sometimes Katie K had many interesting adventures there. I do, however, have a lot of good memories from there, and we really had to push the limits of our imagination. We painted tables, repainted the front porch like 3 times, made up games, went seashell hunting, horseshoe crab rescuing, pretended to be stranded mermaids, and told/heard a lot of stories. My cousin Tiffany always told me and missy scary ones that would freak me out for years. And my uncle Ben told his stories to all of us in a booming voice that I will never forget. One time, my grandmom Tony almost had us make smores over citronella candles. Luckily, my mom caught us putting our marshmallows on sticks an intervened before we poisoned ourselves. We did a lot of walking aimlessly, but having good child-theological convos. I had some interesting theories as a kid. There were times we almost all killed each other (a week there was a horrible idea-never did that again), and other times that I never felt closer to them. Most importantly we bonded, without the distraction of boardwalks, carnival rides, and other kids, we only had each other. And truth be told, sitting on the deck at night as the waves crashed was a type of peace that one rarely finds in everyday life. It was an ugly little fishing town, but it was also beautiful - and we had a front row seat.

My great great aunt and uncle have passed, and the beach house has been sold. But those funny, ridiculous, and touching memories will last my entire lifetime.

ps. Please look at this pic of a flipped horseshoe crab: he needs rescuing!

pps: The enemy: GREEN FLIES!!!!!!!! run you fool!