Labor Day Weekend Getaway: Day 1

My husband took work off today so that we could get an early start on a planned camping trip/family reunion at the beach. My family has been doing some kind of a gathering at the beach for over 60 years. My mom used to tell me stories about when she went as a kid and I remember going myself 30 years ago. So now that I have my own family, of course, I continue the tradition of heading over for the weekend.

Of course, the event has changed over the years. It had already changed when I was a kid and I remember all the "grownups" talking about how it used to be and "remember whens." I can't speak to that time, but the memories I have are of camping at my great-uncle's place on the huge field by his house, along with 4 or 5 other families, some of whom would get to chatting after arriving and forget to set up their tents until after dark, when everyone would be stumbling around with flashlights and "shushing" the kids while they half-shouted curse words at the stubborn tents.

In the morning, we'd get up and pile into various cars and drive down to the put-in on the river. We'd load up 2-3 dories while my uncle joked around with the coast guard, ASSURING them that we were 1) not over the boat's capacity and 2) had lifejackets for everyone on board. This conversation usually occurred while my siblings, cousins, and I crouched in the storage hold in the bow of the boat to hide.

We'd finally set off down the river, with my mom bugging my uncle about putting out his cigarette. When I was really little, I remember being bundled up but still freezing, sitting on my mom's lap as the wind bit at me. When I was older, I got to climb up and sit on the bow of the boat as we slowly navigated the narrow and ever-changing channel.

My uncles usually had to make 2-3 trips to get the whole family down to the spot we'd stake out on the beach. Inevitably on one or more of the trips, the boat would ground and several of the adults would have to get out (both to take weight out of the boat and to push). As soon as it was free, he'd jokingly try to take off without them, although I remember him running aground again at least once as he tried to do this.

After everyone was down at the beach, a bonfire would be started--regardless of the temperature. If it was cold, we'd gather around if we could. Some of the adults would play football on the beach while the dories went out crabbing, occasionally taking one of us kids with them and explaining how it worked, and then dumping us off as quickly as they could get away with it.

When all the crab pots were in, the aunts took over and started cooking them right there on the bonfire, washing them out in the river. We'd feast on crab and all kinds of other goodies that had been hauled out in the coolers and tote bags.

Sunscreen would be applied (and grudgingly received), sunburns would still happen, someone would get hurt playing football, and eventually the wind would kick up, the tide would reach its last high point during daylight, and we'd take off. Or we'd camp on the beach, depending on the year.

In the morning there would be a huge breakfast of eggs and sausage. If we weren't already back at my uncle's house, we'd head back afterwards. The nights we were at his house, there were smoky late nights of poker (usually the guys) and cribbage (usually the women). There'd be tales in the morning of someone winning big--and someone losing.

The last year we camped on the beach was (I think) 1996. When I was little, there were often people around, but usually most of them were locals and my uncle knew a great many of them from the dory fishing community. As I got older, it got more and more crowded, which all the adults complained about. It got so crowded that the crabbing wasn't nearly as good, and usually my uncle had to stock up in preceding weeks in order to have enough for our traditional crab fest.

In 1996, it was already getting crowded enough that--although there was still plenty of room on the beach--we were no longer the only group out there, and we'd be a stone's throw from another group. A far cry from when I was a kid and we'd have to roam through the dunes to chance across another group. That particular year, there had been a group of men across the river that had been drinking fairly heavily and had been heckling our crab boats.

It was late enough that we'd gone to bed--although the older of us kids (I was in my early 20s, as were some of my cousins) were still up talking--when we heard some sort of a commotion down near the bonfire, which was still going. My cousin and I went out to see what was going on and my mom met us halfway and told us to stay back and keep an eye out on the younger kids tents. When we asked what was going on, she wouldn't explain.

The next morning, we got the story in bits and pieces from those who were there. Apparently the drunk group from across the river had come across and started yelling up to the bonfire for our group to "send out your women." My uncles--one of whom was an ex-pro football player and the others who were of similar builds--went down to the water to discourage the group from bothering us. A fight broke out. The tale differs here depending on who I heard it from, but most counts were that our side was just trying to get them to leave, but they were looking for a fight and playing dirty. Our side was "winning" but the other guys still hadn't left. Here the story gets pretty consistent: one of the other guys picked up an oar from one of our boats and hit my uncle in the back of the head. He fell into the water with a head injury and had to be dragged out. I'm not sure what happened at that point, but I think one of my other uncles said something about radioing the Coast Guard and the other group took off.

A couple of the relatives took off with my uncle and headed to the closest city with a hospital--about 20 miles away--to get his head stitched up.

The mood as we packed up the next morning was pretty somber as we hadn't heard back yet on how he was doing. And we never camped on the dunes again.

However, we still all gather at my uncles house--he's built a new one on the top of his hill--and some of the group now gets hotel rooms or rents houses for the weekend.

Our family's plan was to go to a campground with showers (which I'd reserved several weeks ago), my husband could go surfing if he felt like it, and I could hang around and listen to the older generation reminisce about how we used to have crab on the beach--how much fun that was then, but it's really nice to eat it now without sand in it.

We didn't end up leaving homeuntil about 4:00 because it took us much longer to get packed than planned--I had to prepare a couple of dishes that would somewhat keep for the various potlucks--and kept having to run errands for forgotten ingredients and ice for the cooler.

We arrived at my uncle's place just after 6:00 p.m. We talked for a bit and as I noticed the sun dipping, suggested we go find our campground and pitch our tent while it was still daylight, then come back if we wanted to, which we did. My daughter was thrilled because, as I'd told her, the campground is overrun by tame bunnies.

We went back, had a great dinner, talked with the relatives, explained the bandages on our dog's paws several times, and then went back to our campground. We managed to settle in fairly quickly and went to sleep.

In some ways, it was still similar to when I was a kid, as 10 feet away in the next campsite, a family who arrived late (with kids) was trying to set up a tent in the dark.

They gave up and slept in their car.