Loved your post. I came to enjoy sweet tea, even though I am a Connecticut Yankee. My Tennessee grandmother, transplanted to Cape Cod, brought it with her. My childhood summers at her house included bacon and butter sandwiches and a glass of that sweet tea at the crack of dawn;
- striding knee deep, gathering Pleasant Bay quahogs in seawater so cold it made your feet cramp up;
- evenings on her screened porch 50 yards from the beach;
- mornings where the fog was so thick, the only sensory input was the smell of beach roses;
- spearfishing enough flounder in a half hour to feed the whole family;
- Friday night band concerts at the town green, kids running through the summer night while parents sat on blankets forming a "home base";
- Art Gould's boats for rent - the crustiest old yankee SOB you ever came across, until you learned of his WWII exploits as skipper of a destroyer and gained some respect;
- rediscovering my fishing rod complete with last year's dried out sandworm still on the hook, sitting in the garden shed that was 120 degrees hot and smelled so strongly of rose dust that you thought you might be fumigated;
- the smell of the giant honeysuckle on the back fence;
- the light from Chatham lighthouse up the street racing across the outer bar and blinking in the upstairs bedroom.
I realize that much of my adult ambition stems from trying to recreate that time and place. My backyard smells of beach roses and honeysuckle, and occasionally, when my good wife allows, we all indulge in bacon and butter sandwiches (now named "Thelmas" in honor of my wonderful grandmother).
What wonderful memories. What a wonderful place to “visit” from time to time. There’s a little “Tennessee” in all of us and a little “Connecticut,” too. The last vacation I took was to Williamsburg and then to Norfolk just so I could smell the sea again.
Couldn’t wait to order seafood that wasn’t frozen and shipped across the country. I remember riding bikes around Cape Cod on vacation with my folks. What a wonderful summer!!! I can still taste the “clams” I tried for the first time at the hands of the most handsome young man (I was seventeen). He told me to just close my eyes (yeah, at 17 I still was innocent to believe it) and I could get past the looks of the things. ;-) I order them whenever I can.
Thank you so much for sharing.