Memories of Sylvan Beach

With the Hogan and Searles families planning a summer get-away, you know it would be fun.  A family of teachers counting down the days until summer vacation led to some fabulous fun at Sylvan Beach.  My Gram and her sisters used to rent a house along the water for a couple weeks.  We were lucky enough to go for an entire week while our parents worked.  It was great!  I tried to find pictures of us at the beach, chillin at the house or on Uncle Pete’s boat – but couldn’t find any. L I know they exist but I couldn’t locate them.

I did find pictures though of a weekend excursion to Sylvan Beach when Heidi and I were older.  To relive our childhood memories I treated Heidi and her friend to a weekend in Sylvan Beach.  We went to the beach, crossed the bridge to Verona (which wasn’t allowed when we were there as kids, lol) and spent countless dollars at the park playing games and riding the rides.  We laughed and enjoyed reliving our youth (because we were so old, lol).  The biggest joke of the weekend was “I remember the beach being bigger?”  or “Wasn’t the park larger?”  I guess we had grown up.  We didn’t stay at the “family rental” but we did walk down to see if it was still there.  It was.  Instead we stayed at a hotel in Verona (because it was cheaper) and went to Sylvan Beach for the day.

Many years with my aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles and cousins.  Sporatic memories of Sylvan Beach:  Uncle Pete and Aunt Ellen docking the boat and taking us for rides, getting tokens and money from everyone (now I know it was to keep us away and quiet longer), my sweet sixteen party, picking our bedroom for the week, deciding who would sleep with who when the aunts and uncles arrived, doing the locomotion with Melanie, playing cards (even though we weren’t old enough – as long as we promised not to tell), burying Aunt Kay in the sand, Aunt Ellen’s bag of “fun sheets” (aka – left over dittos from school) and all the junk food, and most importantly…freedom.

Unlike today, we were allowed to go to the park for the day as long as we stayed together.  We weren’t allowed to swim but we could ride the rides, play the games and walk around making googly eyes at the teens working to our hearts content.  We checked in for more coins and food, only to escape again to roam about.  Safety in numbers…or you would think. 

We had a lot of fun…making memories!