The beach trip was the first beach vacation any of us kids had taken, so we didn’t really know what to expect. Guess being only 6 years old at the time made it memorable for me. That and waking up on the beach wearing only pajamas and finding a unique gift lying next to me.
It was more than over 52 years ago and I still haven’t forgotten how packing the essentials made that vacation so special.
But I’m not the only one that has worn pajamas to the beach. Just how and why my three brothers, The Sister and me woke up still in our sleepwear from the night before as the waves gently lapped at our toes comes at the end of this story. But let’s start from the beginning: packing essentials. For me that meant Dad’s old army shovel.
When Dad said we were going to the beach all of us kids got excited. We’d heard about the ocean, seen movies and looked at pictures in National Geographic, but none of us had ever actually set foot on the white sands.
And I for one wanted to bury Twin Brother Mark in the sand. Seemed only fair. He had buried all of my little green army men in the gray silt sand of Cripple Creek, so he should suffer the same fate they did.
I hid Dad’s foldable army shovel under the spare tire cover in the back of our forest green station wagon with the faux wood panels. It was the perfect hiding place.
Mark packed his essential – a squirt gun. He was still mad at Big Brother James about his invisible ink trick. The trick wasn’t really a trick and the ink really wasn’t invisible. James had run out of invisible ink for his spy kit and refilled the squirt gun with real ink. Innocently believing that the ink would all disappear, Mark ran around the house squirting drapes, furniture and us.
That was three weeks before our first beach vacation. Mark was still grounded and looking for a way to get revenge. He packed the spy squirt gun in the perfect hiding place in the station wagon: under the cover for the spare tire. His plan was to squirt James with ink when he came out of the ocean, blaming all the ink on an octopus.
James’s essential also had to do with vengeance. It was Older Brother Richard who had set James’s hamster free. Late one night, Mr. Whiskers was found in bed by a couple of unsuspecting feet connected to James. That’s when he got scared and ran around the room, crashed into the wall and died. Mr. Whiskers, not James.
James ran around the room, tripped over a well-placed pillow and fell to the floor, chipping a front tooth. Ever since he’d been waiting for the right time to get back at Richard, and our first beach vacation seemed like the perfect time. James laughed, thinking how funny it would be for our older brother to wake up with the rubber hamster next to his pillow. He hid the rubber hamster under the cover for the spare tire.
It had been a month since The Sister caught Richard sneaking out of the house with a huge bag of toilet paper. His plan was to roll the head cheerleader’s house down at the end of Flamingo Street. The Sister promised she wouldn’t tell our parents, but she did.
Richard spent close to two weeks cleaning up the mess of 20 rolls of toilet paper in trees. Drowning The Sister’s favorite Barbie doll in the ocean seemed to be a perfect way to make things just about even. He stowed the Barbie under the cover for the spare tire.
Had I known what The Sister had planned for me, I might have not gone on that vacation. Or at least I wouldn’t have gone to sleep. You see she was still mad at me for the harmless thing I did just a week earlier.
After digging all day at the three-year dig we called Cliff Condos, I came in the house and took my shoes and socks off just like Mom had asked all of us to do. I then found The Sister and draped my smelly socks over her shoulders. Unbeknownst to me, she kept those dirty socks in a bag and waited as they ripened. Our vacation would be the perfect time to get me back. She hid the bag of smelly socks under the spare tire cover. One night I was going to get a face full of dirty socks.
Before any of us could get our revenge, we first had to get to the beach. Our parents preferred to drive through the night so, one by one, Dad gently scooped us up out of bed and laid us on mattresses placed in the back of the station wagon. After an eight-hour drive, we arrived at the beach just before dawn.
Dad laid towels down on the beach, us on the towels, which is how we ended up in our PJs with water tickling our toes. Dad also left a special gift beside each of us on our beach towels. Later we learned the gifts were so we would leave all our bickering behind and have a fun family vacation together.
I woke up to a new bag of little green Army men. Next to James was a picture of Whiskers and a note saying he was fine and would be waiting for him at the pet store when we got home. The Sister awoke to a new Barbie. Mark had a new squirt gun filled with truly invisible ink and a note stating when he ran out to ask Dad for more. Richard woke up to the strangest gift of them all – a roll of toilet paper, also with an attached note. The note said that he was the eldest, which was quite an honor, and he should be setting a good example for the rest of us to follow.
Many beach vacations have come and gone since, but I will never forget the very first one. It was taken while we were living on an old familiar street, not so far away called Flamingo, and the lessons we learned have lasted a lifetime.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
