Rainy Day on The Jersey Shore
Rainy days and Sundays always get me
down…NOT!
It is a
rainy day on the Jersey Shore. Drizzly
anyway. Not a bad day, just a drizzly
day. The beach is like a snow flake, no
two days are alike. The beach is quiet,
there are few people. I like it that way
from time to time.
I assume
kids are in their home playing on a phone, a tablet or watching TV. Good times.
What did we
do a zillion years ago?
When we
visited the beach, my Grandparents had a home a block from the ocean. We could hear the ocean, we could smell the
ocean, we could not see the ocean. The home
had a front porch with an awning to protect from the sun. On a drizzly day it protected from the rain. The front porch also had a gaggle of cousins... that should probably be a giggle of cousins.
We would sit
on that porch on a drizzly day and listen to and smell the ocean. The giggle of cousins would play chess,
checkers, double solitaire, and spit in the ocean (a card game whose rules I
forget.) We played other card games;
War, Go Fish, Crazy Eights and Knucks which was pretty much Crazy Eights with a
painful knuckle scrapping penalty instead of points.
We played “Battleship”
with pencil and graph paper, “Hangman” and a dice game we called “Yahtzee” all
before those games were “invented” and sold by Parker Brothers.
The drizzly
days were always fun. They were a relief
from the sun, the bay and the beach. We did not watch TV, reception was horrible and there were only three channels anyway. The drizzly days would have driven the
parents, aunts and uncles crazy with the giggle of cousins if not for the porch
and the games.
An iPhone, a
tablet, and TV would have been great to while away the time.
I’m glad all
we had were cards, games, and a giggle of cousins.
I think a childhood of giggles beats a childhood of gadgets hands down. :)
ReplyDeleteNeed to google knucks, that one I never heard of.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is on
What, no 52-Card Pickup? Of course, you could have only played that once...
ReplyDeleteThose were the good old days with the giggles of cousins and the games you played! My mom would often say what games she and her siblings played during summer months. They involved jacks and ball and the game where you make a lot of dots and try to connect them into boxes that you just put your initial in and at the end of it whoever had the most initials won. Learning games with having fun. My grandmother, not educated formally, still taught them so much as I'm sure your parents/grandparents who were educated did the same for you. Sometimes it is good to disconnect from social media (though I struggle to do so).
ReplyDeletebetty
You sat on a porch one block away from the ocean? When I was little I lived the equivalent of three blocks from the ocean and I was there on the sand, in the water every day! Even in the rain. Okay, not in the winter, (which is nowhere near as cold as your winter) when the beach was too cold, although sometimes we did walk along the jetty eating fish and chips.
ReplyDeleteYes we did, we had the sense to come in out of the rain, not to mention 12 billion volts of lightening, Not sure why that is surprising.
DeleteRain and lightning were pretty rare where I grew up, also I probably didn't have a lot of common sense, much like now. Possibly I just enjoyed having the beach to myself.
Deletei like lonely beach dear Joe ,this is totally my type of thing
ReplyDeleteglad you shared your old drizzly days hobbies which don't exist anymore due to technology storm
we loved such days more than any other ,swinging or playing carromboard games or running over hills with laughter and friends ,those were precious days innocent and so connected to each other
my childhood was spent in air raid shelters but it didn't stop us playing games. I still think of those days as happy ones!
ReplyDeleteI too remember the cousins and the games, but I often snuck off to read a book in an empty bedroom. If my mother found me she would tell me to put down the book and go outside to play with the other kids. I guess books were my hand held device addiction of the day.
ReplyDeleteA day with my cousins on the porch playing games was my life and looking back a bit of nirvana.
ReplyDeleteSounds idyllic, playing on the porch with family and I love the look of that house. It's certainly good to have a take on the Jersey Shore that is diferent from the portrayal it had in the TV show!Your descriptions of it are lovely - makes me want to go there. I remember Yahtzee - I loved that game!
ReplyDeleteNothing beats human interaction! Playing board and card games was so much fun in the good old days. ☺ Modern kids have no idea. What a lovely house and porch. ♥
ReplyDeleteI like it. I would be reading a good book somewhere inside, but with a view. Yes indeed.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your drizzly day. ♪♫♪♫
Those are great memories! I was glad when my kids came home from college that they had learned some new card and other games. I guess they weren't always on their devices!
ReplyDeleteKind of miss those days of board games and card games to make the rain go away. Those images made me smile. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteStaying out on the porch sounds like a lot more fun than TV, but what do i know, i always had my nose in a book.
ReplyDeleteI grew up 2 miles from the Pacific Ocean. I always loved those dreary days - foggy days...
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you explained that "spit in the ocean" was a card game!
ReplyDeleteI love rainy days - a great excuse to be lazy!