Family Vacation to the New Jersey Shore

This is what I remember about our family vacation to the beach in New Jersey. I turned six years old during this vacation and I still remember a lot that happened. Keep in mind, this story you are about to read is from my memory as a six year old. I’m sure some of these details were blown out of porportion, but my memory just the same.

When I was a child….

I was not a flighty kind of child but I always ended up getting lost, no matter where I was or who I was with. I could usually be found near the jewelry counter in a department store looking at the shiny jewelry and feeling the velvet displays. Many times, my mother was the one being paged in a store announcing her lost child. The year I turned six, my family and I went to the beach in New Jersey. I remember many things about this vacation, but it turned into a vacation from hell for my mother.

My birthday at the beach….

We stayed in an apartment on the second floor in New Jersey and walking distance to the beach. I got to sleep on a cot for the first time ever, which was a big deal for me. My parents, two sisters and I celebrated my 6th birthday there and I remember getting a Barbie and some Matchbox cars. I got to take them to the beach and play with them in the sand. We also lost a few of those cars in the sand when the tide came in. Rosanna by Toto was a huge hit then and still today when I hear that song on the radio, I think of New Jersey.

Crowded beaches….

The beach was crowded with people, radios playing music in all directions, and blankets and coolers laying everywhere. There were always sand toys and buckets laying around and it was easy to grab a few and start playing with them. My mom was always thrifty about packing food when we went to the beach. In those days, feeding the seagulls was actually fun. We had crowded in quite a few seagulls by feeding them our leftover bread and chips. Those seagulls would eat anything! My dad had enough of the seagulls so he had put a stop to feeding them. Naturally, I was not done so I started walking around the beach with my head down, looking for more food to feed the seagulls with. No luck so I sat down in the sand, made a big mound of sand between my legs and when I stood up, I was lost. Very lost. I could hear my mother hollering for me but I couldn’t see her. The more I walked around, the more lost I got.

Lifeguards who actually did their job…..

In those days, there were tall lifeguard chairs lined up on the whole shore line and lifeguards everywhere on the beach. I was pretty comfortable approaching a nice-looking lady to “help me find my mommy”, probably because I got lost all the time and had a lot of practice. The nice lady insisted that I go tell the lifeguard that I was lost and that he could help me find my mommy. Obediently, I found the nearest lifeguard and got his attention.

The lifeguard came down from his tall chair and put his hands on my arms to get more eye level with me. Remind you, I am only six years old. I’m less than waist high so you can imagine how frightened I was being that close…. well, to a guy. He assured me very dramatically that they would help me find my mommy. He got back up in his high chair and started waving a towel. All of a sudden, there were hundreds of jeeps coming our way, well maybe not hundreds, but there were a lot of jeeps. They picked me up and started driving further down the beach. All I could think about was that they were getting me more lost and that I would never see my mommy again. The lifeguards in these jeeps had passed me back and forth so I don’t remember how many jeeps I was actually on but my arms were really sore by being picked up so many times. I eventually ended up in a lifeguard house where a really nice lady sang songs to me to cheer me up. We sat on the floor and she sang “If You’re Happy and You Know it”. I wouldn’t stomp my feet or clap my hands because I was NOT happy, but she did manage to get me to laugh. They took me away from my nice new friend and went for another ride on a jeep. Eventually, the jeep slowed down and came to a stop.

I heard my mom’s voice…..

When the jeep stopped, I heard my mom’s voice. I don’t think my feet hit the floor of the jeep as I jumped out. I found my mom! I noticed that my dad and sisters were not with my mom and she was all alone. Almost all the people that we were surrounded by on the beach were gone. We sat on the beach blanket and mom just held me. That’s all I remember.

The reality of my story…..

Looking back on this memory as an adult and what my mom has told me what she remembered brings tears to my eyes. Now that I’m a mom myself, I can put myself in my mom’s shoes that day and I’m surprised she didn’t kill me after she hugged me so tight. My mom told me the last time she saw me, I was walking towards the ocean and I never came back. When the jeep finally found my mom, the sun was setting and people were going home because it was getting late. My dad had taken my sisters back to the apartment because it was past dinner time and they were getting hungry. My mom sat on the beach blanket by herself with her own thoughts as she waited for me…. and waited and waited. The lifeguard told my mom that they found me four counties down from where they found my mom. I don’t know much about New Jersey counties, although there are a few very short counties near the coast, but regardless, I walked a very far distance before I asked for help. The lifeguard said it was possible that the current of the ocean had carried me down too far and when I got out of the water, I didn’t know where I was and started walking in the wrong direction. Apparently, that happened often.

Although this vacation was a horror story for my mom and dad, it was a great vacation for me. I got to celebrate my 6th birthday at the beach and I got to sleep on a cot. Our family vacation to the beach in New Jersey will always be branded with the song Rosanna and my little adventure far away from my family.