The author, John Marek, is executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
This past weekend, the calendar officially flipped over to summer. This summer, of course, is going to be unlike any other we have experienced. Many of the things we associate with the season – hanging out at the swimming pool, getting ice cream, going to the beach – will either be off-limits or significantly different.
Like most people, I have fond memories of the summers of my youth, although, as I noted in an earlier column, our rural homestead offered a more “socially distant” experience than my “townie” classmates. Still, on those occasions we did get into town, there were exciting things to do.
Port Clinton had an outdoor public swimming pool up until around 1968. It was located in City Park, across Perry Street from Lake Erie and City Beach. Because it closed when I was very young, I have no recollection whatsoever of going there and only the vaguest recall of what it looked like.
The pool of my youth was the high school natatorium where I took swimming lessons for two summers, probably around third and fourth grade. Now, an indoor pool is fine, indeed a sensible option given the chilly weather in that part of the country nine months out of the year. But as a summer hangout, it leaves a lot to be desired. Outdoor pools are bright and cheerful, fun and exciting. Indoor pools are dark and claustrophobic, drab and antiseptic.
We would show up at the pool at the proper time, splash purposefully for half an hour, then dry off and go home. Not the stuff great memories are made of. I do recall accidentally kicking the wall and likely breaking every toe on my right foot. Of course, I don’t know for sure because “doctor’s visits are expensive, and there’s nothing they can do for a broken toe anyway.”
My father had a sweet tooth and particularly loved ice cream, so many of our summer adventures involved it. In fact, many of our adventures CENTERED around ice cream, with the other things taking on a supporting role. For the most part, ice cream to my father meant soft- serve, and his favorite was the vanilla/chocolate “twist.” These days, any place with a soft- serve machine offers the twist, but in 1970 it was still a bit of a novelty, and Dad scoped out which of the dozen or so places near us provided it.
The “dream vacation” of ice cream, though, the exclusive place saved for special occasions, was Toft’s. Toft’s was a dairy in nearby Sandusky. Located in a nondescript factory building along the Lake Erie shore in what could charitably be characterized as the industrial part of town, there was a small counter in the back where they served the public an ice cream cone, sundae or banana split. They typically offered two flavors, chocolate and vanilla, and sometimes a special seasonal one like peach or strawberry. There was no seating, inside or out, so you took your treat back to the car and ate it in the dingy parking lot as the semi-trucks pulled in and out with their loads of milk and cheese. Loved. That. Place.
We were, above all else, a beach family and the vast majority of my summer memories revolve around long days swimming and playing in the sand at East Harbor State Park and City Beach. East Harbor was once as grand a resort beach as there was on Lake Erie; a mile of tawny sand with a breakwall/boardwalk connecting bathhouses, concession stands and picnic areas. In its heyday, hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the state traveled there between Memorial Day and Labor Day. But, by my era, poor engineering, years of unusually high water and a series of bad storms in the late-’60s had all but destroyed it. Two-thirds of the beach was completely inaccessible; the breakwall ripped away and the bathhouses collapsed into the waves. The one section left standing offered just a narrow ribbon of sand at the base of the concrete breakwall. Still, it was my beach, and I loved it.
We would pack a picnic lunch of cold fried chicken, potato salad and cantaloupe or watermelon and head out around 10 a.m. At noon we would take a break for lunch and then resume our activities until 5 or 6 in the evening, around the time the mosquitos from the nearby lagoon headed out in search of dinner. An interesting side note; we didn’t know what sunscreen was. Never used the stuff. There was a product called Unguentine, which came in a bottle shaped like a fire extinguisher. You put that on your sunburn until your skin was dark enough that it didn’t burn anymore.
And that’s why my dermatologist is on speed-dial.