Summertime, or what I remember most.

We used to go to the beach, a lot. Every summer.

We'd take the train to Point Pleasant, Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, Spring Lake; the subway to Coney Island, or Brighton Beach. Coney Island was Nathans and Brighton was knishes, and once we went to the surly Georgian grocery store, and going in one at a time so someone could watch the stuff. LIRR to Oakdale and my dads, even the summer we swam too far and had to be rescued, or East Hampton and my aunts, like when I laughed at him for his fear of fishing as I merrily baited hooks and trolled with my uncle out towards Montauk Point. We went to Newport after the Bar exam and sat in the cloudy cold sand anyway and rode a real schooner and ogled the tan deckhands together. We went to glorious Miami Beach and stepped out our hotel and onto the sand, the glamourous life. Ocean Grove NJ was a dry town with tent-cottages and a huge cavernous church hall and we walked to Bradley Beach and had spaghetti and snuck wine back to our inn and sat on the windy porch and drank it with glasses we bought, leftover new years glasses I think, and talked and looked at the clouds and listened to the wonderful angry storm-surf. Point Pleasant was the best, day tripping, or that Raymond Carver like hotel where we laughed at the tiny railroad and went to the batting cages and he found me the perfect twenty-five cent arcade with ms pac man and we made love in the shower after the beach and flopped on the bed and ate fudge after a perfect dinner at the restuarant that teetered on pillars moored into the surf.

Those were good things, good summers.