Sum, Sum Summertime

Goin’ downy ocean.  For many of us living in Catonsville, goin’ downy ocean is an annual rite of passage that defines summer in Maryland. At least once each season my husband and I load our family in the car and make the journey over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Maryland’s Eastern Shore and points beyond.

Because of the traffic we always mean to leave for the beach by 8 a.m. That’s always the plan. Pack the evening before, wake up by 6 a.m. and be on the road by eight at the latest. Unfortunately, every year our best intentions are foiled. And every year I blame someone else for my own inability to stick to a schedule.

This past trip was no different. As usual, we didn’t get out of the house until way past 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and subsequently got stuck in a 45-minute back-up before the bay bridge.

It started out so well. Friday evening rolled around and my husband and I found ourselves surrounded by the detritus and debris required for a family of five to survive a week at the beach. We rolled up our sleeves and set to work; I in the house packing the suitcases and the entire contents of our medicine cabinet (what if one of us contracts malaria?), and my husband outside packing the boards- skateboards, skim boards, game boards etc… these items in no way lessening the children’s ability to complain of being bored.

It was around 5 p.m. and I was up to my elbows in kid’s underwear and travel shampoo when two friends whom we hadn’t seen in some time stopped by unexpectedly.

One drink led to two, and cheese and crackers evolved into dinner at Catonsville Gourmet restaurant. At some point, the combination of outstanding white wine and delicious soft shell crab worked their magic on me and I convinced myself I was absolutely capable of staying out until midnight. I would finish packing before I went to bed. I made a mental note to thank Dave Carney, owner of the Wine Bin in Ellicott City, for his help in picking such an outstanding vintage, and held out my glass for another pour…

Then it was morning. It was 9:30 am and no one was up. Pulling myself out of bed, I tripped over our partially packed suitcases on the way to the bathroom. After catching a glimpse of my heinous reflection in the bathroom mirror I clumsily began looking for the duct tape and calk needed to reassemble my face into human form.  I made an irrational mental note to slap Dave Carney.

Sticking my head out of the bathroom door I croaked a wake-up call to the children in a voice barely loud enough to be heard. The only response I received was from the dog who, sprawled in an indecent pose on the floor of our bedroom, cracked open one eye, snuffled, and stretched farther onto his back until he resembled a flying fruit bat.

Eventually our house began to stir. I instructed the children to finish packing their suitcases and began to chuck anything within reach into the car. I abandoned my plan of packing a nutritional breakfast picnic and threw granola bars at everyone’s heads. As my husband started the car, I ran around the house turning off lights and unplugging appliances. And as the clock reached 10:59 a.m., I threw myself into the car, shouting “Go, GO!” to my husband, who calmly ignored me and slowly backed out of our drive.  I was NOT going to leave the house past 11 a.m.

Had I looked back I would have seen that almost every light on the top floor was on, as well as a computer and the television in our bedroom.

We had left the dog food and beach chairs sitting in the driveway.

My son had forgotten to bring any underwear, but did have the presence of mind to pack D batteries, regardless of the fact that none of the many electronic gadgets brought on the trip required them.

And we had neglected to bring a single phone charger.

Not bad, for us.

I can’t blame this defect in my personality on genetics. My father’s mania at getting our family across the bridge before the sun was fully up was the stuff of legend for my sister and I.  In the early '70s, before the second span was erected, and prior to the construction of Route 97, the trip from our house in Catonsville to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge could take up to an hour.

Add another half hour wait at the toll plaza and a lack of improved roadways on the eastern shore, and my dad was looking at a 4 1/2 to 5 hour trip to the beach. Driving in a non-air conditioned car with my mother smoking incessantly, we kids unharnessed in the back seat, and losing reception of WCAO and WBAL by Easton was no picnic.

My dad would begin strategizing for our departure at least a week before, approaching the whole vacation with the military precision he learned as a radioman and gunner flying over the Pacific theater during World War II.  Mail was scheduled to be held, newspaper delivery suspended and fluid levels checked in the car. The weather was monitored constantly, which in the '70s basically meant watching the six o’clock news.

Two days before our trip, my mother, cigarette in hand, would begin to pack up what seemed to me to be the entire contents of our house, including sheets, towels, and food for the week.

On the morning of our trip my father would be up well before dawn to finish packing the car. My mother would gently shake us awake around 5:30 a.m., instructing us to dress, quickly. By that time, my dad would be in the car with the engine idling.

If we did not appear within 10 minutes, he would lean out the window, shouting at the house, “Get in the car, Get in the Car!” as I fumbled under the couch for my missing Jack Purcell sneaker. Forgoing breakfast, my mother would shoo us out of the house with her free hand, embers dropping from the cigarette held loosely in the other. One last check to make sure the stove wasn’t on (wouldn’t want a fire!) and she would exit our house, leaving a trail of ash behind.

An hour later my father would be rolling up to the Bay Bridge Plaza with 50 cent toll in hand, clocking in at 6:50am. Given the effort taken to accomplish this feat, I think this moment was a highlight of his vacation.

At the time, I thought my father was ridiculous, ruining the first morning of my vacation with his inability to chill out. Flash forward 35 years and I find myself admiring his commitment to the task.

Every year, that man managed to have my sister and I floating on our navy blue and red canvas rafts in the Atlantic Ocean by 11 a.m. on the first Saturday of our vacation.

Leave it to the Greatest Generation to successfully pull off the 'great escape.'

Without Googling, can you provide the actual name of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge? Do you have memories of traveling to the eastern shore before its 1952 construction? Or any beach travel memories you’d like to share?