Carpinteria State Beach

 

 

 

A perfect day in Carpinteria.

This is where we spent some of our childhood summers in a little rental by the sea. There were six cottages in two rows of three. Most were summer rentals but one family lived there year round.

Scruffy little houses with linoleum floors and old furniture. Lots of places for people to sleep...

It is still called The World's Safest Beach.

Down to the snack bar with a little change to buy a snow cone. 

The carnival came to town on Labor Day. Throw a ring around a quarter and win!

The Spot is still there with the usual snack bar offerings...still there after at least fifty years...

A sweatshirt, a few pairs of Horgan shorts, a summer hair cut (called a pixie then), a rubber raft...and we were set. I can't remember what we wore on our feet. Maybe we went barefoot!

Bologna sandwiches or tuna or peanut butter and jelly; always on white bread. Best Food's  mayo, never Miracle Whip. Potato chips. Fruit?

Parents and their cocktails at happy hour...

Idle hours lolling in sand dunes. Listening to the Kingston Trio...how old they were to me then...Did he ever return; no he never returned. And his fate is still unknown. He may ride forever neath the streets of Boston. He's the man who never returned...

Peggy, my mother's friend, playing her guitar..Maryann O Maryann o won't you marry me; we could have a bamboo hut and whiskey in our tea. Leave your fat old mama home; she never will say yes. If mama don't know now. She can guess. (It is only recently that I understood those lyrics!)


Reading True Confessions looking for the good parts, never having been kissed ever yet.

Hours in the water...still rocking on the sea when you go to bed in sandy sheets.

Fathers coming up on the weekend after their work is done.

Your turn for a shower. Breck shampoo and some soft detangler going through your hair that Mom mixed with water in a plastic cup.

Then home and back to school. A few new things to wear and some paper and pencils. Leaves turning.