Walk Softly Live Gently

Chapter 2

To follow up on chapter one, it was about that time of my experience just prior to and following the removal of that birthmark that we began to visit the beach area of Milford, Connecticut where we rented a house on the beach. Interestingly the owners of the house continued to live in the house during our stay there. They were an elderly couple and unwilling to leave their home to the vagaries of strangers.
Of course, to us children it made no difference. We spent most of our time out of the house running around the beach. I had many wonderful days and nights during our times at Milford. Those were the days of innocence when every day was a new adventure.

I was particularly taken by the large horseshoe crabs we found under the house every morning. They would drift in on the high tide during the evenings, perhaps laying their eggs in the sand we guessed. In the mornings they would make their way back into the surf becoming vulnerable to the curiosity and pranks of the young folks (read, me) who thought to make them playthings.

The Horseshow crab is also a wonderful object lesson for outward show and little substance with their large (depending on species) outer menacing looking shell but underneath there is not much there.

The other even more interesting and, to us, compelling area was the little island called Charles Island that was perhaps several hundred yards from the beach. We could walk across to the island via a narrow land bridge which was only accessible during low tide. In those days (around 1954, 1955) we could explore the entire island at will and often did. Once, a buddy and I came across a place that was apparently the ruins of some old building mostly covered over with vegetation. Of course, we thought it was probably haunted and or cursed. It was a scary looking place and we didn’t hang around there too long.
As it turns out according to old legends the island really was cursed. Check out this link for a short but interesting history of Charles Island Curse
I also discovered that the island is now some kind of bird sanctuary and is fenced off to visitors. You can still walk around the perimeter on the beach and rocks but no exploring by curious and potentially mischievous kids.

Charles Island, cursed or otherwise, was a major reason I looked forward to those long hot Summers growing up in Yonkers, NY. There was, at least for a few weeks out of the year, a place of respite from the swelter we often experienced. One of the moments I did not enjoy as much was when my mother decided she needed to rid my face of a growing number of those little red bumps we affectionately called ‘zits’, which in that day were just “pimples”.
The bad part of that ordeal was that we were sitting on a bench at the back of the house which faced the street. It seemed odd to me at first that the back of the house faced the street and the front of the house faced the ocean. The opposite of our normal city folk thinking. My first lesson in paradox I guess.
Anyway, mom made me put my head on her lap and using her opposable thumbs squeezed those pimples and blackheads until something that looked like puss and maybe a little blood would come out. Yes it was a painful ordeal but my embarrassment when some local cute looking teenage girls walked by was the most painful of all. I can still see them staring at us (me!) as they walked by with what I perceived as smirks but which was more probably empathetic knowing smiles. I tried to get her to stop but she would hear none of it no matter how red my face became.