A Sweet and Sour Memory—White Crystal Beach in 1952

A Sweet and Sour Memory—White Crystal Beach in 1952

Dancing on the boardwalk at White Crystal Beach, circa 1950

White Crystal Beach, circa 1945. Inset upper left: The Turkey Point Lighthouse, circa 1930. Note vestige of wooden steps and chute ascending the cliff. Supplies, unloaded from a boat, were hauled up the chute to the keeper.

For the life of me I could not rouse my Uncle Ernest that Saturday morning in 1952. Having just arrived from Nola’s Bar on Chesapeake City’s North Side, he was in no condition to talk. So I went outside for a while to cool my heels. It was late August and you know what it’s like when it’s especially hot and humid. It would be years before we had air conditioning, so we’d sit under our maple tree and bless the occasional breeze that cooled us off. Sometimes abrupt thunder storms would really cool us off. The wind, teeming rain and occasional hail would rage, bending our orchard saplings double. Anyway, I had big plans for that particular afternoon. Time was valuable because school would reopen in two weeks and I wanted to make the most of my remaining free time. I walked into town and collared Dick Sheridan (my best friend and 42^nd cousin) so we could run my boat to White Crystal Beach for a day’s swim. We walked down Bohemia Avenue, past Dr. Conrey’s mansion (now the Blue Max), and down Ferry Slip Road to Stone Bridge where I had my run-about pulled up on the shore.

          We got to White Crystal in no time, dragged the boat up upon the white sand, took a long, cool swim, and then went up to the small boardwalk where kids were dancing to juke box music. We watched for a while and then I saw, in the midst of the dancers, a girl so pretty that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was about 5’5” with short, light brown hair and a thin, well-formed body. And her eyes . . . how can I tell you about her eyes—those eyes that were so sparkling and playful and full of life? She and another girl were jitterbugging to Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock.” She wore a pure-white terry cloth blouse that was open at the throat and trimmed in navy blue. Her shorts were terry cloth trimmed in navy blue also. She was beautiful!

          Well, I knew that if I didn’t meet her and dance with her I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Just then, as if Cupid planned it, the perfect song started playing: Jo Stafford’s “You Belong to Me.” Could it be, musical reader, that you might remember that magical tune? Surprisingly, she agreed to dance with me, so there I was actually holding that rare beauty and swaying to the beat of my favorite song. When I pulled her gently closer and she put her damp hair against my cheek I could tell she’d been swimming. And then something unusual happened that surprised me. Coming, I thought, from her terry cloth blouse was a faintly sour scent—not disagreeable but distinctive, uniquely pleasant. The graceful-moving closeness of her body was wonderful, and the image of her white and blue terry cloth attire combined with that ever-so-slight tartness embedded the encounter securely in my mind.

For those few minutes we were one body swaying in tender motion to the mesmerizing music. When the song ended we walked to the railing and looked across the bay at Turkey Point, and there, as if emerging fresh from the foliage especially for us, was the Turkey Point Light House, its pure whiteness breathtaking in contrast to the surrounding panorama of darkening sky, dark green foliage, and dark emerald water. But then, just as she squeezed my hand to enhance the scene’s splendor, the spell was broken by a startling flash of lightening and an immediate, deafening clap of thunder. Suddenly I felt Dick yank me away as he yelled, “Let’s get out of here!” Lunging backwards as he pulled, I got a glimpse of Terry Cloth’s eyes and saw that she was as distraught as I was. We hadn’t even exchanged names! I thought, “My God, I’ll never see her again.”

Dick and I dashed to the shore, pushed the boat in and, surging through the high breakers and drenched by the driving rain, we somehow made it back to Chesapeake City’s Basin. Something told me that I’d never see the girl again. And I never did, though I returned to White Crystal Beach several times until school started. She probably had been there for a few days from some Pennsylvania town . . . so we were never to meet again. But it’s funny how strong that memory of sour sweetness is, even now, years after that tender encounter in 1952 on the boardwalk of White Crystal Beach. Yet I knew then that I’d never forget her—her beauty, her grace, and her beguiling fragrance.

Back at the farmhouse Uncle Ernest was fully alert and ready for his nightly escapades. He mentioned a redheaded girlfriend he’d once had. “You won’t believe how gorgeous she was, Moose-the-Goose.” “Yeah,” I thought, “but she’d never match the beauty of the girlfriend I almost had.” Still, I know that readers will be anxious to hear about his redhead in my next posting entitled, “Port Herman Beach.”

But no, wait! Geez, I almost forgot to tell you something. That same year, in the fall of 1952 when school had been back in session for a few days, something magical occurred. I was behind the wheel of Pop’s ’48 Ford, parked next to a line of buses and waiting for Dick come out. I was watching students boarding a bus when a girl with sparkling, playful eyes and short, light brown hair made me lunge forward against the windshield. It was the terry cloth girl! She was just as stunning as ever, despite the fancy school clothes. And, sure, alert reader, you knew all along. You weren't fooled by my deception.

You knew that no love god worthy of his bow and arrow would ever let me lose her. She lived on Chesapeake City’s North Side and I had somehow missed her throughout school. So I rushed over, held her hands, looked into those playful eyes, and watched as tears seeped in to flood and distort what once was clear and bright. Then they overflowed their banks, releasing swollen pearls that migrated leisurely down her cheek. They picked up speed towards her chin, hesitated, and then plopped with abrupt invisibility to her blouse until I held her close.

          As you might expect, we started dating regularly and, after a while, one night as we embraced she murmured with soft, musical tones, “You belong to me.” And durn! I did. And I have belonged to her, but only for the last 61 years. And sometimes, after the kids have gone and on rare occasions when we have some leftover energy, we’ll dance gently to Jo Stafford’s tune and eyeball our painting of Turkey Point. And it’s only because that White Crystal memory is languishing in some remote crevice in my brain that I can just barely detect the faint scent of tainted terry cloth.