Thursday, or Thereabouts - July 7, 2016

The Heat is ON!

And throughout the land an all too familiar whine can be heard, "Mommeeeeeey, I'm bor ...or...ord!" It rang out in the shops and the parking lots just five days into the summer break. Twisting and turning behind grocery carts, red-faced foot-stomping kids wound up their mums who were just trying to get the weekly shopping done. Clearly for some it's going to be a very long hot summer.

When I was a kid, July heat was fertile ground for boredom. Yeah, we had that backyard pool, but you know the grass is always greener elsewhere. I envied my pals who spent the summer at cottages by cool shining lakes in Muskoka or Haliburton. It seemed to me that all the cool kids had places up north, on a lake with tall trees and big rocks and boats and fishing and all day swimming. They had non-stop fun I was sure. Come September there'd be tales of fishing derbies, water skiing, boat races, swimming competitions and campfires that lasted long into the night.

BUT then came August and the annual trip to the beach. Talk about a long commute! This one involved taxis and planes and a foreign country! My mother's family had a cottage on Long Island, New York. Perhaps you've heard of  "The Hampton's" -well not there, but rather a more modest community on the southernmost tip, just east of Manhattan, called Breezy Point. Sadly the Point is now famous for the great fire spawned by Hurricane Sandy back in the Fall of 2012. The storm unleashed an inferno that turned to ashes every cottage in the wedge, the old original Breezy Point, including the cottage of my childhood. But memories are forever and there are photos too!

1969

It was always and adventure every year to make the trek to 147 Oceanside. We always dressed up in our fancy duds because in those days air travel was fancy stuff. From Toronto we flew TCA (Trans Canada Airlines, later Air Canada) to New York's Idlewild (later JFK) airport on a Vickers Viscount or Vanguard prop job, a flight that took about ninety minutes.

The cottage was far from grand but I didn't mind. At Breezy we had the Atlantic Ocean, with waves great for body surfing contests and getting clobbered by a big one was as thrilling as it was humbling. We had the best beach in the world - white sand that stretched for miles.

Mom & I - August 1969

On a hot day, the walk from the end of the boardwalk to the firm sand near the water's edge was ... well hot, sole burning hot. And it's not easy to walk quickly on shifting sand carrying all the beach gear - big umbrella, chairs, tarp, food basket (containing pop tins wrapped in tin foil, sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and all full of sand anyway), and towels.

We had life guards on the beach, tall bronzed men in bright red swim trunks who sat atop blue life guard stands, or sometimes underneath them in the shade, whistle at the ready.

1961

We had parties - fancy hat, and card parties at Christ Community Church (Auntie Lilian always won 'The Basket of Cheer', the one full of booze), fashion jewellery parties and clothing sales (Aunt Lilian hosted and gave the profits to charity).


There were friends and neighbours who were always thrilled to welcome the 'Canadian Invasion' each August. One was president of a large bakery in Brooklyn that catered to the Jewish market. When he came to visit he always brought a huge paper sack, almost as tall as eight year old me, filled with breads (pumpernickel and light rye), rolls and chocolate donuts. He was the biggest man I'd ever seen - quite tall but also quite wide - and his shoes were the biggest shoes I'd ever seen - must have been six inches wide and fifteen long. As big as he and they were, his heart was bigger. He spoke slowly, thoughtfully and everybody listened.

1961

We had doctors that made their rounds on motor scooters and delivery boys that rode bikes, front baskets loaded with bottles from the liquor store and prescriptions from the drug store. We had cops who drove around in jeeps equipped with big tires to get through the sand.  AND, we had a volunteer fire department (Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department), with trucks with names like 'Big Jack' and 'Sand Flea'. When the big air raid type siren went off summoning fire and/or ambulance crews, it also summoned at least half the beach residents including us.

Late one night a fire started in the hardware store off of Market Street, opposite the drug store and we all trooped out to have a look. Dad carried a big red flashlight. He managed to make himself look so official that the fire crew from Brooklyn (they had to cross the Marine Parkway Bridge to get to Breezy, so were always late on the scene) asked Dad,  "Is it all right if we set up over here?" Dad mumbled something and waved his red flashlight around a bit before discreetly disappearing into the crowd.

It was more than just curiosity that got us up and out. Even in the 1960's and 70's the adults knew well the danger a fire presented in an enclave of 50+ year old clapboard cottages. But for us kids, it was just another great adventure.

1967

We had ferries that we could ride from Rockaway Point to Breezy for free, or take to Sheepshead Bay to check out the catch from the fishing fleet then chow down cherrystone clams on the half shell at Joe's Clam Bar. From there, a subway took us into Manhattan - the United Nations, Times Square, Battery Park, the Staten Island Ferry, and the Statue of Liberty all there to behold. We had fireworks - well of course actually Coney Island had the fireworks, but we could see them from the bayside.

Mom & Auntie Lilian, Sheepshead Bay 1967

We had the best pizza ever at a real soda fountain store that was just beside the grocery store. We had Ebinger's crumb cake! The competition for the crumbs is the stuff of family legend. Mom bought real butter. The steak, chicken and fish (fresh from the Sheepshead Bay fleet) all tasted better. We had the best food ever at Breezy Point.

Dad & I - August 1969

And come September I'd have tales of planes, boats, ocean waves, and seashells. I'd have stories about eating lunch beside the ocean and also in the Delegate's Dining Room at the United Nations. I'd talk about chasing fire engines though the sand in middle of the night.



Boardwalks, splinters, hot sand and sunburns. My God, it was grand!


















©2016 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - October 1, 2015

Waiting out the Storm - Once More

source: Earth Wind Map

I have been watching with increasing interest (perhaps approaching the status of addiction), the development and progress of Hurricane Joaquin (see wind map above). I check for updates on winds, position, forward movement and storm track several times a day (okay, okay, umpteen times a day). Some of my best cyber-friends these days are Intellicast,  John Kassell,  and the National Hurricane Center.

source: Intellicast

I have always been a follower of the weather, storms and hurricanes in particular.  I like to think that I come by this interest in the weather genetically.  My father was a meteorologist and although forecasting was not where the bulk of his career was spent, it was where it began and ended.

Dad loved watching the sky, noting the cloud formations and how they were moving.  He loved storm watching.  At every opportunity he would cajole his three daughters (we were not always the most willing) out onto the enclosed front porch to watch the lightning and count off the seconds until we heard the thunder.  I confess that these were not always happy and carefree occasions.  Sometimes the wind and the rain along with the natural pyrotechnics were just a bit scary.  Particularly that one time when lightning struck the hydro pole not fifty feet from us.  Suddenly there were four white-faced people, one adult and three children, all trying to get back through the narrow door into the house. It's comical now, but at the time anything but funny.  So I do have a healthy respect for the forces of nature, but a storm chaser's heart.

Fulton Walk, Breezy Point, 1970

Now back to hurricanes - My late mother's family who had a cottage on the southern tip of Long Island -- Breezy Point, New York.  From the time I was five years old until 1976, with only two exceptions, we spent at least two weeks every August 'at the beach'. Stories about hurricanes past were the stuff of legend, or at least I thought so as I sat in awe listening to the tales of howling winds and rising waters; how the ocean and the bay waters met in the parking lot behind the cottage, how the Sugar Bowl always went out with the waves; how the ocean waters rose up to the front steps.  It was all so very exciting and fascinating to my young ears. Sadly it was a hurricane, Sandy in 2012 that brought fire along with wind and rain. Much of old  Breezy Point was destroyed, including the old family cottage at 147 Oceanside.

Oceanside and Fulton Walk 2012, after Hurricane Sandy

Most hurricanes and tropical storms head up the eastern seaboard in early September. Back when I was there, we had always packed up and headed back home across the border in late August.  But in 1971, on August 28, Tropical Storm Doria caught up with us.  She struck at night and I remember the howling wind and the driving rain.  Sleep was impossible so we gathered round the dining table watching the chandelier sway and playing Pokeno.  Then the tea and cinnamon toast came out. It the was the best!

I don't think Dad sat down for more than five minutes.  He was in his element: tapping the barometer, taking observations from the back deck and listening to the National Weather Service radio.  When there was a momentary lull in the wind and rain, we listened to the "plink plonk symphony" orchestrated by 5 saucepans and multiple drops from the leaking roof.

The centre of Doria passed just after midnight as I recall and around 1:30am Dad announced that the pressure was rising, the winds were abating and it was time to go to bed.  In the morning which dawned clear and bright, we were drawn down the boardwalk to the ocean by the roar of the surf. The sea was still boiling and the pounding had created deep cuts in the sand. As we made our way back up Fulton Walk,  the neighbours called out to Dad and said, "When we saw the lights go out at your cottage, we knew all was well and the worst was over."

Hurricane Joaquin brings with him that great memory and one more -- the marriage of the weatherman and Irene, my Dad and my Mom.  Mom died in August 2010 and Dad's been gone since 1984. I'd like to think that together they are at the helm of this one and will steer him clear of causing major destruction while maintaining the thrill of it all.

National Hurricane Center Bulletin

Current forecast models put Joaquin, now a Category 4 storm (an extremely dangerous storm), off of Breezy Point around 8am Tuesday, but the path remains uncertain. What is sure is that it will bring heavy rain and serious flooding across the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic.

Be careful out there and if you are one who is told to leave, do so!








I will be here, waiting out the storm.  If I get out the Pokeno set, how be you get the tea and cinnamon toast?  Together we can wait and watch and pray that all will be well.


©2015 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - August 6, 2015

Throwback Thursday - the beat goes on...

An August tide rises with memories of warm, sandy beaches, tangy salt air and clams.

As a child August meant the annual family trip to the beach at Breezy Point, an idyllic community of cottagers escaping the heat of New York City.

My mother's family had been just such "Pointers" for eons and Mom had many stories of her childhood summers spent at the beach - movie nights, clam roasts by the ocean, lifeguards and sand, lots and lots of sand.

It was the 1930's and the music was pretty much blues, jazz and swing. Have a listen.

August 1968

Oh how well I know all those tunes! Why? Because they were the ones Mom and Dad sang, whistled and hummed most often when we were at the beach some thirty years later. But by now they had three daughters in tow and  it was the 60's. While the The Beatles held our hands the Beach Boys strummed up good vibrations, Chubby Checker taught us the twist and Elvis Presley  wanted to know if we were lonely tonight. Then Percy Faith waltzed through all the summer places while Ferrante & Teicher hammered out an exodus. The Monkeys made believers out of us all and with The Fifth Dimension we awoke to sunshine in the age of Aquarius. And who can forget the Singing Nun.

August 1957

At the Colony Theatre Mom had seen Mutiny on the Bounty, Gone with the Wind, the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin, The 39 Steps, Stagecoach (John Wayne), and The Wizard of Oz. Thirty years later at that same tin roofed cinema we saw The Sound of Music, The Graduate, McLintock! (John Wayne!), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and The Endless Summer.

August 1961

August 1961

August 1969

Oh, and fear not - we had lifeguards too!

August 1961

And cute police in jeeps!

August 1961

Those were the days... and they were full of family, laughter, fun and sand, lots and lots of sand.

Good, good, good, good vibrations!

©2015 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - January 26, 2015

A Fugue of Nothing. A Storm of Imagination



So here I am sitting at the top of the last week of January, staring down at a raging sea of things not done, which ought to have been done this month.What to do? Voices from the sea of tasks erupt in a cacophony of pleas.

"Pick me!"
"No, I'm the most urgent. Pick me!"
"But I'm the most important!"
"I'm the oldest!"
"I'm the newest!"
"I'm the most neglected!"
"I'm the best!"

And it all just ends up being so much noise in my head, the kind of disturbance that induces profound paralysis. Nothing gets started. Nothing gets worked on. Nothing gets done. Nothing gets to experience the satisfactory flourish of being crossed off the list. All are lost in this fugue of nothing. Is there anything that might rescue me from despair?








Why yes, as a matter of fact there is. As long as nothing significant is going to get done today, I might as well spend the time in my imagination, exploring and playing in this fertile field. So, sans constraints of any kind, where would I like to be today; what would I like to be doing?

I'd like to be at the beach. Not the Caribbean resort kind of beach, though that does have its charm, but rather the beach of my childhood, the one on the southern tip of Long Island, the one at Breezy Point. The place where on a clear day I could see the Jersey Highlands, the Verrazano Bridge, the Manhattan skyline and even pick out the Empire State Building. The beach of idyllic summers, sand, sea, salt air, clams on the half shell, and a few glorious storms of epic proportions.










And that's why I'd like to be there today - a storm, a "Massive Northeast Blizzard" is bearing down on New York City. The intrepid storm watcher/chaser in me would love to be there, right in the thick of it, in that cottage at the beach. Sadly the cottage is no more, having been gutted by fire in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in November 2012, but that's where my imagination comes to the rescue...

Outside the storm rages but inside we're sitting at the dining table sipping hot tea and munching on cinnamon toast. The wind howls, the windows shake, the rafters moan. From time to time Dad gets up to tap the barometer, look out the porch windows and maybe even crack open the door to sniff the air...

It's wild. It's exciting. It's fun! And I am so there!

©2015 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - March 17, 2014

St. Patrick's Day - A Hearty Menu

Dublin, September 2007

Irish stew, soda bread and a pint of Guinness - as grand a meal as one would wish, especially when winter just will not let go and there isn't even the remotest chance of seeing any green foliage, let alone a four leaf clover. We didn't wait for today but made our feast last night.

Right at home in the Guinness Brewery, Dublin, September 2007.

Beef browned in bacon fat, joined carrots and onions in a bath of a pint of true Irish brew, then simmered in the slow cooker all day long, before being dished out into deep bowls. Thick hunks of fresh baked brown soda bread mopped up the hearty broth.

All that's left today - brown soda bread and an empty can, or three.

Twas grand indeed - and about as Irish as we can get. But then again I spent many a childhood summer immersed in the "Irish Riviera" that is Breezy Point, New York, AND one of the ancestors married a maid from County Meath. Yet I'm still thinking all that is not enough to lay claim to shamrock blood.

Still you know, as wee ones my sisters and I (and even my wee folk) were lulled to sleep by a mother's voice crooning An Irish Lullaby, made famous by Bing Crosby in the 1944 movie Going My Way.

Over in Killarney
Many years ago,
Me Mither sang a song to me
In tones so sweet and low.
Just a simple little ditty,
In her good ould Irish way,
And l'd give the world if she could sing
That song to me this day.

Chorus
"Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby."

Oft in dreams I wander
To that cot again,
I feel her arms a-huggin' me
As when she held me then.
And I hear her voice a -hummin'
To me as in days of yore,
When she used to rock me fast asleep
Outside the cabin door.

1914 James Royce Shannon

Mom also taught me "All Through the Night" and I sang it to her on the few last nights of her life with us.

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee 

Floor mosaic St. Colman's Cathedral in Cobh, Ireland, Sept. 2007

All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loving vigil keeping 

All through the night.  

While the moon her watch is keeping
All through the night
While the weary world is sleeping
All through the night
O'er thy spirit gently stealing
Visions of delight revealing
Breathes a pure and holy feeling
All through the night. 

Hark, a solemn bell is ringing
Clear through the night
Thou, my love, art heavenward winging
Home through the night
Earthly dust from off thee shaken
Soul immortal shalt thou awaken
With thy last dim journey taken
Home through the night.

Cobh, Ireland, September 2007

And I can still hear my Mom and Dad singing any time of the year "When Irish Eyes are Smiling", "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen", "Cockles and Mussels", and so many others. Back in the day, no gathering of the clan large or small was complete without the singing of "Oh Danny Boy" accompanied by a few toasts to absent friends.

Today I'm celebrating the music, and the family that sang whether along or together, in good times and in bad, come wind or weather.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Slainte mhaith!


©2014 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - August 19, 2013

The Book and The Crumb Cake

My write hand has been busy!! I've had to refill my fountain pen three times since last Monday. Yes folks, the mouse trap worked and I've been working on my book (see last Monday's post for details) True to form, I have under-committed and over-delivered on the promise of performance, logging a full 17.5 hours of work on the book (M-F & Saturday and Sunday!). Most of it was actual pen on paper time, but about 6 hours was spent keyboarding, otherwise known as the first edit and revision. I'm impressed! I feel great too! The only problem, if one can call it that, is that I don't want to stop. My mind is writing way ahead of my hand and I'm feeling pressured to keep up. I'm thinking that's a good thing.

The Clan, circa 1900
top row left is my grandfather;
middle row left his father & mother

Today I am taking a break, despite the protestations of my inner critic. Clearly this gal does not approve of days off. Well suck it up buttercup! There's a gathering of the clan out at my sister's today, something billed as "THE Party of the season". Cousins from across the pond have arrived and we're celebrating as only the Cudbird-Vassar clan can. True to my late mother's form, there will be a table, or three?, laden with comestibles, including Mom's recipes for potato salad, New York Cheesecake and Ebinger's Crumb Cake.

Back in my childhood summers at Breezy Point, seeing a cake box from Ebinger's Baking Company in the hands of my Great Aunt Lilian as she got off the ferry from a day in the city, was always a a thrill. The distinctive box held the promise of a scrumptious dessert, and if by chance it was a crumb cake, well then, heaven came to mind. It wasn't so much the cake as it was the crumbs; those icing sugar dusted morsels of butter, sugar and flour with just a hint of cinnamon. AND I have the recipe!

In 1957 Mom wrote to Ebinger's in Brooklyn, NY to ask if she might have the recipe as her family lived in Canada and for eleven months of the year had to do without THE crumb cake (some years later Entenmann's made a crumb cake that was available here, but it just wasn't the same...). The Vice-President of the bakery replied to Mom, "I can sympathize with you since I have a summer home in the province of Quebec and face the same problem you do." He went on to outline the ingredients and instructions.

I note that he left out the dusting of icing sugar, but based on the many times I have made this gem, that's all he left out. It does indeed taste just like way back when, only better because now in addition to being a treat for taste buds and tummies, it excites happy memories of the crumb fights my two sisters and I had over the last morsels in the box. The recipe says, "...sprinkle on desired amount of crumb mixture". I asked my younger sister how much 'a desired amount' might be. She answered, "6 to 8 inches."  Good thing I made a double batch of crumbs this time, and don't worry girls, today I've got extra crumbs for both of you - but I've got the most!

Time to push off.
Wherever you are, have a great ride this week.

The Crumb Cake

Thursday, or Thereabouts - July 18, 2013

Hot, Hot, Hot!
So hot that the tar bubbles up between the stones on the road;
                                                          round, shiny, black blobs of goo.
I can smell that flip flop sticking ooze, an acrid gasoline smell assaults my nostrils
     and I run away, a way back in time to childhood summers...

I confess that in the heat of July I envied my pals who spent the summer at cottages by cool shining lakes in Muskoka or Haliburton. It seemed to me that all the cool kids had places up north, on a lake with tall trees and big rocks and boats and fishing and all day swimming, and all just two hours away from home. Tales, some of them much taller than others I'm sure, of fishing derbies, water skiing, boat races, swimming competitions and campfires that lasted long into the night, enchanted me.

147 Oceanside; Mardi Gras parade 1973

BUT then came August and the annual trip to the beach. Talk about a long commute! This one involved taxis and planes and a foreign country! My mother's family had a cottage on Long Island, New York. Perhaps you've heard of  "The Hampton's" -well not there, but rather a more modest community on the southernmost tip, just east of Manhattan, called Breezy Point. Sadly the Point is now famous for the great fire spawned by Hurricane Sandy late last Fall, which turned to ashes every cottage in the wedge, the old original Breezy Point, including the cottage of my childhood. But memories are forever and there are photos too!

It was always and adventure every year to make the trek to 147 Oceanside. We always dressed up in our fancy duds because in those days air travel was fancy stuff. From Toronto we flew TCA (Trans Canada Airlines, later Air Canada) to New York's Idlewild (later JFK) airport on a Vickers Viscount or Vanguard prop job, a flight that took about ninety minutes.

Cathy, Mardi Gras Parade Day 1973

The cottage was far from grand but I didn't mind. At Breezy we had the Atlantic Ocean, with waves great for body surfing contests and getting clobbered by a big one was as thrilling as it was humbling. We had the best beach in the world - white sand that stretched for miles. On a hot day, the walk from the end of the boardwalk to the firm sand near the water's edge was ... well hot, sole burning hot. And it's not easy to walk quickly on shifting sand carrying all the beach gear - big umbrella, chairs, tarp, food basket (containing pop tins wrapped in tin foil, sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and all full of sand anyway), and towels. We had life guards on the beach, tall bronzed men in bright red swim trunks who sat atop blue life guard stands, or sometimes underneath them in the shade, whistle at the ready.

1961 Cathy & April

1960 Mom & her girls

Three sisters on the Bayside, 1961

Pat & April with the Life Guards, 1961

Dad & I, 1969

Woosh! 1970

We had parties - fancy hat, and card parties at Christ Community Church (Auntie Lilian always won 'The
Basket of Cheer', the one full of booze), fashion jewellery parties and clothing sales (Aunt Lilian hosted and gave the profits to charity). There were friends and neighbours who were always thrilled to welcome the 'Canadian Invasion' each August. One was president of a large bakery in Brooklyn that catered to the Jewish market. When he came to visit he always brought a huge paper sack, almost as tall as eight year old me, filled with breads (pumpernickel and light rye), rolls and chocolate donuts. He was the biggest man I'd ever seen - quite tall but also quite wide - and his shoes were the biggest shoes I'd ever seen - must have been six inches wide and fifteen long. As big as he and they were, his heart was bigger. He spoke slowly, thoughtfully and everybody listened.

1967, Aunt Lilian on the right

We had doctors that made their rounds on motor scooters and delivery boys that rode bikes, front baskets loaded with bottles from the liquor store and prescriptions from the drug store. We had cops who drove

Pat & April, 1961

around in jeeps equipped with big tires to get through the sand. AND, we had a volunteer fire department (Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department), with trucks with names like 'Big Jack' and 'Sand Flea'. When the big air raid type siren went off summoning fire and/or ambulance crews, it also summoned at least half the beach residents including us. Late one night a fire started in the hardware store off of Market Street, opposite the drug store and we all trooped out to have a look. Dad carried a big red flashlight. He managed to make himself look so official that the fire crew from Brooklyn (they had to cross the Marine Parkway Bridge to get to Breezy, so were always late on the scene) asked Dad,  "Is it all right if we set up over here?" Dad reported that he mumbled something and waved his red flashlight around a bit before discreetly disappearing into the crowd.

Mom & Cathy, 1967

We had ferries that we could ride from Rockaway Point to Breezy for free, or take to Sheepshead Bay to check out the catch from the fishing fleet. From there, a subway took us into Manhattan - the United Nations, Times Square, Battery Park, the Staten Island Ferry, and the Statue of Liberty all there to behold. We had fireworks - well of course actually Coney Island had the fireworks, but we could see them from the bayside.

We had the best pizza ever at a real soda fountain store that was just beside the grocery store. We had Ebinger's crumb cake! The competition for the crumbs is the stuff of family legend. Mom bought real butter and the steak, chicken and fish (fresh from the Sheepshead Bay fleet) all tasted better. We had the best food ever at Breezy Point, or so it seemed.

Maybe it was the sand, maybe it was the salt air, probably it was the love.

Waiting out the Storm

I have been watching with increasing interest (perhaps approaching the status of addiction), the development and progress of Hurricane Irene.  I check for updates on winds, position, forward movement and storm track several times a day (okay, okay, umpteen times a day).  Some of my best friends on Facebook these days are Intellicast.com and ECHO Storm Team.

I have always been a follower of the weather, storms and hurricanes in particular.  I like to think that I come by this interest in the weather genetically.  My father was a meteorologist and although forecasting was not where the bulk of his career was spent, it was where it began and ended.  Dad loved watching the sky, noting the cloud formations and how they were moving.  He loved storm watching.  At every opportunity he would cajole his three daughters (we were not always the most willing) out onto the enclosed front porch to watch the lightning and count off the seconds until we heard the thunder.  I confess that these were not always happy and carefree occasions.  Sometimes the wind and the rain along with the natural pyrotechnics were just a bit scary.  Particularly that one time when lightning struck the hydro pole not fifty feet from us.  Suddenly there were four white-faced people, one adult and three children, all trying to get back through the door into the house.  It's comical now, but at the time anything but funny.  So I do have a healthy respect for the forces of nature, but a storm chaser's heart.

Now back to hurricanes and Irene in particular.  My late mother,  Irene, had family who had a cottage on the southern tip of Long Island -- Breezy Point, New York.  From the time I was five years old until 1976, with only two exceptions, we spent at least two weeks every August 'at the beach'.  Stories about hurricanes past were the stuff of legend, or at least I thought so as I sat in awe listening to the tales of howling winds and rising waters.  It was all so very exciting and fascinating to my young ears.

above photo: Dad in the right corner, cottage centre; the Mardi Gras parade
(always at the end of August at Breezy Point)

Most hurricanes and tropical storms head up the eastern seaboard in early September (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_hurricanes#1950.E2.80.9374) by which time we had packed up and back home across the border.  But in 1971, on August 28, Tropical Storm Doria caught up with us (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Doria_(1971).  She struck at night and I remember the howling wind and the driving rain.  Sleep was impossible so we gathered round the dining table watching the chandelier sway and playing Pokeno.  Then the tea and cinnamon toast came out. It the was the best!  I don't think Dad sat down for more than five minutes.  He was in his element: tapping the barometer, taking observations from the back deck and listening to the National Weather Service radio.  When there was a momentary lull in the wind and rain, we listened to the "plink plonk symphony" orchestrated by 5 saucepans and multiple drops from the leaking roof.

The centre of Doria passed just after midnight as I recall and around 1:30am Dad announced that the pressure was rising, the winds were abating and it was time to go to bed.  In the morning which dawned clear and bright, we were drawn down the boardwalk to the ocean by the roar of the surf.  The sea was still boiling and the pounding had created deep cuts in the sand. As we made our way back up Fulton Walk,  the neighbours called out to Dad and said, "When we saw the lights go out at your cottage, we knew all was well and the worst was over."

Hurricane Irene brings with her that great memory and one more -- the marriage of the weatherman and Irene, my Dad and my Mom.  Mom died last August (see my 'Dear Mom' post) and Dad's been gone since 1984.  I had a sense when tropical storm Irene became Hurricane Irene that she'd be headed straight up the eastern seaboard to Breezy Point.  I'd like to think that Mom and Dad are at the helm of this one and will steer her clear of causing major destruction while maintaining the thrill of it all. 

Forty years ago to the day I will be here, waiting out the storm.  If I get out the Pokeno set, how be you get the tea and cinnamon toast?  Together we can wait and watch and pray that all will be well.
Be careful out there and if you are one who is told to leave, do so! 
Take care.

The Weatherman and his Irene,
September 1971






(all photos © April Hoeller)