Accabonac

 

Oldsmobile, suitcases and cartons lashed to the luggage rack on its behind,

 

bears down like an old stable horse in scent of home.  Wheels hum on the steel

 

belly of the bridge.  The smell of the sea.

 

Coming off the bridge was a coal processing plant.  My sister and I are in-

 

structed to breathe deeply.  Its fumes, we are told, are good for the lungs.

 

We accept this at face value.  It is not until much later in life, that we learn of

 

mother’s trauma over the death from tuberculosis, in her teens, of her

 

younger sister Frieda.  We pass the ordnance area, mounds of grass covered

 

magazines, and the barracks of Fort Tilden.  Helmeted sentries with Spring-

 

fields stand at the gate.  In reverie I am back at Rockaway Point.

 

In the mid to late 1930’s we spent two weeks of summer at Rockaway

 

Point, courtesy of Uncle Will.  Will was my father’s older brother.  For several

 

summers, in those years, he rented, with some pals, a small, ramshackle bun-

 

galow at “The Point”.  The summer of ’37 gave me my first full and lasting

 

childhood memory.  It was my introduction to the sea, the beginnings of a love

 

affair that would last my lifetime.

 

ACCABONAC                                                                              Fred W. Nagel

-5-

 

 

The cottage was one of a string of miniscule frame structures separated

 

from the ocean by a splintery boardwalk and a hundred yards of beach.

 

Those summer days, in the middle of my first decade of life, are the most

 

cherished in childhood memory.  I do not recall a rainy day, nor a cloudy one.

 

The sun was inescapable.  By noon a shadow could not be found.  The shoes in

 

which we arrived were not seen again until we dressed to leave.  The un-

 

questioned trade-off for such freedom were innumerable splinters from the

 

aging boardwalk.  Clothes were limited to bathing suits and t-shirts.

 

Above all, the sea was always there.  Its immense and glimmering pre-

 

sence defined our waking hours.  At first light, I rushed out to see it.  In morn-

 

ing, it was invariably calm, a vast, placid surface tinged with pink and

 

lavender in the early light.

 

It was my father’s pleasure to swim before breakfast.  I went with him

 

down the beach, and watched as he swam for the horizon.   His strokes were

 

strong and rhythmical and he moved easily through the water.  Some fifty

 

yards out, he would turn and swim, back and forth, parallel to the beach

 

before returning to the shore.  I handed him his towel and we went up for

 

breakfast.

ACCABONAC                                                                            Fred W. Nagel

-6-

 

 

Some mornings, tow planes from Floyd Bennett Field, across Jamaica

 

Bay, flew down the strip of beach, several hundred yards out over the ocean,

 

trailing long target sleeves behind them.  We listened for the boom of artillery

 

from Fort Tilden and watched the shell bursts surround the billowing targets,

 

cheering on the gunners.

 

Our days were spent entirely on the beach.  At noon, mother brought

 

lunch to the blanket and I would be dragged, blue-lipped and shivering, from

 

the surf.  We searched for sea shells and driftwood.   At nightfall, we some-

 

times had a bonfire with the gathered driftwood and roasted wieners.  Before

 

bedtime, mother read a story or we played checkers by kerosene lamp.  Will

 

had four army cots on hand for guests.  Now and then, we slept outside under-

 

neath the stars.

 

It was that summer that I learned to swim.  Before, I was restricted to

 

playing in the surf.  I may have begun to test these limitations.  Were that the

 

reason, or if he simply perceived that I was ready, my father decided it was

 

time.

 

We started by swimming out, me on his back.  I held on, while he breast-

 

stroked out beyond the breakers into deep water.  Once there, he treaded

 

ACCABONAC                                                                               Fred W. Nagel