I left Rochester for work 30 years ago and retired and came home. There is not a part of Rochester that I do not recall with fond memories. I wrote this in 2003 and it still fits. I remember going to the beach when I was a child. We lived near lake Ontario. It was a short bus ride with one transfer. We lived in a section of Rochester that people would call “bad” but it was home to me. The anticipation of going to the beach was always the same. I knew the bus ride by heart and knew just exactly when you would be able to catch the first glimpse of azure blue lake from the front window of the city bus. My brothers and sister and I would always try to sit as close to the front so we would be the first to see the lake. It was called Charlotte Beach Park and was run by the city of Rochester parks department. I called it heaven. It had all things a kid could ask for. Hot sand, cool water, an honest to God carousel with hand carved horses and bumper cars. The park was next to the city pier and marina. You could see yachts and ocean going vessels coming into the port of Rochester. They came from the sea through the St. Laurence Seaway. They were big rusting hulks and I wondered as a child how rusty steel could float. Some even still used coal and black smoke would tell where the ship had been. It left a black smoke trail on calm days. The trail could be seen for miles. There were sail boats and if we saved our pennies we could take a lake tour boat. An hour ride out about twenty miles into the lake and back for fifty cents. Just far enough that on a clear day you could see the tallest buildings in Toronto across the lake. We saved up our pennies during the winter months from chores. I was the youngest and could not shovel coal into the furnace of our home nor tote the ashes out to the curb. So my job was the chinker. It was my job before bed to go down to the basement and put a heavy metal handle into the grate below the furnace. I would then crank the handle and chink the burning coals to remove the dead coals from the bottom of the fire. My older brothers would either shovel coal or remove the spent coals into ash buckets that we would haul out to the curb. For that we would earn two dollars a month. Money to be spent when summer came and we would go to the fair or the lake. That was always the dilemma. We would have about a dollar to spend. Ten cents for the bus ride there. Two cents for the transfer and the same going home. Twenty four cents gone before you even thought about what you would spend the rest on. The carousel was a nickel a ride and the bumper cars were a dime for ten minutes. Abbott’s ice cream was ten cents. If you worked it right you got your carousel rides in first before you went into the water. You didn’t want to get on the horse with wet sandy shorts. Then a quick run to the bumper cars and then on to the water. The sand was always so hot it seared the bottom of our feet. We would lay out our blankets and dump our towels and belongings. Make a mad dash for the water and then scream. We would scream because the water was always about fifty six degrees. But like lambs led to slaughter we would march on into the water. The other option was to go back onto the searing sands. No sir that was not an option at all. Small fish would swim about our legs and we would try to catch them. We would stay in the water until we were convinced we would be icicles if we stayed. Besides if you were numb from cold the sand didn’t burn as much when you made a mad dash back to our spot of heaven.. When you went back to your blanket every thing was where you left it. No one took your belongings. It just didn’t happen. Not then. The beach was an unspoken promise that your stuff would be left alone. If you found something in the sand you took it to lost and found because who ever lost it would surly go there to reclaim it. I loved the beach. I think of the beach and my dollar to spend when I think of a troubled world and where my money is going when I pay bills. A place in my memory where a dollar could buy a day’s worth of fun. A place where you just knew you could leave behind the worries of the day and your stuff would be where you left it when you came back. Peace of mind and fond memories. All for a dollar. Can you imagine that.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:32:04 +0000
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