Opening Weekend

Silver Gull Club
Originally uploaded by jlyn1267.

It's that time of year again - opening weekend at the beach club. I always enjoy opening weekend at Silver Gull Club, because it's really not a beach weekend at all, but something else entirely.

It is almost always too cold for the beach on Memorial Day weekend, and I find that its rainy and cloudy on many of them anyway. Yet we flocked to the club because its opening weekend. You throw open your cabanas, your lockers, you smell the ocean for the first time in nine months. You remember the uneven feeling of walking on cold sand.

We sit up on the patio, in sweatshirts and sweatpants. My family, the Kress family, the Prusak family. The wind blows cold. But we don't care. We drink wine, eat cheese and crackers and Philly Fluff cake! (don't ask). They hire these oldie doo wop bands to play, so you end up listening to "There's A Moon Out Tonight" all weekend, while we laugh and toast and try to stay warm.

Welcome back to the beach club everybody. Summer has officially begun.