A week down the shore can rebuild a family

I’m not a huge fan of the beach. Really, I’m not. But…

I completely understand why most people love going down the shore for their vacation. Heck, if the beach didn’t have sand, I’d probably love it to, in moderation. Because there are some aspects of the shore that I actually do like.

I love to walk along water’s edge looking for shells and cool stones -- with always the hope of finding a shark’s tooth. I also like scanning the water for fins – hoping to see

a shark, but happy to see dolphins.

And that’s it. That’s what I like about the beach.

There are several reasons why I’d prefer to vacation elsewhere – with one very obvious reason – my ethnicity. I’m Irish. And Swedish. Those nationalities aren’t that compatible with the sun. So, in an effort to stave off skin cancer, I spend most of my time in the sun dodging it. I’ve heard that if you had three blistering sunburns during your childhood, you’re very likely to develop skin cancer as an adult.

I had 3 blistering sunburns every summer, for about eight years straight. And, as my age will attest, I was a kid in the pre-sunscreen days. The best defense I had was a t-shirt under my bathing suit. Which was great for the beach. But most of my summer days were spent at our swim club – which banned t-shirts in the pool. I had no defense, just an afterburn regimen of slathering on Noxema. So, every summer, after a day at the pool, I walked around smelling like Noxema and looking like I was in a body cast. Apparently aloe was a foreign concept back then.

By the way, it’s been determined that one of the worst “treatments” for sunburn is Noxema because it dries the skin to a cake-like plaster. I could have saved researchers tons of time and money for that result.

So it’s somewhat difficult for someone like me – who sunburns easily, prefers the colder climate and winter months when it gets dark early – to truly appreciate the beach. Plus, when you had the experiences I did growing up – vacationing at the shore with my family – it’s kind of understandable that I shy away from the shore.

There are just a few memories I have of family vacations at the shore. But trust me, those are enough.

One year my dad’s boss offered us his beach house – in Seaside Heights. So, we made the trek up there – five kids (between the ages of 4 and 12), two parents in a station wagon that was loaded to the gills. We didn’t fly around the back of the wagon like we typically did (when both rows of seats were down, it allowed for a game of human bumper cars, without the bumpers) because there just wasn’t any room. We were all wedged in.

As soon as we made it to the house we unpacked – and then my dad was going to take the boys fishing. Which, I never knew Kehoes even knew how to fish -- let alone want to do it. But, the rods were a tangled mess. So my dad, displaying a level of patience never quite witnessed before, spent hours untangling the mess. He got the 3 rods and reels apart, handed each of my brothers their rods, picked up the bait box and herded the boys out the door. And my mother said prayers of thanks for the anticipated hours of peace she needed to save her sanity.

But five minutes later my dad and three brothers came through the door – my dad’s face bright red, and not from the sun. In that short time span they retangled the rods beyond hope. Even my young, 4-year-old brain recognized this as not quite the father-son bonding time it was intended to be. When it came to my dad, while I had him wrapped around my little finger (as any baby girl in the family should) my brothers weren’t quite as fortunate. They tested him, to be sure, but they weren’t stupid. They knew when to respect the scowl and the belt. This was one of those times - no wise cracks, no snickers. Just complacency, laced with a bit of fear.

During those six days (that actually seemed like months) in Seaside Heights my brother Terry sliced open his big toe, my brother Tommy gashed open his shin, someone came down with strep throat and I, typically, got a bad sun burn and my mother came down with hives (brought on, no doubt, by that sliced open toe, gashed shin, sun burn and strep throat). Oh, and my sister Mary Beth won a stuffed Snoopy doll for me after my three brothers failed at the game over and over again – a game where you have to shoot a ball through a hoop – sound familiar?

That was Seaside Heights. Another fateful trip, which my dad claimed he couldn’t get off work for – hmmm – we went to Rehoboth Beach. Sort of. My grandmother had a friend – Aunt Effie -- who lived “just outside” of Rehoboth Beach. Aunt Effie offered to let us – my mom and the five kids – stay there for 2 weeks. Since my dad couldn’t get time off (hmmm) he drove us down, dropped us off, stayed for a day, and then drove back home to work during the week. Turns out the “just outside” of Rehoboth Beach was actually an hour car ride. And sweet Aunt Effie (I’m still not sure who this woman was) lived right behind a corn field. I learned that summer that mosquitoes that live in cornfields grow to have wingspans of about 2-feet. They rival the size hawks. OK, my memory exaggerates. But not by much. Those things were the stuff of horror movies.

While those mosquitoes were enough to cement that “vacation” in my mind, the scar on left hand from a broken bowl of ice cream will never, ever let me forget the two weeks at Aunt Effie’s house.

That’s it. Those were the only vacations at the

beach – at least since I was born -- that the Kehoe family endured (survived). Makes sense that there were only two.

The Rodgers family, though, did have quite a few very successful, happy trips to the shore – despite my extreme dislike for sand, surf and sun. And that’s pretty much why I wanted this newest version of the Rodgers family to head Jersey.

After my husband died someone said to me that we now had to make new, happy memories, without resilient and caring kids. him. I didn’t like the idea, but We couldn’t ignore that we were I knew that train of thought had missing an integral piece of our merit. Bolstered by the fact that family puzzle – but I believe that the only time my older children Jim’s absence may have strengthened – Kaitlyn and Tommy – don’t argue our current family unit. is when we’re away on vacation, That short week created a new I decided to book a house at family dynamic that we were all the shore. able to embrace.

The week in Sea Isle confirmed So, while I hated every minute I for me several things. First, that was sitting or standing in sand, I I definitely am not a sit-on-thebeach-and-relax-for-5-straight– loved every second of creating the newest, brightest Rodgers family days person. For me, a great vacation experience. is sightseeing, exploring – being a tourist. So, next stop for the Rodgers – the Grand Canyon.

Second, if reaffirmed my belief that I’m blessed with remarkable, Cheryl Kehoe Rodgers is a content editor at The Times Herald. She can be reached at crodgers@timesherald.com.