Short Beach City.

Short Beach City is the best place in the world. There is no way to describe the experience that is growing up in the SBC, but I will say that it was filled with joy, excitement and magic, and

surrounded by a family of neighbors without whom life would have been too hard and too empty.

If you Wikipedia Short Beach, CT, this is the description "It is home to people of every economic background and is a safe and heavily policed area. Most of the old shacks have been fixed up, so much so that the area has a new look than it did even ten years ago. The drug problem has been almost completely taken off the streets and is confined to dealings at private residences". Ha. This is true, though I cannot say that the "old shacks" were really fixed up-- me and everyone we knew lived in them. When my father, LM, renovated the kitchen, he broke into the wall and found it was stuffed with full bags of Cat Chow. Actually. Our walls were lined with cat food.  My mother's housekeeping was vindicated, how could we combat a mice problem when the walls were insulated with pet food???

No one locked their doors, most did not even have keys to their house-- you were free to wander in and out of the  homes, borrowing an egg, a cup of milk etc. Very few people had TV's. When I was in middle school our neighbor got a TV that you could watch movies on and they said we could share it. When I wanted to watch a movie, I would wander down to KL's house, go into their living room, unplug their TV and carry it down to our house.  When I was done, I would carry it back.

Growing up was:  scraping frost off the inside of my bedroom windows ( no heat upstairs!),  sleeping with your head under the covers to keep warm, showering outdoors year round, the indoor shower was broken for most of high school, doing homework by candle light-- no overhead lighting in these beach houses...neighbors building carousels and constructing them in my front yard for my eighth birthday, a slide from the porch down to the yard, just in case you didn't want to use the stairs...and parties, parties, parties, for every holiday, every occasion, someone would have everyone over to their front yard and everyone would bring something to eat, spending those times together were the best times of life.

One of the many blatant examples of this strange magical place was the Eiffel Tower that my father constructed in our front yard. People would be coming to my house for the first time and I would assure them it was impossible to miss-- they would always ask for the address anyways, and I would say " Believe me, it will be clear as soon as you turn the corner..."

My childhood has been described as "feral", spent wandering around the neighborhood, looking unkempt, with a gaggle of children equally as straggle-y looking. Look closely, my socks are wearing a dress!

When the weather was warm, we spent our days on swimming in the Long Island Sound and building sand castles on the beach. That's me behind the two jumping right in-- the water always was a bit cold...

To this day, there is no where in the world I feel more happy, more at home and more myself than in the SBC. I was home this weekend and all the magic is still there...

The coziness of the throw blanket I knit my CBC for Christmas...

Morning light on the kettle for coffee water.

 The Egg Poachies!

The coffee grinder that spews coffee grinds everywhere each time you use it, it's great! 

The roses dried amidst the frosty windows...

My mom, CBC, has installed "curtains"-- extra blankets found around the home, so that SG is not awoken by the sun when he sleeps over. No one in the SBC ever had curtains and the houses are so close together that you could lean over and see what your neighbor was eating for dinner. The addition of the motley collection of blankets hanging over my windows makes my room look like a Spanish Brothel.

 

It's home sweet home, and there is no where else I would rather be. Even if the block's gone to shit and I cannot even find a pair of matching socks...