Like my brother said, "you could hitchhike all over and not worry about some pervert picking you up".
There were clams in front of the old cottage in Eastham. Somebody named Mike dug them all up.
There was no CCNS and all you needed for a parking space at Coast Guard Beach was to get there early.
When Cranberry Cove was the business located at the Orleans rotary, not whats there now.
When Frank Sargeant owned the best tackle shop on Cape Cod, and he had yet to be elected govenor.
When the Eastham Superette was for sale for $98,000.00 when I was a kid and someone I knew was thinking of buying it, but felt it was too much money.
When the Marconi station was just that, what was left of the actual Marconi station. When you could actually see the cement slabs the support towers were on and what was left of the heavy cable. And the two-story barracks that were there that were used by CCC kids from New York city in the summer.
When you could drive out to the ocean turning right on the dirt road at the Marconi station and along the dunes ridge until you got to the end. Then you would run down the dunes with your surfboard to the waters' edge. Then like a stupid jerk you had to walk back up those friekin dunes after exhausting yourself surfing. But heh, its all good when your sixteen.
When the Whiting family still had the "to go" food stand at Nauset Beach, in Eastham, at the end of Cable Road. And someone named Martha lived just down the street.
When you could drive low water coming in off of North Beach going 50 or 60 m.p.h. and no one was there to stop you.
When the "Guns of Navarone" was a first run movie at the Wellfleet drive-in. And I snuck in the drive-in by squeezing in the luggage well in the back of my fathers 65 Chevy belair wagon, that my sister was driving, with someone named Tara in the well with me. I stayed there for a while after the movie started.
When well-to-do people driving Lincoln Continentals with suicide doors would pick up a kid carrying a surfboard hitching to Coast Guard beach just so they could meet some kid they thought was a beach bum. They were being cool. Ah, simpler times.
When you were in good enough shape as a kid to jog from route 6 in Eastham home, 1.6 miles away in 12/14 minutes, at midnight, after getting out of work from washing dishes at the Grist Mill Restaurant, and not breaking a sweat hardly. If I was lucky the old chief of police, Winnie Knowles, would be leaving the police station and give me a lift part of the way. Oh yah, the cruiser at the time was a 1951 green chevy with a bubble gum light on top.
When the last day of school was the beginning of summer and it was truly a special day.