Sand in Your Toes

By Bob Nesoff

Having lived the better part of my life in Arverne, change was hard to come by. My only time away was in active duty in the U.S. Army. There are friends I played softball with in a vacant lot where we used pieces of cardboard for bases. It was kind of understood that on weekends we would all meet at that place.

Friends were all from P.S. 42 on Beach 66th Street, and it was a close-knit group. Then came Far Rockaway High School, and our group of friends expanded. Summers, where every free moment was on the beach just off Shorty’s Lockers, where we’d slip into bathing suits, go out to the sand, and just hang out. Boys and girls together.

College went from the South Shore to the North Shore at C.W. Post. Again, the family expanded, mostly to fraternity brothers. Some of the Arverne friends slipped away to schools at a distance. The softball games were a thing of the past. Oh, we did keep in touch … sometimes.

Working for a magazine in New York was a haul on the subway that now charged tokens to make the ride. But it was worth it. Rockaway was the escape. The feeling of a forever home. I walk from the station on Beach 67th Street to Bayfield Avenue, change into comfortable jeans (called “dungarees” in those days), and make my way to Tex’s Gas Station and Marina.

The sleek boat with a 75 horsepower outboard moved across the water. Sometimes it was just a mental cleansing ride. Other times, a fishing pole came along to catch dinner. Today, anyone who eats supermarket fish knows the difference in taste from just out of the water to fish caught elsewhere and shipped to market.

My siblings were among the first to attend middle school. Someone (I shall not name names) planted a decommissioned aerial bomb in the shrubs by the middle school, and it caused quite a commotion.

Rockaway was a small town where (with kudos to “Cheers”) almost everyone knew everyone else. We often met on the boardwalk at Beach 35th Street, where many of the concessions were. I ate my first slice of pizza there (15 cents a slice), and we would play skee-ball and other amusements. In the summer, we would still meet on the beach, although not as often, but it was a ritual that was required.

We had a club, KAR. The letters actually stood for nothing, but somehow, they fit. We all had jackets with the letters on the back. They were clad with a red trim. It was never intended to go beyond our old group, but for some reason, it became popular to say you were related or knew one of the guys. I think I have the only still-existing jacket now hanging in my attic.

As time went on, some were married, but there was still a connection. We had a reunion on board one of the dinner cruise ships in Manhattan, and old friends came from several states. The conversation picked up where it had left off decades ago. The major change was that some hair had turned white, stomachs were a sign of eating well, but no one fell asleep.

My two brothers were unable to attend. One, who passed away, was the head of family services at Peninsula General. The other was a college professor in Massachusetts. And my sister had a conflict.

There were lawyers, aeronautical engineers, a journalist/author, and a variety of legitimate professions. Everyone had done well in life. All were well and healthy and exasperated when the boat returned to its slip because the conversation was still in high gear.

But the one mantra that all said was: “You can leave Rockaway, but you will always have sand in your toes.”