Here and There

The past few days have been rather crazy - first my car has some heater-related problems which haven't been solved yet - and then I get word that my Grandfather and Step-Grandmother were in the hospital - all the while I was enroute to my Parent's place "down the shore" in order to perform some spring cleaning work.

I wasn't sure I was coming or going or even where to, half the time.

My Grandfather had some blood transfusions as his red blood cell count had dropped to alarmingly low-levels and is expected to come home today - but my Step-Grandmother is in the intensive care unit with fluid in the lungs and massive disorientation (I've not heard yet what they think caused any of this).

I went down to the shore feeling a bit unsettled - but figured I might was well "do something" - and the weather was glorious. I took three walks - one to the southern-most end of Long Beach Island, New Jersey where - believe it or not - a big crowd of the hardy folks (fools?) were surfing.


This is the view from "South Beach" - the skyline is Atlantic City - about 12 miles further down the coast, nearly hidden in the massive sparkle the sun is putting on the surf.


Spring cleaning down the shore often involves shoveling and sweeping windblown sand from every nook and cranny. I also bundled up all the remaining trash, rinsed out the cans, raked up the lawn, smoothed out the pebble-stone hardscaping, trimmed some butterfly bushes, dug up some yucca bushes my dad insists are "weeds", and in general just tidied things up and puttered about.

I then took another walk to enjoy the sun - this time into the historic district - looking for a house that was once a store owned and operated by the father of a man that was a neighbor.

The neighbor was the town of Beach Haven's mail-carrier for many years and he was a very nice white-haired man that always had a smile for me and my younger brothers when we were growing up. He retired back in the mid-1980s and told me a story about his father who had a grocery store "over by the Engleside Hotel".

Apparently his father owned the house the mailman lived in - and in the summers, rented it to vacationers for some extra money while the mailman and his family lived over the grocery store. The family closed the store in 1963 when the mailman's father retired (or died - I don't remember which).

I decided to find the old grocery store. The only problem was the Old Engleside Hotel that the mailman spoke of, was torn down in 1943! So I walked to the bookstore and found a book with the town's history in it and learned the address of the old hotel. With the street address in my head and my camera in my hand I walked up and down about 20 blocks just looking at things.


...and then I found it. The building really doesn't look promising doesn't it? But wait, under the decrepit porch roof I noticed something -


The old grocery store's windows were intact!


I suddenly remembered seeing grocery store "stuff" like an old cash register and brass scale through these windows when I walked to Sunday School with my Grandmother back in the late 1960's.


I couldn't see through the windows this past weekend - but I was left wondering what, if anything, might remain of the grocery store behind the front door?