Returning from the East

After more than 700 miles in 15 hours, Big Red with Rudy in tow arrived back in our lush green middle America home site. We had left the South Shore of New Jersey, Ocean City to be exact, to blast Westward on the Interstate System. It is strange to view a map with the most Eastern endings of United States highways that were a stone's throw away from where I lived in the Cleveland area. US 322 is Mayfield Road. Go North on Ohio Route 91 a few miles and one gets to the East West Mayfield Road, plunging into Cleveland proper, down into "little Italy" near Case Western Reserve University and Severance Symphony Hall, ending in Euclid Avenue. Go South on Ohio 91 a few miles from Shaker Boulevard, and one comes to US 422, Chagrin Boulevard; beginning in Cleveland at Public Square and heading East to the Atlantic Ocean's water's edge in Atlantic City NJ. Interstates and limited access highways have displaced these routes as major pathways; yet, they still exist on Rand McNally Road Maps, nostalgic reminders of the growth of the US from its Eastern Seaboard Westward; horseback and wagons supplanted by SUV's with travel trailers like us.

South Shore NJ is developed sand beach requiring "beach tags" from 9:30 AM until 5:30 PM, no booz, no dogs, no frisby or ball playing, no picknicking, no bike riding or motorized vehicles. Surf fishing only with a license. The Ocean City Boardwalk is several miles long, constructed behind the reconstructed sand dunes, having a central cluster of tee shirt, saltwater taffy, amusement rides and arcades. North and South of this central congestion, are multistoried duplex and quad beach houses for rent. When the Boardwalk ends, the beach houses continue Southward to Cape May, and Northward, interupted by estuary outlets but eventually winding up at Atlantic City, and its Boardwalk. The visual difference between Ocean City and Atlantic City is mainly one of visible poverty juxtaposed with casinos in Atlantic City and second and tertiary tier beach houses in Ocean City. We had walked out of Caesar's Palace to our car with our meager winnings confronting boarded up store fronts, chain link fences, scissor gated and locked doorways, strip joints :GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS" signs puckered and in need of painting. Urban poverty reminded me of Woodward Ave. in Detroit.

The good news however is South of Ocean City. Cape May is a tourist town vintage Victorian times, middle of the 19th Century. We had arrived by a 1 1/2 hour ferry ride from Lewes Deleware, and Henlope State Park. The Park is a legacy of military coastal defense since our Revolutionary times as the Deleware Bay is the entre waterway to Philidelphia, our nation's first Capital, although briefly. The preservation of sand dunes, and walkabout trails through pine and scrub oak forests, we give thanks to the ARMY. Seabird nesting areas are blocked off, no pets are allowed. The walks from the Atlantic Ocean to the Deleware Bay across a spit of sandy land transports you back to a more isolated time in our history. Few parking spaces so there will be few people at any one time or place. Watery vistas are East and West. At times like these, reminded by placques telling of one part of our country's history, I can visualize a sailboat coming to Jametown in 1609, bumping along the coast looking for a suitable place to disgorge the 100 or so passengers who will begin a colony. The World War II concrete bunkers, are now being claimed by the sea; watch, triangulation gunnery obervation towers now give a view over the entire beach as far as the eye can see, and into the Bay, once commanded by 6 inch guns with a 17 mile reach. The days are warm in the protection of sand dunes or buildings, but the breeze off the Atlantic Ocean required me to wear layered sweat shirts and pullover windbreakers. I can feel our nation's history along with the wind blowing, striving in my mind to remember tidbits of events that ultimately shaped our Nation. As reported by the Park sign, the dunes are ever on the move, shaped in part by the wind and sea, and like our Nation, we have been shaped by the Wind's of War, and the Tides of Battle. The legacies of these occurances we can visit and remember, what we were taught or learned on our own, about where we stand.