4th of July at Lido's

Lido's beach (now incorporated into Scarborough) once used to be the beach for moderate, slightly right leaning beach-goers. Why did I believe this? Because my brother once asked my Dad why we never when to the Olivo's Beach to the north.  The answer came quick. “It's full of damn hippys! They drink bottled beer on the beach! You want sliced up feet?!”

As a kid, I once ventured far north of our blanket to see this Olivo's. I saw a lot men with long hair and girls who seemed very, very tan. That and bikinis. The women all there were wear wearing bikinis. In contrast, everyone at Lido's was Irish white as a sheet. Except for a few men who had red arms and necks, from Hanes Tee shirt sunburns. My Mom never had a bikini. She wore a one piece that you'd find on a six year old. My grandmother, who could've been admitted to a nice restaurant in hers, had a black one-piece with tons of ruffles that made it look like ribbon candy. If my Dad was an example for all the other Dad's on Lido's, he wore plaid shorts, black socks with penny loafers and...a Hanes White tee shirt.

The drive from Pawtucket was a long one, long in Rhode Island terms. We'd pack up my Dad's Chevy Impala whose trunk could hold three dead mob informants. Actually, my Mom would pack it with:

1. One blanket
2. Towels
3. More towels
4. CopperTone Suntan Lotion in the New Squeezable Bottle
5. My Dad's Hibachi
6. Kingsford Briquets
7. Kingsford Starter Fluid
8. A shitty styrofoam cooler filled with ice, hamburgers, mustard, ketchup and relish.
9. One radio, a Panosonic. Tuned to WPRO, The Station that reaches the beaches!
10. Six months worth of Ladie's Home Journal (my mom would read on the beach)

This picture doesn't do the Impala justice. This car was easily 13 feet long

Of course, the July sun had baked the Impala to oven temperatures. We'd open the doors and this cloud of flaming hot air would billow out. I'd howl and complain as I slid across the vinyl back seat. My brother and I, in our swimmng trunks, would sit so far forward on the seat so only an inch or two of our butts would be burned. After a while, you could inch yourself back on the whole seat once it cooled somewhat. Remember, the skin on the back of your exposed thighs was still young and new, which meant EVERY nerve worked well. 

On the ride down there were two different conversations. The back seat kid's one and the adult one in the front.

Dad: “Your brother, Joe isn't going to be there? Is he? The last time I could've bitten his head off! He's such a know-it-all!”

Mom: “Richard...he'd say the same thing about you, you know. Why can't you two just get along?”

Dad: “Get along? Now It's MY fault? Your brother started that argument about Carl Yastrzemski! I didn't start yelling! He did!

Mom: (now looking out the passenger window and almost to herself) “...well..if you two hadn't drank so much...”

My Dad and Uncle Joe didn't get along so well back then. They were two wannabee alpha males thrusting their chests out and seeing who can piss the furthest.

I never got bored of the ride down. To me it was sort of new each time. I'd sit there, looking out the window as we passed familiar landmarks. Boring landmarks like certain rotting bridge abutments, Route 4's forever filled in cracks with liquid tar that made the car go thump-thump-thump, like railroad tracks and that horse farm on the right somewhere there in Narragansettt. Oh, and that wooden lookout tower on Route 4. My brother said it was where they shot the TV show “F-Troop” and the tower was part of the set. "They film F-Troop here? Really?"   He lied so much then to me!

I tried to engage my brother in some fun in that back seat. He'd have no part of it. He hated any drive to anywhere and sat there fuming. It wouldn't matter if we were going to the beach or even if Disneyland, it was the drive that made him miserable. After a while, say by the time we passed Warwick, it was time to bug the shit out of little brother...me. Since he was older by five years, he'd get me to bitch and yell about something, which then brought the wrath of the parents in the front seat to shut me up. He was good at that...getting me in trouble when in fact, he caused it all.

“STOP PINCHING ME!” I'd scream

“Ronnie! Stop yelling! I'll turn the car around NOW!” yells Dad.

My brother, snarky even at 10, said:

“We're five miles from Lido's....you're not turning anything around!”

Dad's bluff was called and he had to come up with a more realistic threat. Eventually I felt vindicated when he threatened the two of us. Good, now I got my brother in trouble too!

We'd pull into a very large cut grass lot with a zillion other cars and forever go up and down the rows trying to find our relatives, who promised to save a spot if they got there first.

Finally Mom says: “Oh! There's Audrey...and Frank! Pull in Richard! There over there!” Then she'd yell out the window: “ Hiya Joe!”

I bet my Dad said under his breath: “Oh shit...Joe's here.”

We kids would meet up with our cousins while the adults set up the picnic area. My Dad's hibachi was set up and he'd flood the thing with starter fluid and we'd have this wonderful diesel fire going that stunk to High Heaven. That time, Dad had forgotten the aluminum foil he'd wrap around these heavy iron cooking grates. He shot down my Mom's advice to sponge some off of her brother, Joe. You know why. My Dad wasn't about to admit to fucking up and crawl like a coyote to Joe for “help.”

“Maureen...i think this time I'll do the burgers on the grate...it'll taste better...the grease will add flavor.”

My Mom wasn't that stupid. “You just don't want to admit to Joe you forgot something.”

“No no! The grease will add flavor!” he retorts.

“Uh-huh” she said.

My aunts and Mom would set up a spot on the beach, claim it with our blanket while the guys would finish the burgers.

My Dad, Frank and Joe plus the older boy cousins, Tommy and my brother would stand around the grill and talk early '70s guy talk. I forget what it was they talked about. The Red Sox probably. I and my younger girl cousins would romp about playing tag or whatever.

“Richard,” Joe says, “I got some Reynolds wrap for that grill...you want some?”

“No...it'll taste better this way.”

Joe says: “But you'l l have a hell of a time flipping those burgers...that meat sticks like hell to that steel.”

“I can do it” retorts Dad.

I almost wanted to bust my Dad's balls and blurt out he forgot the aluminum, but I thought better of it. I saw my brother turn to me with a knowing, evil grin. Yep we both know full well what's going on.

We'd eat our nearly crumbling burgers and then head to the beach.

And I remember this. We kids couldn't go into the water for a FULL hour after eating. Apparently we'd all drown if we did. My cousins and I would complain that this was not true but no matter, we'd have to wait.

I never had a sister so I didn't understand girls at a young age. Girls didn't like to be tossed down into the surf or have their heads held under the water. They also squealed when seaweed would slime across their legs. It seemed all my girl cousins would complain to their Dads that I was “playing too rough.” Except one. Cindy. Cindy would beat the shit out of me. Cindy had a temper that she let out, usually in taking a baseball sized clump of wet sand and fling it at me. It hits like a rock and has a sandpapering effect of cutting into your skin. She also was strong enough to hold my head under the water.

I learned to give Cindy space.

Later in the afternoon, we'd be tired out. The parents would be talking softly or snoring on the blankets. I can remember that weird bluish, but translucent, fog that would come in off the ocean. My Irish skin would be tingling, even though I had that CopperTone on. Then someone would say, “time to go home” and we'd start packing everything up, shaking out the sand that got into every single thing. A bunch of goodbyes and we'd be hitting the road.

Driving out, I can remember seeing the full moon rising oddly early and Yes's “Round a Bout” coming through the Panosonic. That was July 4^th 1972.

I've been to Scarborough a zillion times since and many times when I did go, I'd tried to find any trace of Lido's, but it's all gone. The bathhouses, the commissary and even it's grass field has been paved over. There are a hundred thousand stories of that time you'd never suspect happened on a one time beach called Lido's. But there is ONE relic that I remember seeing as I peered into Olivo's and beyond, as the beach curved away in the distance. The old stone house. Even then it was derelict and falling down.