I’ve been watching a lot of the US Open tennis matches the past week or so and there are simply some things that immediately take you back so this will be a look back, pretty far back in fact.

When I was just leaving my teen years and had just bought my first car at 18, we would summer in Far Rockaway. We started on Beach 52nd street, moved to Beach 40th and finally ended up on Beach 26th where we spent most of the summers there (The city kept closing down the blocks, ostensibly to work on casinos that never happened, the bungalows were owned by folks who rented them out but the land was owned by NYC and just leased to the owners, so when the city stopped the leases, the bungalows became worthless and were left to decay…today there are some that have been bought and restored but not many). Labor Day weekend always marked the “end”. It was joyous (parties, gatherings, card games etc), usually the surf was up, the “labor day swells” were pretty epic some years and always the best of the season mostly due to the atlantic storm season in full bloom. It was also very sad, folks that were like family for two months of the year would all, mostly on Monday afternoon, load up the cars for the trip back to the Bronx (where most of us lived) or other places like Hoboken, Brooklyn or a few other places. As I got older, had my own car (as did most of my friends) we would make the trip back to the bungalows for the next couple of weekends, weather dependent (there was no heat so if it got too cold it was a bit testy) as most of the owners were fine with Sept 30 as the deadline move out date so they could board up, shut the water and let them sit till the following summer. Most of the families rented the same unit year in and year out so it was only clothing and perishables that needed to be loaded up. Kitchen materials, sheets, towels etc were left there to be stored in the boarded up units (the boarding up was to prevent theft and squatting, more than worry about winter weather). The final goodbyes were always accompanied by hugs, smiles, chuckles, one last walk up to the boardwalk and down to the ocean, and of course, tears. It was way, way before the internet and smartphones so the only communications were the occasional land line phone calls but most of us were busy in our 10 month lives and rarely got together during the Sept-June period that did not diminish the feeling of family when we did gather again.

I remember even now, the last time I drove away from B26th for the last time. It was the summer of 1981, my daughter Kate was about to turn 1 that coming October, we had moved from Lenox, MA to Greenwich for me to start a new teaching job at and we stayed for a few weeks with my folks who, it turns out, were renting for the last time (they didn’t know it till the following spring when the owner said they were no longer renting). When we left that Labor Day Monday, with Kate strapped into her safety seat, I drove very slowly, with the window down, to breathe the ocean air deeply one last time on B.26th and it was probably a few miles later that I teared up almost to the point of being unable to drive. It marked the end of one chapter of what was a magical decade of summers. Some 43 years later I can still smell the air, hear the seagulls, feel the breeze, and hear the sand under the tires as I drove down the block. Some memories are indelible.

In years subsequent, as Kate and then in 1984, Drew were growing up, we were invited each Labor Day weekend to Eleanor and Frank Lunardi’s summer home in Shirley, LI along with a rotating group of a lot of folks. It was the most relaxed and casual chaos I’ve even known till this very day. While we were “guests”, it was made clear that we were on our own, the very first time we were given a quick tour of the house, told where we would sleep, where the essentials were and that the kitchen was wide open. There were no locks on the doors so coming and going was not an issue. It was one food fest, didn’t matter who slept how long, either Frank or El was always seemingly up preparing meals or taking orders for meals, laughter was never in short supply and the nightly poker games were epic and would sometimes go until the wee hours of the morning. There were two other staples: The Jerry Lewis Telethon that was always “must see” and the US Open tennis. One or the other was constantly on (sometimes both, one on each TV) and there were people either clustered around the TV sets (they had one in the main living room. and one on the screened in porch) or they were simply background noise…the tennis was not all day coverage like it is now, but CBS used to do a good job of having it on most of the day Sat-Mon.

Then, inevitably, Labor Day Monday would arrive and the decision of when to leave for CT became the major discussion…early ahead of traffic or very late, behind the Hampton’s folks leaving (Shirley is, by no means “The Hamptons” it was working class hard won, summer homes for the most part with about 70% year round residents) as there is only one way on or off Long Island, and at exit 68 on the good old LIE, it was a long way back to CT. Regardless of the decision, after the car was packed, (and you had your Eleanor/Frank “doggie bags” for the road “just in case it takes a long time”) there were smiles, jokes, hugs and yes, tears. Even though these were folks we saw occasionally during the year, those 2.5 days were so precious and enjoyable that it felt like something was being ripped away for the last time.

Eventually, Eleanor and Frank stopped going and sold the Shirley home and so that too came to a conclusion. What remains to this day, now that we are scattered to the wind and down here in SC are 1000 miles removed from those we are closest to, is the US Open matches. I still find something joyful, and soothing in watching them sometimes with great focus and sometimes as background, and it keeps the glimmer of those most pleasant memories alive and well…along with the memories of those players long gone from this plane, though still very much alive in my thoughts.