In Old Cape Cod

July is speeding by so quickly, isn't it?

How are you filling your July days?

Are you sunning by the seaside?

[McCall's July 1937]

It was always Myrtle Beach SC that our family went to except when I graduated

from high school. That summer we went to Miami Beach.

I wish I could remember the name of the hotel but it was a big one

with two olympic size swimming pools.

Almost no one was actually on the beach as it was not that pretty.

It was my first experience with a maid turning down our beds at night,

and leaving a chocolate on each pillow.

The beach I always wanted to visit was Cape Cod.

Why?

Because I loved Patti Page's "You're Sure to Fall in Love with Old Cape Cod"

that had been released a few years earlier.

It swept me away to an imaginary summer romance.

His parents would ask us to join them and his little brother for a picnic lunch

on their boat, but I wouldn't even know the mast from the keel.

[Woman's Home Companion July 1956]

We would pack our own lunch to share on the sand.

I would be a cute redhead, of course,

not sure if he was a blonde or brunette.

That's a little hazy.

[Woman's Home Companion August 1939]

Later I would shower and change into pink pedal pushers, and a white sleeveless

 cotton shirt over my sunburnt arms.

We would stand holding hands to watch a fiery sunset over a marshy beach,

sit side by side in a cafe booth eating lobster stew.

That night we would walk together on a silvery beach in the moonlight.

At the end of the week we would say goodbye,

for it was only a summer romance.

I can see, hear, and feel the ocean spray every time I hear that song.