Guestwords by Barbara Bartle
Most families we knew went happily off to picnic on beaches in East Hampton or Amagansett, on boats at Three Mile Harbor or the Devon Yacht Club, in vacant potato fields or other tempting outdoor locations.
My family never did. Our proposed picnics never came off. Perhaps it was because my father was wary of going out in the sun and air unless it was on the golf course with a bag of golf clubs handy, and our mother always went out in spectator pumps with very high heels and huge straw hats on her small head.
Our mother, though, liked the idea of a picnic. She admired the equipment. For example, she loved the traditional English picnic basket fully equipped with cups and plates, knives, forks, and spoons, and salt and pepper, all cleverly installed in the top of the basket by leather straps. She bought them in the village at the Old Barn Book Store to give as presents and received several of them herself.
Once a summer, she made a valiant effort to fill one of these baskets, but there was always an essential ingredient missing like the fried chicken, or the deviled eggs, or the chilled consommé. Looking for this item delayed us so long that, overcome by hunger, we would gobble down the available picnic fixings at the dining room table.
This, of course, was very frustrating for us. We often visualized ourselves in some idyllic outdoor place, sitting around in a circle eating and laughing with checked napkins tucked into our T-shirts and an empty picnic basket in front of us.
These non-picnics are probably why my sister, Anne, and I decided that we should go on a real picnic alone, preferably when there were houseguests present and everyone was occupied with something else. Anne chose the Main Beach, about a mile from our house on Ocean Avenue, as the perfect spot. The time, she said, must be breakfast, and the main event would be the sun coming up over the ocean.
She repeated several times that this plan must be kept secret from our sister, Mary, and the rest of the family. To make it even more of an adventure, she insisted that we wear our cowboy boots, as this would make it easier to walk down Ocean Avenue to the Main Beach.
The so-called picnic consisted of crushed peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in frayed wax paper we had stuffed in our pockets. On a night when the house was full of people, we stole out around 4 a.m. We enjoyed the clumping sound made by our boots on the pavement in the still of the night.
By the time we arrived at the beach, we had developed large blisters on our heels, the sand on the beach was cold under our damaged feet, and there was no sign of a rising sun. Miserable, we munched our sandwiches, waiting for the dawn. This was our last attempt to organize a picnic on our own.
Once a summer, my grandfather, whom we called Daddy Earl, would organize an outing, which could be called a picnic of sorts but was not the real thing that we yearned for.
His friend Bass, who owned a small deli in the village but worked also for summer people, helped him in this. Very thin, Bass had a red, sunburnt face and sandy-colored hair and a pleased look on his face.
On the appointed day, Daddy Earl climbed into his LaSalle, a very square, upright car with a rumble seat that we jumped into with glee. There was just enough room for my sisters and myself. My brother, my grandmother, my mother, and my father never came on these outings.
We drove to Three Mile Harbor, where Bass had his fishing boat tied up to the dock. In the boat was a table covered with lobsters, claws and all, and glasses of beer. My sisters and I didn’t eat lobster, as the very look of them horrified us, so we concentrated on the beer, knowing we would never be allowed to have it at home.
Since the conversation was about fishing, of which we knew nothing, we never said a word. After the meal was over, we climbed out of the boat and back into the rumble seat and drove home. That was the end of Bass’s outing for another year.
Years later, there were annual picnics on Windmill Lane when my husband and I lived in my father-in-law’s house on the dunes. They were nic of my childhood dreams.
The neighbors who lived in the other houses on the lane were rounded up with their dogs and children by a strange vehicle called a weapons carrier, a World War II truck that had seats in the back facing each other. My father-in-law collected old cars at the time.
An older couple, the Von Elms, brought their butler, who with us sat gingerly on the seat in the weapons carrier. His function was to serve the cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with Jeeves-like politeness and, of course, the lunch of steak or curried chicken sandwiches, deviled eggs, dill pickles, stuffed olives, potato salad, vanilla ice cream in a vacuum freezer, and chocolate layer cake as we sat on the sand.
The adults were in collapsible chairs, the children on blankets. All the women wore hats and it could have been a gathering of the Maidstone Club down the beach. The ocean was well behaved and the sun was usually out. The conversation subdued. Soon the children and dogs ran off to play ball or run bases.
When we moved away in the ’60s from Windmill Lane, these picnics ended.
There is, of course, no proof that the right kind of picnic increases the happiness of families, but when I look at a checkered tablecloth and napkins tucked under a chin in the wide open spaces, the old feeling of longing creeps over me, even today.
Eventually, I inherited one of my mother’s fancy picnic baskets, but it is only gathering dust in a closet, the leather straps have become cracked, and it looks like an item for a tag sale.