The Beach
We went to the beach at North Litchfield in South Carolina when I was a kid. We stayed in a house that had the ability to serve two rentals - one upstairs and one downstairs. We would rent the whole place with one of my mother’s roommates from college, Patty, and her family. North Litchfield is still one of my favorite beaches and, even though so much development has happened along the South Carolina coast since then, the rows of beach houses can still feel like they did in the 1970s. Quiet. Historic. Full of stories.
Our place was called The Sea Witch and was owned by a business friend of our dad. The bigger kitchen was downstairs and that’s where most of the meal prep took place. Our mother would, as she would say, “make a little list” about groceries, about packing, about other details.
When we are children, we cannot possibly realize how much of that is needed for things to go well, to be successful. It was easy living when I was a kid, particularly in the summertime when I was out of school. I chuckle to think of all the times I said “I’m bored” or “I can’t wait to be older.” What glorious gifts all that freedom and time are.
Two things our mother prepared ahead of time to go to the beach were a chocolate pound cake with chocolate icing and a French pound cake with a lemon glaze. She would freeze them and place them in a cooler when it was time to head for the coast.
Our parents met in the third grade. After they both passed away, I read a stack of letters written between them, the time frame for which primarily spanned through high school, college and into the early days of being married.
During more than one summer, Mom and Muggins Hutton, another family friend, packed up all their kids, all the stuff, all the food and went to the beach. It appeared that Dad came on the weekend and maybe stayed for a few days. I remember seeing one of these letters from Mom to Dad stating she needed more than a dollar for groceries. A dollar! She said those children ate a lot of bread.
Leading up to our beach trip, Mom would say we could eat whatever we wanted to at the beach. I tucked that nugget away and remembered. One of the first days we were at the beach one year, I went downstairs and she was ready to whip up eggs and whatever else and asked me what I would like to eat. I politely said that I would like to have a slice of chocolate pound cake and a slice of French pound cake please. Daddy was sitting in his white undershirt, dress pants and dress socks. He would have been up early and already back from getting the newspaper. Mom said I needed to eat something that wasn’t dessert for breakfast (or something like that).
This was a typical conversation between our mother and me. She did not like that I argued. I thought we were having a conversation.
I said, “you said we could eat whatever we wanted to while we were at the beach,” and she sort of paused. There were a few seconds where no one spoke. Dad turned down a corner of the newspaper and said very quietly but directly “Billie, you did say that.” Without ceremony or saying anything, Mom served me up a slice of each of those cakes, and I think I might have had that every day while we were at the beach for breakfast. I still have at least one of these recipes written in our mother’s hand. Sweetly, with other recipes, my nephew Nick and his family have a few of our mother's handwritten recipes framed and on their kitchen wall.
Patty’s husband, Mac, taught me how to crab. He was a good and firm instructor. We would crab on the inlet side off of a dock and then he insisted we help clean, cook and serve blue crabs to everyone for supper. For a kid, it was a big deal to see something like that all the way through. It gave a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Plus, to have the attention and encouragement of an adult was a gift.
The Sea Witch was on the beach and had a long walkway above the dunes to a gazebo and then steps down to the shore. Family friend, John Hills, would paint from a photo our father and Mac sitting in the gazebo at happy hour time. You can’t really tell it’s them, but if you know the picture, you know it is. That painting hung in our family home for a long time. John Hills later painted a Palmetto tree on the beach for me. I can tell you where that is in my house right now.
The bedrooms hosted metal beds friendly for breaking a toe if you hit a corner on one of them. There were air conditioning units in the windows. I remember the sensation of being sunburnt and waking up in crisp, cool sheets, the room bright with morning sun. There was a tiny kitchen upstairs, mainly a bar.
A vivid memory is of our two entire families, probably around 12 people, playing Spoons, the card game, around this old beat up dining room table. Patty, the best joke teller who ever lived, dove clean across the table and knocked my brother out of his chair to get the spoon out of his hand so that she could stay in the game. The laughing lasted a long time.
From the house, we could walk down to the beach to Atalaya Castle. Anna Huntington was a sculptor who had animals brought in that she sculpted at the castle in an outdoor studio. The animals included bears, monkeys, a leopard and horses. Her art helped create and start Brookgreen Gardens which is a gorgeous outdoor sculpture garden (the first of its kind in the United States). Mom’s favorite was of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Mine is of Diana, the photo accompanying this blog, taken by Bryan Alexander.
One year, a group of kids (I was pretty little at the time) scared ourselves to death by running down the beach at night to the castle and climbing over the wall. What we saw and heard, I am not sure. I do remember a fair amount of giggling and shrieking. We ran back home thinking we'd gotten away with something big.
In 2013, I introduced Bryan to North Litchfield when we went there for a week. My brother and his family happened to be there at the same time. He and I walked down to the house where we stayed (which changed hands (and names) a few times and is one of the few remaining houses with a lower floor).
I checked in with my brother and sister about their memories of Litchfield as a family. Nickie remembers our grandmother coming and making her daiquiris. Shufy remembers that our parents rented the house for about 8 summers for two weeks. One week would be a house party week with couples, and one week would be with children. In both of their memories, there is a nod to Donna Summer, and you will have to ask them about that story.
I had the privilege of telling a shorter version of this story including the recipes in Valerie Frey’s Preserving Family Recipes. If of interest, send me an email, and I will share the recipes with you. They are crowd pleasers and do not disappoint.
Try this:
What is a vivid beach memory from your childhood? Tell its story. Include the senses.
What is one treasure you found on the beach during your lifetime, one that you know exactly where it is? Tell the story of that treasure.
What is a recipe from your lifetime of which you have a fond memory? Write about that. Tell its story.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at fsconsulting2013@gmail.com.