The Summer I Didn’t Plan

I would not have chosen the circumstances that gave me this summer, but I’m grateful for what the summer gave me.

There are summers you plan months in advance. Travel gets booked. Vacation days get blocked out on work calendars. Reservations are made, bags get packed, and somewhere around February you start daydreaming about what July is going to look like.

For me, however, this was not one of those summers.

I lost my job at the end of April, just as the weather was beginning to turn. I knew enough about hiring cycles to suspect that finding the next role might take a while, particularly once the summer slowdown arrived. So I gave the season a name: the Summer of Funemployment, borrowing a term that dates back to the Great Recession.

It was partly a joke and partly a declaration of intent. I had no interest in pretending unemployment was something I had chosen, but I also had no intention of spending an entire summer sitting inside waiting for the right job posting on LinkedIn to change my life. Almost immediately, I knew one thing I wanted back.

Beach days with my parents.

Getting the Band Back Together

Two summers earlier, beach Mondays had become a ritual. I had vacation time I needed to use before the end of the year but was unable to travel. So rather than taking one long trip, I stretched nearly every summer weekend into three days. Every Monday from Memorial Day through Labor Day, I took my parents and my aunt to Asbury Park.

My mother and aunt would read and talk. My father and I played cornhole, threw a skim ball in the ocean, and kept unofficial statistics on everything. I tracked our game records in Apple Notes. I tracked how many waves he caught body surfing. At the end of that summer, my father, who had always considered Belmar his beach, announced that Asbury Park had taken the title.

The following summer was completely different. I had started a new job with a bizarre PTO situation that left me without a single usable vacation day during the summer. My parents and aunt bought season passes and kept going without me.

Around the Fourth of July, my father told me they were going once or twice a week, then added something that stuck with me.

“It’s just not the same without you there. I miss my buddy.”

There was nothing I could do about it at the time. The job was consuming almost everything I had, and with four hours of commuting every day, I had nothing left in the tank for weekend beach days. That time needed to go toward keeping myself and the house functioning.

This summer, I had all the time in the world.

So when beach season arrived, Mom and Dad were back in the Jeep, soft top down, wheeling down Rt. 18 toward the best beach on the Jersey Shore.

Picking the Day

The first decision every week was when to go. Unlike the old Monday schedule, unemployment came with one undeniable luxury: we didn’t need to set a standard day; we could go whichever day had the best forecast.

By Sunday afternoon, we were usually comparing options. Weather came first. Any serious threat of thunderstorms before mid-afternoon could knock a day out of contention. Unmovable appointments eliminated others. Then came whichever day had the most favorable tides.

The tides mattered because my father, now 76, remains deeply committed to body surfing. Low tide, according to him, is the good stuff. Once I found a tide forecast I trusted, it became part of the weekly equation. If Tuesday and Wednesday had identical weather but low tide arrived an hour earlier Tuesday, Tuesday had the edge, and that’s when we were going.

There were weeks when the forecast left us exactly one opening. I remember realizing one Sunday that Monday was probably our only shot before several days of rain, which meant grabbing the Jeep keys and heading back out because I needed supplies for lunch before stores started closing.

Beach Day had become a small logistical operation added to my weekly routine, and I loved it.

The System

By the night before, most of my gear was ready. The beach bag was packed, the water bottles were filled and chilling in the refrigerator, the beer was cold, the Bluetooth speaker and power bank were charged, and my travel mug was waiting for morning caffeine.

My parents brought their chairs, cooler, food, drinks, and whatever my mother was reading that week. I brought the umbrella, lounger, games, speaker, lunch, and the rest of the assorted equipment that has slowly become my standard beach kit.

There was one new ritual this summer that I looked forward to almost as much as the beach itself. Instead of ordering my sandwich through DoorDash, I started making a run to Sorrento’s in Freehold the day before. The sandwich was better, the ingredients were fresher, and somehow it cost less than delivery, even though I was getting more. That little errand became part of the anticipation.

On beach mornings, I still got up early and went through my normal routine. I have written before about how important structure became while I was unemployed.

The beach did not replace that structure. It became part of it.

By 8:30, the cooler was packed. I would pull the Jeep out to the street so my parents could park in the drive, take down the soft top, put the windows down, load everything up, and get the sunscreen on. My parents usually arrived around nine, and then came the soundtrack: Beatles, Stones, The Who, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, decades of classic rock carrying us toward the shore. There was a running bit: every time Steely Dan came on, I would announce, “Mom! Steely Dan!” because once she had complained that she was sick and tired of them showing up so often on Dad’s playlists. How dare she.

By 9:30, we were usually on the sand.

Our Spot in the World

Once we were set up, everybody fell naturally into position. I put up the umbrella, my father sat beside me, and my mother sat next to him. Later in the afternoon, as the shade moved across the sand, my mother would eventually trade places with him and claim the cooler side of the umbrella.

My parents are serious sun people. They have an in-ground pool at home and approach tanning with considerably more commitment than I do. I alternate. Sun for a while, shade for a while.

My father, meanwhile, would usually hit the water almost immediately. I would get their country music playing on the speaker, despite my profound lack of enthusiasm for country music, and take my walk along the boardwalk before the day got too hot. By the time I returned, their music had enjoyed a respectable run, and we would switch back to mine.

Lunch usually happened sometime around noon. So did the first beer. Then came swimming, tanning, talking, walking, and throwing the skim ball.

A lot of throwing the skim ball.

One day, a boy who looked about twelve watched my father and me playing in the water for a while. Eventually he worked up the courage to ask, “Hey, that looks really cool. Can I try throwing it?”

My father looked at him and answered, flatly, “No. This is our game.”

Apparently, 76 is when territorial instincts really begin to blossom. The entire family still laughs about it.

Familiar Faces

There was another family we began recognizing from our beach days two years earlier. They were hard to miss. The mother had bright pink hair and a tattoo sleeve, and they seemed to be there every day we were.

One afternoon that first summer, they set up behind us and I told them they were welcome to use our cornhole boards. They took us up on it. This year, they were back. So were we.

Halfway through the summer, I noticed something new. They had bought the same skim ball my father and I use, and soon the whole family was standing in the water throwing it around.

I have absolutely no evidence that we inspired them. I am choosing to believe we did.

Good Time

Most beach days were not particularly eventful. That was part of what made them good.

We talked about family. We talked about my job search. My mother would fill me in on whatever was going on at home. My father and I would get into the water. Sometimes my parents would walk the boardwalk later in the afternoon. There was no agenda beyond spending the day together.

My brother took a week off for a staycation and joined us once, turning one of our regular three-person outings into something rarer. The surf happened to be particularly rough that day, and swimming was heavily restricted, much to my father’s disgust. There is apparently very little point in visiting the Atlantic Ocean if the Atlantic Ocean refuses to cooperate.

Eventually, he and I wandered farther down the beach until we found a stretch where we could get far enough into the water to throw the ball for a while. Mission accomplished.

But one of my favorite moments from the entire summer was much quieter.

My mother does not like going into the ocean when the surf is rough. On calm days, though, she will. Luckily, we had a few of those this summer. Whenever she and my father walked into the water together, they held hands.

They have been together since high school and have been married for more than half a century. There was something wonderful about watching them walk into the Atlantic together. Nothing dramatic. Nothing staged. Just two people who have spent most of their lives together, still holding hands as they stepped into the water.

The Summer I Got

I would not have chosen the circumstances that gave me this summer. I would rather have remained employed in a job I loved, taken vacation days when I wanted them, and known what came next.

That was not the hand I was dealt.

But after a year in which work consumed far too much of my life, this summer gave some of it back. It gave me mornings with the Jeep open and music playing, sandwiches from Sorrento’s and cold beer at noon, long walks on the boardwalk, and time in the water with my father. It gave my mother somewhere to sit beside me and talk. It gave my brother a day with all of us. It gave me time with people I love, in a place I love, while I worked on getting myself ready for whatever comes next.

Yesterday, my parents stopped by while they were in town shopping. At some point, my father said it again.

“I know it’s not beach weather anymore, but I miss the days with my buddy.”

I miss them too.

The summer did not happen the way I would have planned it.

I’m glad I got it anyway.

Latest From The Journal