In spite of my earlier thoughts about some ‘amour’ after returning to our room, it wasn’t to be. Even though I’d thoroughly enjoyed learning of the history of the place and the projected future I was fighting to stay awake by the time we got up to leave. My parents wanted us to join them in the bar area to see some of their friends but I begged off. Once in the room Elle made up her “package” for sleeping while I moved the night table that separated the twin beds and pushed them together figuring that snuggling would be better than sleeping alone. We were asleep within minutes after turning out the lights.
With three windows facing East and only the old fashioned Venetian blinds to keep out the sun we were awake around 6am. The one good thing was that it gave us some time to follow through on my aborted plans of the previous evening. As I've written a time or two previously, I preferred 'morning delight' anyway. A surprise was the fact that Elle’s “package” had done a good job and her bed was relatively dry. My mother had told us at dinner that she’d reserved court time at the Tennis facility. We had two hours that included having the Tennis Pro spend a half hour with us. It wasn’t until 9am which, with our early awakening, would allow us time to have breakfast and finally get a walk on the beach. We decided to get into our tennis clothes to save time as we had to take the shuttle to get to our destination and had to be ready when it arrived. I took the Polaroid camera as well as my mother’s little Brownie camera as we walked out the door.
Walking out to the front and to the beach I was, again, taken by the amount of sand up against the sea wall. The last time I’d been there my brother and I used it to jump off and it was at least 3 or more feet down to the sand. With the sand as it was there was really no need for stairs. We walked out onto the sand and towards the South so I could get a picture of the way the place looked. As I did I was taken by all the palm trees that were missing. On the corner, where my parents room was located, there had been a small grove of them that had offered protection to the room from the sun and now there was none. There were only four trees across the whole front and I remember there being many more. To be truthful, I was really disappointed.
I can’t tell you why I hadn’t noticed that the roadhouse that had been so much a part of my time back when I was a kid and was located just to the South of the complex was gone. We’d driven past the spot both going to and returning from St. Augustine and never picked up on it. We walked up the beach and once on the property I could see the slab of cement that had been the ‘footprint’ of the building as well as the oval that had housed the gas pumps. “Barney’s” was the name of the place and the guy who owned it. My memory of him was that of a pretty ‘rough’ character. He and Ed, the owner of the place we were staying at, were always fighting about something but my father got along well with him. What I remembered more was that he had two teen aged daughters and one, her name was Martha, was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen in my life up to that time. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the place and to them.
Walking back to get our breakfast I found an Adirondack chair and dragged it out to the front and got a picture of Elle. Right at that moment a guest appeared in the walkway and asked if we’d like him to take a picture of us. We said “yes” and then stopped at the room to get the bag I’d brought the camera in from home. We’d put our bathing suits in it so we could just go from tennis to across the road and the pool and cabana portion of the resort. Walking in from the patio we ran into Diane, the owners daughter. I’d forgotten that she’d asked us to meet with her and as she did I could see she was uncomfortable. She ‘beat around the bush’, talking about the great weather we were experiencing (and it was!) and finally got to the point. She started by apologizing and, of course, we had no idea why.
Elle had made the mistake of telling my mother about our first night and Elle’s lack of ’supplies’. My mother knew all about Elle’s incontinence so that wasn’t a problem. But, Elle had told her about having used bath towels and getting the sheets all soiled. Because my mother was such good friends with Diane’s parents she felt it her ‘duty’ to explain what the situation was. What Diane was trying to say and do was to tell Elle (us) that it really wasn’t a problem for them and that we’d have extra towels each day… and that if Elle needed to wash out any clothes she could use their washing machines after 9pm. Elle was mortified and I was embarrassed as well. It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced my mother getting involved in something that she should’ve spoken to Elle about first. If my mother had walked up at that time I can guarantee that she would have heard some rather unpleasant words from Elle. When Diane walked away Elle had no desire to eat and I had to persuade her to go on to the tennis complex.
To be continued...
NOTE; blogger is all messed up when it comes to posting pictures. I'd wanted to fit them into the post but it wouldn't let me.
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| That was our room behind Elle. |
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| Note how high the sand is against the sea wall. |
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| It looks pretty sad... not as I'd remembered it. |
1 comment:
Poor Elle! I can imagine she must have been so embarrassed! The sand was so high, it looks like you two were sitting on a street curb and not a sea wall!
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