"Swimming at the shore was always fun - unless you got caught in the rocks. (We did a land office business in mercurochrome and band aids whenever we had company, and when the Walther League came we would buy it wholesale.) Two swims a day was the general rule, with an occasional moonlight dip before bedtime. The catch ball games in the water were alwyas fun. This was done from the sandbar to "elephant" rock and from there to "little Elephant" rock. We also had some acrobat tricks for the water. Diving was again another thing. since there was no diving board or evan a raft, one had to dive from rock or posts or anything that happened to be handy. Boulder rock was a huge thing, Lightning rock had no flat surface at all, and Cradle rock was among all kinds of hidden rocks. Then they tried the posts at the creek, after Adley's pier gave way to the many storms. I can tell you in those days we started early in the morning with the prayer: "oh liet thy tender love I pray guide and protect us through this day. Amen".
The hurricanes and other big storms were also a time for our humility to come to the fore, when we realized how helpless we were without His protection. And yet, they were always exciting to us, but damaging to others. The 1938 hurricane, which occurred while we were in Philadelphia, took all of the houses on Circle Beach except for three. A later hurricane dropped a house in our back yard, but we had to return it. We had fun (?) raking up after hurricanes, when there would be firewood, parts of board walks, screens, picnic tables, and once a septic tank that graced our banks for fifteen years until I was able to demolish it last fall... Yes, I DID. During one hurricane, we had a candle burning in the bathroom for the children, and Eva accidently threw her doll at it, which set the curtains on fire and we got a scorched wall and ceiling. While on the subject of fires, I was burning brush when we FIRST had the cottage, and a strong wind blew it into the dry weeds, and it got out of hand. The firemen came and put it out, which was good, because I was almost exhausted from beating it with an old broom and breathing the smoke, what with my asthma and all... I thanked the firemen and all that we had was a burned clothes pole.
Did you know that some daredevils even rode bikes on our boardwalk, and quite successfully too. On the other hand, Art Steinke used to practice his sermons while walking up and down, so many people considered the marsh under it holy ground. The marsh was also used for annual walks by the children. They crossed it, they swam it, all the way to the trestle. When they were tired of diving, they would trudge back to the cottage. Fun.. huh?