Skimpy Suits, Hairy Backs and Taffy

The house is being painted. Everything’s covered with plastic.  I could brew coffee or have some cereal or heat up a can of soup if I could get to any of that.  The pantry, you see, is sealed.  A lot of the light fixtures are removed but that doesn’t really matter because all of the switches and outlets are swathed in tape.  And even if we could cook a meal and had light to eat under, to quote Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, “You smell that?”  Yeah that would be the smell of paint which renders food as inedible as the home is unlivable.  But that’s all okay. We hired the guys and they’re doing what they were commissioned to do.  So we left for the weekend.  For the second weekend in a row we’ve taken a road trip; this time to Santa Cruz. 

For my out of state and international readers, and yes surprisingly I do have some, Santa Cruz is the Central California beach resort.  It has nice beaches, surfers, bronzed blondes wearing cocktail napkins held together by pieces of string that are otherwise known as swim suits and middle aged fellows with immense bay windows and hairy backs wearing Speedos.  By far its biggest attraction, bigger even than a hairy middle aged paunch, is the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk, dubbed the Coney Island of the West and complete with carnival games, rides, fried and unhealthy carnival food and a wooden roller coaster. 

The wife and I aren’t doing the boardwalk or the beach this time around.  We have the dog with us and she’s canis non grata (that’s highbrow speak for dogs not welcome) at the beach and boardwalk.  Beyond that we’re not big aficionados of the rides anymore.  When we were dating, I did take her on the roller coaster, known as The Giant Dipper; scared the hell out of her.  The Giant Dipper was a tough old girl back then.  Not only did it have the usual drops, turns and a tunnel but it banged you around so that when you got off you might likely be nursing some bruises on your hips.  I hear that the cars are modernized now and the ride's a bit smoother.

Santa Cruz was one of my childhood dream destinations.  Once or twice every summer the family would pack up a picnic lunch and take the 60 mile or so trek down the coast.  It was a relatively short trip but when you’re a kid an hour in the car might as well be a trans-Atlantic journey.

Mom would fry some chicken and wrap it in foil; make some macaroni salad and it would all go into a Scotch Cooler with some Cragmont sodas like ginger ale, cream soda and cherry cola and off we went.  The Scotch Cooler was a barrel shaped cooler with a tartan plaid pattern and Cragmont was the Safeway house brand and both are antiques and memories now. 

The beach at Santa Cruz near the boardwalk is packed on a sunny weekend afternoon.  We would find a small, unoccupied patch of beach, spread out a tablecloth and some towels and dine on the chicken and macaroni salad served up with a generous side order of sand.  After lunch we would lie out in the sun and half doze in the warmth to the beach sounds of waves, gulls, squealing kids, the shouts of angry parents and a Giants game on a nearby transistor.  After some toasting in the sun we would take a dip in the frigid waters.  The beach is nice but the water can be very cold.  Its water that euphemistically you “get used to” which really means you simply go numb.  After thawing out in the sun it was time to stroll down the boardwalk, go on the rides and play the games.  There was the roller coaster, the wild mouse and the other thrill rides along with a fun house, the bumper cars and the cheesy haunted house with the strange smell, the jolting cars and the pneumatic mechanical monsters.  And of course there was the food; corn dogs and deep fried whateveritisyouwant.  The best food, if you could call it food, was Marini’s salt water taffy.  We never failed to go home with a pound of taffy in a green box.

For a young boy, walking down the boardwalk was something of an educational, eye opening experience.  There were all of those young women wearing relatively nothing and showing parts that a youngster just had never seen before except in pictures that he wasn’t supposed to lay his eyes on.  Remember, we’re talking about the sixties; a time that by today’s standards was relatively Victorian.  There was no internet, no cable and movies left many things to the imagination.  The big question for a young lad was, if they can show all of what they’re showing why are they all hiding something?  And just what is it that they’re hiding?  As a guy got into his teens it was more of an eye opener because he was getting a pretty fair idea of what those parts, hidden and unhidden, were all about.  When we got into our teens we jettisoned the parents.  I would take the drive down with my college girlfriend Denise who would wear relatively nothing and I guess provided an eye opening experience for boys of all ages.  We blew off the Scotch Cooler and the home cooked food and went for the boardwalk food.  I spent too much money missing kewpie dolls with baseballs and banging basketballs off a too tight rim and failing to win a stuffed animal as the carny grinned at each miss and each subsequent dollar plopped on the counter all the while leering at Denise.  We rode the thrill rides and we also rode the haunted house ride but we never noticed the strange smell or the cheesy pneumatic mechanical monsters because the ride was cool and dark and a good place to make out for a few minutes.

On this weekend we drove down Highway 1, catching the scenic coastal route in Half Moon Bay.  The little beach town, home of the annual Pumpkin Festival is getting ready for the fall season.  Pumpkins are appearing in the fields and some of the seasonal signage is out already.  We drove past the little town of Pescadero and then past Gazos Creek.  Gazos is a little coastal stream which has had a reputation of being a great fishing spot.  My dad and I tried it on a few occasions and you couldn’t prove its greatness by our results.  We drove past the town of Davenport which, on the childhood drives, meant we were finally getting to the end of the “long” drive.  Davenport is more or less one of those “oops I blinked and missed it” little towns that was built in the early 20^th century and existed mostly because of the cement plant located there. 

Pulling into Santa Cruz it seems as though not much has changed since I used to visit so regularly.  Of course it’s sprawled some and it is more modern but, and this is to its credit, it hasn’t grown up; that is there are no new high rises.  By all rights some large hotel chains could have decided to try to plant skyscraping resorts at the beach but that never happened.  Accommodations near the beach are mostly quaint privately run little bungalow motels.  The only amenities offered are a parking spot, a bed, a bathroom, a TV and the most important one of all, a location that’s walking distance to the beach.  A former co-worker used to vacation at one of these little places every year and had to make his reservation for August a year in advance. 

Since the beach wasn't in our plans we stayed at a nice Hilton in nearby Scotts Valley, nestled in the evergreen hills just above Santa Cruz.  Its dog friendly, cushy and full of amenities that are perfect for just relaxing and forgetting work and painters. There was a nice breakfast at a place called Aldo’s overlooking the Santa Cruz Harbor.  Aldo’s was recommended by Food Network’s obnoxious Guy Fieri but I won’t hold that against Aldo.  The lesson here is never take a birddog to a restaurant that’s frequented by gulls.

Before leaving Santa Cruz the temptation was just too great.  It was a primal migratory pull that made me drive to the old Boardwalk where it was still early enough to find street parking nearby.  I pulled up behind a Toyota that had just been parked by a woman who approached my window.  Would I mind leaving that space open and taking the one behind?  She was saving it for some friends.  Not a problem for me as I was only going to be there long enough to satisfy an urge.  As I walked past the woman I wanted to comment, “let me know how this works out for you.”  When I got back to the car my wife told me of the drama that ensued when a fellow pulled up to the spot and started to park as the woman tried to save the spot.  He was a large man sporting a Mohawk and so trying to save a parking spot on a busy public street didn’t work out.  Before we drove off I reached into the green Marini’s box and unwrapped a delicious piece of salt water taffy.