Chapter 14
Ocean
“Holy shit, isn’t that a Tin Woody?” Ocean asked as they passed yet another gleaming car in a long line of beautiful classic machines and bikes.
Roan stood on his other side, the pair bracketed in by Pope and Danger, which Ocean was grateful for, since it seemed like the whole town had turned out today, in addition to the visitors steadily flooding in from up and down the coast.
“Why do they call them a Tin Woody?” Roan asked.
The old man’s face lit up, even as he chuckled and gestured to the car. “Wooden body and a steel frame. Back then, they used a tin alloy in the steel. The wood part is self-explanatory.”
“That’s kind of amazing,” Roan replied.
“It is, isn’t it,” the old man said. “A rolling showpiece. Holds up better than aluminum and plastic.”
“You can say that again,” Pope declared. “She’s a thing of beauty.”
“First new car my father bought,” the old man said, pride radiating in every word.
“We used to wake up every Sunday to polish it before we loaded up for church. Kept on with that tradition too, right up until the Sunday before he passed. He’d have been right pleased that you boys knew what she was and almost got the year right. ”
“My grandfather had one,” Pope replied. “Never got to see it in person though, but he’s got pictures all over the wall of his study. He loved that car.”
The man shuffled a few steps closer and pushed his glasses higher on his nose as he studied Pope. “Shoot, you’re talking about Samson McMasters, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir,” Pope replied.
The old man chuckled and nodded. “He was by here earlier and sat a spell, chatting about these old girls. I’ve still got to make my way to the old creamery building and see Flaming Betty.
I can’t believe he finally found her. My pops used to tell stories about her midnight runs and how many wrecked police cars she left in her wake. ”
Pope nodded. “Was raised on those stories.”
“I bet you were.”
“You let your grandpappy know I’ll be up there before the day is through,” the old man said. “This bum knee of mine doesn’t let me get around the way I used to.”
“If you need a lift anywhere, just flag down one of the boys driving the golf carts, and they’ll take you anywhere you need to go,” Pope said.
“What are they charging for that?” The old man asked, stroking his stubby whiskers.
“Not one darn penny,” Pope replied, making the old man smile.
“Well, in that case, I think I’ll snag the next one passing through here,” he said.
“And if we see one, we’ll send them your way,” Pope replied.
“Much obliged,” the man said before they continued on the path they’d been traveling, past rows of cars that, for the most part, had all existed before Ocean had been born.
Every last one of them was polished to a high shine the way Pope’s had been when he’d parked it among the row of cars that morning.
They took their time admiring them all until Ocean’s eyes caught sight of the lettering on the side of an old stone building, broken, sun-bleached, but still clear enough to make out.
“What’s a creamery?” Ocean asked.
“Was just about to ask that,” Roan said.
“This one is now the historical society,” Pope explained, “but in its heyday, they brought milk here from the dairy farms to pasteurize and turn into other dairy products. Ice cream, butter, yogurt, cheese, all that stuff. The front had a shop where you could go in and buy what you needed, but the back was where they processed everything.”
“Cool,” Roan replied. “Guess everything happens in huge factories now.”
“Unfortunately,” Pope replied. “Lots of smaller outfits went out of business when they took the creameries away. It wasn’t cost effective to truck milk clear across the state or further when you only had a dozen cows in your herd.”
“I bet not,” Roan muttered. “Was there ever a time when gas prices didn’t suck?”
The bark of laughter Danger let out turned several heads in their direction. “You ask the old fellas out here that question, and I guarantee they’ll tell you no, even when the price was twenty-nine cents a gallon.”
Ocean whistled. “That’s cheaper than the sixty-nine cent cheeseburgers Pops used to talk about.”
“Come on, you boys want a real history lesson; let’s go inside,” Pope said, leading the way.
A collection of people were gathered at the far end of the room, but what drew Ocean’s attention was the display on the wall to the left. He wandered that way, which meant Roan followed, luring Danger and Pope over too.
“Fourth of July 1969,” Ocean said, reading the writing underneath it.
“One month before Woodstock,” Pope said. “The world was really changing back then. You should hear my pops and grandfather talk about those days.”
“Yeah, they should,” Danger said.
“I’ll see about having them out to the house one night for a cookout,” Pope said. “They’d get a kick out of sharing their stories with folks who have never heard them before.”
“I can tell,” Ocean replied, gesturing towards the gathering of people. “Looks like your grandfather and Mark’s old man are happily holding court over there.”
“It does, doesn’t it,” Pope said, chuckling.
“Look at downtown,” Roan said, pointing to one of the black and white photos. “I don’t even recognize it.”
“Because only a handful of buildings are left,” Danger explained. “In 1959 a hurricane tore through here that lay waste to the place. See, right here, you can see the devastation that followed, as well as how the town pulled together to rebuild.”
Ocean turned his attention to the photo Danger indicated, showing piles of rubble where buildings used to be.
“Holy crap,” Ocean muttered once he’d taken it all in.
“It was one of the worst disasters in town history,” Pope explained.
“It sure was,” Sunshine said. “But if you’ll look right here, you’ll see the townsfolks gathered in the VFW.
Somehow, it managed to escape being damaged, save for a couple of windows.
Folks boarded them up and assembled cots, rolled out sleeping bags, and stocked the kitchen with everything they could salvage to keep everyone fed. ”
Tables lined the wall, laden with sandwiches piled on platters.
A woman held a small piece, offering it to the toddler on her lap.
Beside her, one woman was doing another’s hair, half still a tangled mess, the rest in braids.
Men sat around a length of paper, various drawings taking shape.
When Ocean looked closer at the image, he saw drawings that resembled the way the town looked today.
“The city council held a meeting, right there in that room, about whether or not to rebuild,” Sunshine explained, drawing their attention to one of the other photos in the display.
“The decision was unanimous. There’s a collection of articles in the archives detailing the things they discussed that day.
The man who took the photos, Stanley Wheatgrass, worked for the local paper.
Their building was demolished, but they never stopped working to get the news out.
It was because of them that donations started pouring in from across the country, and not just monetary ones either.
Trucks of lumber and supplies started arriving, and many of the folks who brought them stayed to help with rebuilding.
This was long before the creation of a federal disaster relief program. ”
There were so many photos to look at, fascinating images of them breaking a champagne bottle against the cornerstone of a newly rebuilt structure or cutting a huge red ribbon stretched out in front of a door.
In another, teenagers were dancing in what looked like a high school gym; only one thing stood out that made him lean closer.
“Why isn’t anyone wearing shoes?” Ocean asked.
“To keep from damaging the wood floor,” Sunshine explained. “People started calling them sock hops. See, right here, at the edge of the picture, you can see everyone’s shoes lined up against the wall.”
“Poodles must have been super popular,” Roan said. “Half the girls have them on their skirts.”
“They were called Poodle Skirts,” Sunshine explained patiently, without snickering at the question or making Roan feel bad about asking it.
“We have a collection of patterns, from back when people used to make their own clothes. If you look closer at the picture, you’ll see that none of them are wearing the same one. ”
“This place is seriously cool,” Roan said. “Feels like I’ve learned more history in fifteen minutes than I ever did in school.”
“Could be you had the wrong teachers,” Sunshine said. “Which is sad, because history is where everything begins.”
“Would it be okay if I came here sometimes to learn more?” Roan asked.
A brilliant smile illuminated her face. “You are welcome to drop in anytime you’d like and ask as many questions as you want to. It’s why we’re here. To make sure people don’t forget what it took to get us to where we are today.”
“Thanks.”
“Ocean, I think there is something you should see, right down here,” she said, leading him further down the row of pictures.
There, in one of the photographs, was a group of young men with long hair posing in front of their surfboards in an assortment of striped and solid-colored shorts with ties in the front, like they’d given birth to the modern board shorts.
To the left, a little younger and shorter than the rest of the boys he was with, was Ocean’s father, with an even younger kid standing in front of him.
For a moment, everything else faded. The image of his old man with a cocky smirk and windblown hair sucked the air out of his lungs.
His dad looked like he was only a few years older than Ocean had been when his father had passed away.
Then Ocean cocked his head, studying the youngest boy, who couldn’t have been more than five.
Instead of a surfboard, he proudly hugged a boogie board, his grin revealing two missing teeth.
“Is that Mark’s son?” Ocean asked. “The one dad saved?”