Beaches & French Fries

From John
Going to Jefferson Beach with the whole family on Sundays and swimming in Lake St Claire. Ma would bring a picnic lunch. I remember once Rita brought Jim Sheedy and he accidentally stepped in Ma's apple pie. I remember we all had bad sunburns and we hurt all the way home in the car.

from Monica
Lake St. Claire-During the summer, every Sunday we went on a picnic over there (summers are short in Michigan), always got sunburned pretty good from one week to the next. One year Sunday was immediately followed by the 4th of July and we HAD to go again. I felt like I went dragging and kicking the whole way; my skin burned so bad already. Didn't we use suntan lotion in those days? Remember the Uncle who had a French-fry stand over there, and he would give us these paper containers full of hot French-fries, he had some sort of vinegar to put on them. Ummmm so good.

I don't remember Jim stepping in the pie on a picnic, but I do remember that during the winters, Ma used the back porch, right in the corner by the door, to keep big pots of soup for the next day, no room in the fridge for that. And Jim was leaving, going out the back door and he wasn't looking, and stepped on the cover of that pot, and it caved, and his foot, shoe, pants, and all we soaking wet with cold soup. He was so embarrassed, I felt bad for him. Of course, we didn't have soup the next day.

from Marcel
I do remember the apple pie incident. My recollection is that we ate it anyway. The person with the french fries was not an uncle, he was Paul Gelinas. His trick was to put orange rind in his grease which gave it additional flavor. Paul was a piano tuner by trade.

from John
I don't remember actually eating the pie but now that you mention it I recall Mama arguing that since it was covered by a piece of wax paper it would be OK to eat. Yuuuk.


from Paulette
Before we started going to Maceday Lake it was to Belle River in Canada. Then for some reason we stopped going to Canada and started going to beaches way on the east side of detroit. Jefferson Beach, Willow Beach and finally St. Clair Beach. We used to go swimming every Sunday during the summer. Mama would go to an early Mass and while the rest of us were at church she would pack up the lunch and other paraphernalia and it would all be sitting on a corner of the back porch when we got home. All we had to do was change clothes, load up the car and we were on our way.
Before we had coolers like we use today, Papa used to have a big galvanized tub covered with a tarp and he would get a block of ice and cool his beer in it. I don't know if they also cooled soft drinks, I know we never got any.

There were usually extended family and friends there also. I'm pretty sure it was at St. Clair Beach that Paul Gelinas had the french-fry booth. Mama told me he got the good flavor in the french fries oil by frying fruit and putting in a teaspoon of vanilla. She started doing that and I continued that with my kids, but the only fruit I ever had was apples. In later days Paul opened a fast food restaurant on Vernor near Dix. Where the muslim temple is now.

I remember getting home on Sunday nights, sleepy, tired, and sun burned. I also remember the year that the 4th of July fell on Monday and we had to start the whole cycle again. I guess we usually had a week in between for the sunburns to level out a little. That day sitting crowded in the back seat was more torture that usual. I don't remember if we sang that day. We three girls, sitting in the back seat is where we did a lot of singing and harmonizing. Whenever Marcel was with us he joined in. I don't remember either of the other boys ever joining in.

I remember having to unload the car and take care of putting away the picnic stuff and hanging out the wet bathing suits and towels when we got home. Ma always said she would get everything ready but when we got home her shift was over. She went in the house and relaxed. I adopted that attitude with my own family.