Remembering summer retreats on the occasion of Purim

Boys like to make noise to drown out the name of the bad guy, Haman, and girls like to save the family to reward the guidance of Mordecai through the aid of a beauty contest. Purim is a plural word like “dice” and appeals to the kinder, the kids. The playfulness of the festival permits me to bring up some springtime memories. I offer a few glimpses of springtime memories of our vacation retreats. 

You see, my parents always celebrated the sunny seasons with summer retreats. We had a wondrous Oakland Beach house with a gigantic apple tree in the backyard. But get this: we had an “ice box” – quite literally – in the kitchen, and a truck would deliver gigantic blocks of ice, with a big axe, and install a big hunk in the wooden cabinet.

Now, this was the late Depression, and we had a wind-up record player with a giant needle and arm, and just a few records that I could find and play. One was Spike Jones’ Decca record of “Ve heil, right in da fuhrer’s face!” Another single song quite different and calming was “Just a cottage small right by a waterfall!” Between the pair of ‘em those long-ago single melodies, one escapist and the other mocking, sum up the Depression chapter of my early summers. They provide the background music to trips with my youngest uncle, who took us to the beach in his home-made skiff.

We had another little place for the escape from school days and weeks, in Hampden Meadows. There my handy mom transformed the contents of the cluttered closets that came with the house into household wonders. The abandoned croquet set provided a couple of towel racks, while my dad used the other mallets to assault the naughty squirrels, mice or skunks in the garage.

My nickname in those days was ever and always the name of a song with a Yiddish source, “Nature Boy.” The song was brought to Nat “King” Cole’s studio in 1947 by its composer eden ahbez (born George Aberle in 1908). He passed it to Cole’s valet Otis Pollard, who fortunately passed it along to Cole. It became his biggest hit and my lifelong nickname.

Moving along a bit, we had a few more fair-weather friendly summer bolt holes, one near Wickford, at Narrow River. Recently a former student came across a snapshot of my mom at the river-front dwelling and turned it into a strangely wondrous painting. It took me back to a magical time. And we, my wife and I, purchased a place and filled it with images and mementos of our children’s lives. These chapters in the story of times gone by turned into nostalgic reminders of our yesteryears.

Those little rooms no longer fit or suit today’s hopes and expectations, but for me they hold magic. Every charming weed or surprising wildfowl (like the visiting hummingbirds for whom my wife provides sweet treats) reminds me of times past, seasons perhaps inspired by the spirit that follows the season after Purim. This is a time when our pleasures should be modest, our demands minimal, and our play inspired by the spirit of childhood with hopes as varied and nostalgic as childhood hopes are everywhere.

MIKE FINK (mfink33@aol.com) is a professor emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design.