And the second page, Saugatuck, was as much as I could say about "Residential Westport" - although the beautiful houses of Westport spread east and north from Saugatuck, it was Saugatuck where my home was, and the homes of my neighbors and friends.
Westport was a town of homes, and proud of it.
Now, of course, Saugatuck is not the center of "Residential Westport" -- which has covered the whole town; I am told there is no undeveloped land left in Westport. It is in Saugatuck that you find Westport's center of commerce, all smokeless industry -- offices and agencies, and these are stacked in immense buildings climbing the hills north of the Post Road.
This page, "Recreational Westport" -- centers on the beaches which, shifting sands notwithstanding, have pretty much stayed put.
In the first page of these Westport Pages, I wrote about "Commercial Westport" - as much as a little girl could understand, and it centered on Main St. and the Post Road with the Bank and the shops and the newspaper, and town hall.
To see a list of all the parks and recreational centers, which includes the beaches, just go to:
http://www.ci.westport.ct.us/govt/services/services/parks/facilities.asp
My parents chose to live in Westport for two reasons. The first was the excellent reputation of the town's schools. And the second was the excellent reputation of the town's beaches.
In 1777 the British landed at Compo beach and marched to Danbury, to do battle wtih the American militia. On the way back to the boats a skirmish broke out at Compo Hill, which is commemorated by the cannons placed (at a much later date) at the point of the beach looking out over the sound, and by a statue of a "Minute Man" - unfortunately facing the wrong way, at the beach entrance.
Some wag stated that he was placed there "to keep the New Yorkers out!"
Compo Beach is a natural formation, a dump of those glacial pebbles that make up most of the Connecticut shore. It faces Long Island Sound and is backed by a man-made harbor called "Cedar Point". There are now huge stone breakwatrs, put into place in the hopes of keeping the sand eroding away, sand which is barged in each spring.
Westporters jokingly call these large pebbles "economy size sand".
Except for the war years, when gasoline was rationed, we went to the beach several times a week. We especially loved it when there were waves, and we jumped over and dove under them. There were diving rafts in those days, usually crowded with teen agers.
Click here to read the newspaper account of the story I am about to relate.
One summer day, when I was 7 or 8, my father sailed the family sailboat from Cedar Point, around the breakwaters, and anchored in deep water above the beach. My mother was on the beach with a picnic lunch, and we swam ashore to join her.
My memory of that day kicks in with us sitting on the blanket, the boat bobbing in view. The small waves lapping the shore became larger, each wave larger than the next, and crashing farther up on the beach. We pulled our blanket higher and higher and finally my mother gathered it up and carried it to the car, with Nancy and I following her, our arms filled with picnic basket, towels, toys and other beach paraphenalia.My father, meanwhile, was concerned about the boat. The anchor was lifting off the bottom with each big wave, and it was moving closer and closer to the beach.
Finally, a giant wave, larger than all the others, came and lifted up the boat and crashed it on the beach. My father, and some other men, ran down and grabbed the anchor line and held on, preventing the boat from being sucked up in the undertow.
And after that wave, the water gradually became calm again.
As I remember, the boat was a total loss. The mast was broken, and there was a hole in the side.
For weeks afterwards, when we went to the beach, I would scuff my feet along the high water line and kick up coins, and jewelry, and sunglasses and other items lost in the tidal wave.
To this day, that incident figures in my dreams. In my nightmares, I look over my shoulder to see a huge wave building up, looming dark, towering over me. It will soon head, break, come crashing down on me with a force I can't escape.
In other dreams, the pleasurable ones, I kick up coins, jewels, and other treasure in the sand.
Here is another beach story, dealing with loss:
I had a baby doll, made of rubber, with painted eyes and hair. Her name was "Babe". She had a baby bottle which I could fill with water and feed her, and then she would wet. The water traveled from her head down her neck and into her body, where it pooled, and slowly drained out a hole poked into her bottom. She was not anatomically correct.
I had had her for so many years that her rubber body was discolored and beginning to crack.
No matter. I adored Babe. She slept in my bed at night, bathed with me before bed, and we had innumerable adventures during the day. I dressed and undressed her. I talked to her. She was the favorite of all my dolls.
I took her one day to the beach, to experience swimming in the sound. Being rubber, she floated - at least for a while. But her body took on water, and she began to sink. I shook her, to let the water out, but it dribbled out the hole in her bottom very slowly.
I took her up to our car and set her on the fender to drain. I returned to the beach, to swim and play until it was time to go home.
We had been home for a while, when a thought stabbed through my heart. Babe!! Where was Babe? Had I brought her home? No -- remember! remember! I had set her on the fender to dry.
I began praying and crying simultaneously. "Please, dear God, let me find Babe" I prayed, and ran to my father, crying.
We got in the car and he drove me, slowly, back to the beach, scanning the side of the road the entire trip. But no baby doll rested on the shoulder. At the beach, we returned to where we had parked, and looked up and down the row of parked cars, and the area nearby, even peering into the trash can.
I never found Babe. I cried for days afterwards.
I am a Libra, with an October birthday, and on my next birthday, my mother presented me with a new rubber baby doll. I named her Star. Star was in all ways better than Babe, she was new and fresh, her eyes opened and closed, she drank and wet, and came with a complete Layette. But she could never replaced Babe.
Soon after we moved to Westport, my father bought a boat. It was a very small catboat, with a Snipe jib as a sail, and we called her "Snip". We sailed her on the river. She was clumsy and hard to control.
The next year he bought a real boat, a 15' sailboat which he named "Hard Tack", and joined the Cedar Point Yacht Club, and kept her moored there.
(This is the boat that came to a sad ending in the tidal wave)
He really learned to sail with Hard Tack, and participated in the yacht club races. Hard Tack was entered into the handicap class. This was a rag-tag bunch of sailboats. The first race of the season was the qualifier, which determined each boat's handicap.
After Hard Tack, he bought GUP, an 18' gaf rigged sloop. He did very well with GUP, racing in the handicapped class, bringing home trophies.
Cedar Point did not only run the Handicapped races. There were many Snipes, Lightnings and Star sailboats, and Cedar Point ran races for them all. And in the winter, there was the Frostbite Fleet, small boats that raced inside the harbor.
Our boat was moored in the center of the harbor. The club had a tender, and you blew a horn to let the tender know that you needed to be fetched. Usually my father dropped us at the dock, and then sailed back to his mooring. The boy who ran the tender was alerted that the horn would soon be blowing for him.
In the late '40s, when television was in its infancy, the Yacht club had one of the first TVs in town. Programs were only broadcast on the weekends, and we would gather in the clubhouse room to watch -- the TV (was it even 10"?) was mounted high at one end and we sat on benches, like pews at a church.
Cedar Point Yacht Club was a private club in those days. Today, the harbor is part of Westport Recreation and has been renamed the "Minute Man Yacht Club". The Cedar Point Club, with it's emphasis on racing, has moved to Saugatuck Shores.
You do not need a tender to get to your boat nowadays. The harbor is filled with docks, and the docks are filled with enormous boats. You can walk to your yacht.
But Hard Tack was not a racing sailboat. Hardly. It was a family boat, and we sailed out of Cedar Point almost every weekend, with destination to Cockenoe Island, Peck's Ledge Lighthouse, or just out to the Sound and back. Sometimes it would be an evening sail, especially if we had been picnicking on Cockenoe, and coming back after dark my sister and I would trail behind the boat, hanging onto ropes and entranced with the beautiful phosphorescence in the water, which twinkled and streaked behind our hands, our bodies.
Although I was not an enthusiastic sailor, like my sister, I liked belonging to the Yacht Club. Belonging. That was my clubhouse, my deck, my dock. I liked being there - the sound of the gentle waves, slapping against the pontoons of the floating dock, the feel of the hot canvas under my feet, feeding the little minnows that hung around the dock waiting for little girls to feed them, the smell of the salt water and gasoline and fish.
What did we watch? I don't remember. One of the first programs was a boxing fight, which did not interest me at all.
Once we were on the news. The site of Holy Trinity Church had been a tavern, and George Washington had stopped there(not slept there, but drank there) on his way to New York. The church ladies and children all donned costumes and were videotaped gathered under the Washington elm. I don't remember the costumes or the taping, but I do remember watching my 2 seconds of fame on the Cedar Point TV set.
Burial Hill was the beach at Green's Farms. That part of town was definitely out of our territory. But we swam there during the war, when my mother had duty at the plane spotting post there, and extra gasoline rations to get her to and from the post.
There are two other beaches in Westport; Old Mill and Burial Hill. Today, they are part of Westport's Recreational Package, I don't know their status back when I was a child. We seldom went to them.
Old Mill Beach is a continuation of Compo Beach, ending at a cluster of cabins and a salt marsh. A stream runs into the sound through the salt marsh, from a pond created by a small dam.
I had a friend who lived at Old Mill, and I occasionally would spend a day with her. There was parking at the cottages, and you didn't need a sticker, either.
Today, Longshore belongs to the citizens of Westport. The golf course, tennis courts, marina, beach and pools are open to all. But of course there are fees and regulations. We parked in a visitor's space and walked around - there were two company picnics going on and when asked, we'd name the other one. It was the kind of scene you find in glossy magazines.
I talked with a woman who works in real estate. "Longshore is a wonderful selling point" she said. "Buy into the town, and you get a country club thrown in for good measure".
I never gave a thought as to who owned Cockenoe. It was there, and if you had a boat and could reach it, it was yours for the day. It was a popular destination for boating families, with a wide beach and small harbor. There was a mountain -- OK, a bluff -- for kids to climb and pretend they were pirates.
There were no toilets on the island. Campers had to dig a pit for that purpose. Picnickers went behind large rocks.
Cockinoe was the icing on my cake. I had it all. I had my house and my yard and the cave in the woods, I had the beaches and the yacht club. And I had Cockenoe for imaginary adventures.
If, today, I had all the money in the world, I'd buy a small cottage at Old Mill, and have a small boat at Cedar Point, and picnick at Cockenoe. But, as I don't have all the money in the world, I am satisfied to have the memories of the days when I did all that.