Thank God it’s Monday, again. I always look forward to every Monday. They’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you. Therefore, I hope this brings you a happy Monday.
Next Sunday is National Beach Day and it’s still Family Fun Month, too. National Beach Day was created by Colleen Paige, in 2014, to honor the beauty of coastlines everywhere and encourage people to keep them clean; while additionally raising awareness about the dangers that trash poses to marine life, as well as to our planet’s eco system.
This day also encourages communities world-wide to participate in coastline clean-ups and help teach the importance of proper recycling and conservation. Beaches are special places that most people enjoy for their beauty, as well as for their mental and physical health benefits.
BEACH PERKS
Some of the perks we get from beaches include natural stress relief from the open horizon and the sound of the waves, rolling on shore. Did you know that the “blue space” – where the blue water meets the blue sky – gives our brains a break from intense environments? It’s known as the “blue mind” effect and it reduces brain fatigue, as well as restores focus.
Beaches can also boost our mood through a mixology of fresh air and sunshine, accompanied by the view of the open horizon and the soothing sound of the waves rolling on shore. In essence, they trigger a deep sense of calm and happiness, as well as feelings of nostalgia.
In addition, we get a lot of natural Vitamin D from the sunshine we get at an open beach, where the water reflects and intensifies it. This, in turn, supports our bone strength and immune functions. Sunlight is also known to stimulate serotonin and endorphin production, which are natural remedies for anxiety and depression. But don’t forget to use sunscreen, too.
Extra physical fitness comes from walking or running on the sand, which burns 1.6 times more calories than doing the same activity on pavement. It’s also low-impact for our joints. Likewise, swimming in the water can also enhance our muscle strength and is, likewise, considered a low-impact exercise activity.
As I wrote last week…
Almost all of our family vacations included beach time – swimming and building sand castles, as well as looking for fossilized rocks and seashells. I shared these same family fun traditions with my own children and then with my grandson…
Living and traveling in Michigan, it’s not hard to find a nearby beach anywhere you go. Water-related activities are the most favored, among Michiganders – especially when the summers are hot and muggy. In fact, many small towns have invested in “splash pads” for their community parks. Big cities have built full-scale water parks, too.
Back in the early 1960s, Mom won a beautiful stereo system from a radio contest, through WJBK-Detroit, for an essay she wrote about picnicking on one of the Detroit Metro Beaches, in the snowy wintertime, while listening to the radio for added enjoyment. In fact, she won several writing contests from the time she was a young girl and into motherhood.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 294). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)].
DIVIDENDS
EVERY SUCCESSFUL ACCOMPLISHMENT with my writing, after high school and the one year in college, was involved with recipes and cookbooks and restaurants. But I couldn’t see that it was a kind of calling. I saw it only as an interest that temporarily kept me writing and making a worthwhile living at it.
WDEE-Radio, in Detroit, gave me a portable radio for a recipe that took 1st place in a contest they conducted – and in 1962, it was WBRB, in Mt. Clemens, that gave me a check for 1st place in their recipe contest. Soon after that, Better Homes & Gardens sent me a check for a recipe [I entered] in a contest they had conducted.
WJBK-Radio gave me a maple stereo and radio set for their [contest for the] most unusual experience while listening to the radio, in 1964, when I wrote them about our “Picnicking in the Snow”.
Again, the story was food related, including recipes for having a cook-out on the beach at Metropolitan Park in the middle of winter, with the radio going to keep us in the proper mood.
As I’ve written many times, Michigan is home to 3,288 miles of pristine fresh water coastline, being bordered by four of the five Great Lakes. Plus, it has tens of thousands of inland lakes to offer for classic, summer, water-related activities, such as swimming, paddle sports, rafting, floating/tubing, boating, water skiing, fishing and more.
Likewise, Michiganders (and tourists that visit here) love the beaches, particularly, for building sand castles. In fact, Michigan hosts annual summer contests for sand sculpturing and sand castle building. Two popular ones are Grand Haven’s Sand Sculpture Contest, in June, and Alpena’s Sand Castle Contest on the 4th of July.
Five popular Michigan beaches include Oval Beach (Saugatuck) and Silver Beach County Park (St. Joseph) – these two are on my bucket list, to see – as well as three I have been to several times, which are Holland State Park beach (Holland), Sleeping Bear Dunes (Empire), and Tawas Point State Park (East Tawas).
Mom and Dad loved the latter one, in East Tawas, the most. So much so that they kept their 5th-wheel camper there year-round and visited every weekend they could just to recuperate and rejuvenate, body and mind, from the stress of their work weeks.
ROCKHOUNDING
Michiganders (and tourists) also love the beaches for hunting special rocks and shells. Rock hunting is a very popular hobby. Such hunters are usually referred to as “rockhounds”. I’m one of those that just like to collect a rock (or several) from the places I visit. Crafters love to turn their finds into jewelry. Artists turn them into sculptures and 2-D pictures.
Highly sought rocks include Michigan’s state rock, the Petoskey fossil-stone, which is found mostly on the Lake Michigan beaches, along the northwest side of “The Mitt” (but some have made it onto Lake Huron’s coastline, too).
Agates are hunted along Lake Superior, in the U.P., along with “Yooperlites”, which can only be found at night, with a UV light. Puddingstones, which are quartz stones embedded with a red “ingredient”, are mostly hunted around Drummond Island and along the “Mitt’s” Lake Huron coastline.
LELAND BLUE STONES
The Leelanau Peninsula (aka: the “little finger”) is home to the Mission Point Lighthouse and Leland’s historic “Fishtown”, where rockhounds love to hunt for “Leland Blue”, the stone that’s not a stone. It’s a unique iron ore and limestone industrial glass slag byproduct of 19th century iron ore smelting.
They’re not really rocks but are equally sought, none the less, along the peninsula’s lakeshore because of their unique beauty in shades of aqua blue or green. I’ve driven through that area before but I didn’t know about these then so a return trip has been added to my bucket list.
Among the four seasons – winter, spring, summer, and fall (or autumn) – summer is the most beloved of them all due to the state’s fresh water resources: rivers, inland lakes, and surrounding Great Lakes. Although, fall is a close runner-up due to the state’s stunning, colorful foliage, as well as its many spectacular fall events.
By the way, Labor Day is almost around the corner – later this year than most times – and it’s become so much more than a federal holiday honoring the working people, who built this country and continue to drive its economy; as well as the labor movement – when workers fought for better pay, safer conditions, and a reasonable 8-hour workday.
It has become a full 4-day (Friday through Monday) weekend celebration for the unofficial end of summer. It’s most favorably observed with Labor Day parades, backyard barbecues, park picnics, beach time, or with “one-last”, family-fun, vacation getaway before the kids go back to school; although, some have already gone back, starting last week.
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Mixed Blessings – Recipes & Remedies (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; March 1984, p. 178)
GETTING TO SLEEP, WITH A FEW PLEASANT MEMORIES
FOR A LONG TIME now, I’ve had trouble sleeping at night. For one thing, my love snores like a Yamaha, going uphill in second gear and coming down again. It’s not his fault, mind you, over which he has any personal control. He simply breathes loudly when he’s deep in sleep.
I could, I found, sleep through a thunderstorm and not hear a crack all night, providing I once slipped into a cozy, peaceful mind and then drift off dreamily into a lovely landscape of the lazy fifth dimension of rest that my memory can call upon, whenever I choose to summon the scenes I’ve once found serene. It was getting there that gave me all the trouble!
I refused to take pills. Alcohol was dangerous. So I succumbed to reading peacefully worded excerpts from various writings and put my thoughts securely to bed first before I attempted to put my body to sleep. I tried to rest on those thoughts and images that gave my mind tranquility.
I would recall all of the pleasant places I had ever visited, to which I wished again to return. I would find again in my memory chambers, every corner of my world that made me feel relaxed and then relish in revisiting these mentally.
I would walk the beaches around Saginaw Bay. It would be late August again on the movie screen of my mind. The lake was lapping at the beach where I walked through the soft, summer warm sand. In August, the lake never rushed in to meet the shore.
It would wash in, and just as easily slip back again like sheets of silk, blue and gray with sprays of white foam writing each tumbling wave.
There was an instrumental rhythm, like crushing pieces of tissue paper in the music of the water as it caressed the sand and returned to itself like all of slippery shining satin and bolts of silk, pulled smoothly over a pillowed featherbed, on which the wooded bluffs rested.
These were those pathways of peaceful places where I had been before and wish to return without having to pay rent or make improvements on property I couldn’t afford! I could see the beaches lined with the birch trees and long needle pines. I listened and I heard in my memory’s echo chambers, the soothing swishing of the waves on the peaceful shoreline of the quiet Bay.
The water was winking impudently in the sunlight while the wind bulldozed the small dunes and, off in the distance, a lighthouse wore a halo of seagulls. I was there once again in my memory album of restful visits.
BEACH TIPS
Beach “Tip Of The Day”: Did you know that rubbing a little baby powder on sandy skin helps make the sand slide off easily? Try it! Additionally, here are some must-have items for a great day at the beach – depending on how long you plan to be there because most people like to spend the whole day, enjoying the sun, sand, and blue space.
Start with a large beach bag that’s easy to shake out and clean. Besides the baby powder, also pack the bag with sun screen and protective lip balm (SPF 30 or higher), a beach towel, wet-wipes, and a blanket or sheet from which it’s easy to shake the sand. Especially, don’t forget a small trash bag!
While the sun is beautiful, you know what they say about having too much of a good thing. Thus, it would be beneficial to wear a wide-brimmed hat, UV-blocking sunglasses, and easy slip-on sandals (or flip-flops or water shoes). It’s wise to take an umbrella for additional shade. Furthermore, don’t forget plenty of cold water in an insulated cooler.
Likewise, again depending on how long you’ll be there, pack some mess-free finger foods and hydrating items that handle the heat well like chicken/turkey wraps, carrot sticks, grapes, apples, bananas, or berries; together with pre-sliced cucumber, watermelon, or cantaloupe. Or just take some light, salty snacks such as trail mix, crackers, pretzels, or nuts.
LAST THOUGHTS…
On a side note – Zac Brown famously sang about a relaxing beach experience, for him, with which my husband and I resonate: “I’m surrounded by water and I’m not going back again… I got my toes in the water, [butt] in the sand – not a worry in the world, a cold [drink] in my hand. Life is good today. Life is good today.”
My husband and I have always loved saying, “life is good”. We particularly feel it every time we travel Michigan’s coastline and stop to walk the beaches and sand dune trails. Looking out at the beautiful “blue space”, where the water meets the sky, never gets old to us. It’s our happy place and our solace, as it was Mom’s and Dad’s (and Zac Brown’s and others’).
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at therecipedetective@outlook.com. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective. I look forward to hearing from you!
IN CLOSING…
In honor of TODAY, being National Peach Pie Day, here’s TWO of Mom’s secret recipes for “Peach Pie (Fresh)” and “Crisco No-Rolling Pin Pie Crust”; as seen in her self-published cookbook, Secret Knock-Off Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, Marysville, MI; Nov 1996, pp. 16 & 18). Per usual, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share them.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
The month of August observes… Get Ready For Kindergarten Month, Happiness Happens Month, International Peace Month, National Back to School Month, National Brownies at Brunch Month, National Catfish Month, National Crayon Collection Month, National Goat Cheese Month, National Golf Month, National Panini Month, National Sandwich Month, Romance Awareness Month, and more.
Today is also… National Maryland Day and National Waffle Day.
Tomorrow is… National Whiskey Sour Day, National Kiss and Make Up Day, and National Banana Split Day. Plus, as the start of the last seven days of August, it’s… Be Kind to Humankind Week (always the 25th to 31st).
Wednesday, August 26th, is… National Dog Day, National Women’s Equality Day, and National Cherry Popsicle Day.
Thursday, August 27th, is… National Pots De Creme Day and National Just Because Day.
Friday, August 28th, is… National Thoughtful Day, National Red Wine Day, and National Cherry Turnovers Day.
Saturday, August 29th, is… National Chop Suey Day and National Lemon Juice Day.
Sunday, August 30th, is… National Toasted Marshmallow Day and National Grief Awareness Day.
Have a great week!
…34 down and 18 to go.
