Cape May Diaries
35- Rainy days in Cape May
Every rainy day song I could think of ran through my head the Saturday before Columbus Day when every roof top in Cape May dripped with the remnants of hurricane that had struck farther south.
A Beatles tune banged around inside my head for a while telling me to go run and hide, hardly anything to cheer a rainy day blues. James Taylor brought a little more cheer as I hummed Rainy Day Man. But when in need to I turned to the old classics, and for a time I tried to cheer myself with Gene Kelly’s Singin in the Rain.
But after a while even that tune could not make up for how miserable and wet I felt or kept me from wondering if I had brought enough clothing to keep from becoming perpetually damp for our whole trip.
Forecasters had warned us of inclement weather. But with reservations made so many months in advance, we would have needed a fortune teller to advise us on which week to pick for our trip.
A few drops had dotted the car windshield during our drive down the Garden State Parkway Thursday night – so we had fair warning that wet might embrace us at some point during our stroll along the Cape May promenade or the more historic streets near Washington Street Mall.
As a kid, I embraced rain with enthusiasm. With nothing better to do, I often sat at the second floor window of our Victorian house and watched the drops pounding at the back porch roof. Bubbles frequently formed at the drain from the upper floors then raced along towards the next drain. For me, it was a kind of race to watch which bubble made the journey without bursting.
For us, however, with so much to do during our week, Rain was an unwelcome companion as we watched our plans burst unrealized under the more or less steady downpour.
All this sounded petty even in my depressed state considering the events that had transpired in places like New Orleans where unwelcome guests by the name of Katrina and Rita had not merely ruined a day or a week, but many people’s lives, and many people had a lot more to worry over than walking around in moist clothing.
Cape May, of course, was no stranger to disaster. Like many regular tourists I had seen the photographs after the March 1962 storm had ripped up more than a dozen blocks of boardwalk, leaving the city ruined and the livelihood of many in shambles.
During our stroll along the beach, an odd mood came over me as if I was walking through time as well as space, watching the gray sea froth as it ripped away chunks of sand before our feet. Gaps appeared along the shore line recalling that unfortunate day a few years ago when Governor Jim McGreevey strolled these beaches and fell into one, breaking a leg. He was still recovering from the fall when I interviewed him.
We did not fall, but skirted the worst depressions, suffering only the indignity of sudden wave surges – foam flowing around our legs, wrapping us in a cold, salty grip of water and sand as rain assaulted us from above.
Cape May, I realized, had struggled through many disasters – refusing to die. When whaling failed and the sea reclaimed Town Bank, the residents picked up their homes and moved slightly north, starting over again. When the great blaze of 1878 ruined many of the historically great hotels, Cape May picked itself up again and started over. Each disaster killing an old way of life making way for a new Cape May, one that was stronger and starkly different from the one that preceded it. Even the 1962 storm had started a new Cape May, the one through which we strolled now.
With time suspended by gray mists around us, I wondered what the world must have looked like to the residents of Cape May after the disaster in 1962, and whether they felt as helpless as the people in New Orleans did today? Had they fortune tellers to let them look passed the carnage to what Cape May would eventually become? Could the people in New Orleans do as much now, peering through mists towards an uncertain future?
I stood on shore staring out into the gray rising mass of the sea, watching the white caps as the battered stone jetties not far from our motel. Each wave seemed determine to reach us, though most fell short in a hissing, swirling mass of foam into which the gulls dove and gathered food.
We didn’t remain long – although it seemed like forever that I stood there, pondering fate the way ancient sailors must have. Finally, shivering and with virtually useless umbrellas, we turned back towards our motel to seek a rainless space and dry clothing. Walking along, the wet seemed less of a burden to me – even with the prospect that it might continue another week. Unlike those who had survived each of Cape May’s many disasters, or those who struggled to rebuild in the modern day yet seemingly just as distant New Orleans, we merely had to worry about dry clothing – and knew that in the end the rain was just rain and we eventually would dry off unscathed.
As it was, we had picked the right week since the rain paused for a few days allowing us to continue our wandering, paying visits on those places we have since come to consider old friends. We even made the drive north to our home again before the down pour started again, snug under our own roof, secure with closets full of dry clothing, and knowing we did not have to rebuild our lives.