Beach Week
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History July 20 - 26.
Nothing beats a week at the beach.
Growing up in the middle of Ohio, I didn’t have the opportunity to go to a beach. I don’t think it was a matter of distance for my family, but more of economics and preferences. But it wasn’t the case for others. For whatever reason, if you lived in Columbus, you traveled to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, if you craved the Atlantic Ocean. At least, that is what I remembered about the families who did a beach week. My family made trips to Tennessee to spend time in the mountains, visit relatives we never spoke to during the year, and tube down the Little River.
It wasn’t until I made it to Washington, DC, that I made the beach an annual trip. Thanks to the generosity of my DC Family, I’ve been coming to the shores of the state of Delaware for the past twenty years.1
You learn a lot about yourself when you go to the beach, especially when you are an adult. You learn what it is like to get sunburned – I burned my feet on my inaugural trip – something I have been reminded not to repeat each year since. You learn how to enter the water – my first wade into the ocean I went in backward for some reason; now I look for waves to swim under and over. You learn that you didn’t have any time to learn anything about the beach growing up, and now you are embarrassing yourself in front of others. But you quickly get over it – because you are spending a week at the beach.
Despite those harsh life lessons of properly protecting your skin and walking into the water like a normal person, the beach is about recharging, reconnecting with family, and enjoying the time away.
It was great to get away, especially this year where work has been incredibly busy – in a good way. But with my mind now on fun work2 I took in some history staring right in front of me
One thing I noticed this year was that the beach town, Bethany Beach, Delaware, was founded in 1901. Perhaps the municipality already held its anniversary celebration, or maybe it’s later, and it got overshadowed by the noise of the 250th of America, but there wasn’t much promotion for the 125th anniversary. But Happy Birthday, Bethany Beach!
Bethany Beach has a unique history: it was founded by a Christian denomination seeking a seaside community where it could hold retreats and other events. The Disciples of Christ Church formed a company to investigate where along the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia coastline they could plant their flag and make it their own. So they found some land in Delaware, near a town called Ocean View, bought a bunch of plots, and began forming a community.
They held a national contest for the name, and the winner, a guy named H.L. Atkinson, would win a beachfront property to call his own.3
Over the next century, Bethany Beach has been the summer destination for families from Baltimore, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and as far away as Pittsburgh, increasing the population from just under 1,000 to over 15,000 for about four months a year.
Families of Central Ohio have yet to discover this oasis.
Okay, let’s get to what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events mark anniversaries ending in 5 or 0.
1. Viking 1 landed on Mars on July 20, 1976. NASA’s Viking Program had two spacecraft, 1 & 2, and both were launched in 1975. Viking 1 landed without issue and became the first spacecraft to land on another planet successfully. It would spend about six years roaming around looking at stuff before it ran out of gas, presumably because it was bored out of its mind since nothing is there. The run lasted until 2010, when the Opportunity Rover (which landed in 2004) spent even more time looking and collecting Martian stuff.
Driving to Bethany takes forever because it’s not a straight shot, but getting to Mars takes even longer because basically you have to do the same thing.
2. The First Battle of Bull Run is fought on July 21, 1861. The small town of Manassas sits about 30 miles southwest of Washington, DC. After a few months into the Civil War, the United States decided it was going to march straight into the Confederate capital of Richmond and put this little war to bed. Instead, as it crossed the Bull Run, a tributary of the Occoquan River, the Army of the Northeastern Virginia got bogged down, allowing the Army of the Potomac, then the name of the major Confederate Army, to reinforce itself and kick their tails back to Maryland. It’s funny how the names of these armies flipped almost immediately after this battle, which gets its name mixed up depending on who you are speaking to. (Is it Bull Run? Or the Battle of Manassas?) The Second Battle of Bull Run would take place a year later and be another Confederate victory. The US then smartly decided to stop fighting battles at Bull Run.
When you are traveling south on I95, perhaps on the way to Myrtle Beach, there is usually a massive traffic backup when you come up the Occoquan River, but it pales in comparison when you are returning from Bethany back to DC and have to cross the Bay Bridge. It’s the only trip that you go on where you are stuck for two and a half hours until you reach home, for what feels like way more than two and a half hours.
3. Apollo 15 launched on July 26, 1971. NASA launched the Apollo program in 1960, when the Race to the Moon was underway against the Soviet Union. This mission was the 15th one – and really, does anyone remember anything about it?4 Apparently, this lunar landing included some time for a space walk to pick up a cassette tape.
One of the things I pick up on these trips is baseball hats. Here are the Bethany ones I snagged for Anonymous and Me:
I think I may have mentioned this before, but if not, here it is again. I never vacationed much until I met Anonymous. It was just “Beach Week” and not much else. It’s funny how the mind convinces you that you are too important ever to leave work, only to eventually find out that anyone fortunate to have you work for them doesn’t care about you when push comes to shove.5
So take vacation. I really wish I had one regularly outside of Beach Week, and it took me forever to find a healthy approach to Beach Week that helped me stay present, rather than letting my mind set a ticking countdown that made the week more anxiety-filled than fun.6
Yes, I’m weird.
But I’m also grateful. When putting this MMN edition together, I realized that twenty years at the beach means the early 2000s are such a distant memory for me. I knew I lived through them, but it’s almost a forgotten decade in a sense. I had a lot of tough jobs, and your early to mid-twenties can be a time of learning about yourself – mistakes made, mistakes avoided. That sort of thing. I wonder if in about 25 years I’ll look back on the 2020s and wish I had done more interesting and fulfilling things. Fortunately, I feel like I’m doing okay in this regard.
Anyway, thanks for reading my TED Talk.
Anonymous is gone this week, and we have not one, but TWO softball games. So it’s Blue and me getting back into the swing of things literally and figuratively. I appreciate the support and hope to see you later in the week. Make it a good one!
Especially if it’s a vacation!
Okay,
Chris
I had a few years when I missed the trip. One year due to a work sabbatical. Another year when my dad passed away as I was on my way to the beach, and last year due to a few family health issues that came up last minute.
Okay History Work!
Get this guy some Boardwalk Fries!
This is really the point of OKH - to tell you.
Next time we are hanging out, ask me about the first vacation out of the country I took with Anonymous – it was pretty enlightening about how different our approaches were when it came to taking breaks.
The Happy Traveler was a life-changing book for me.