Issue link: http://summerguide.uberflip.com/i/1522391
www.summerguidecapecod.com 145 "Callmewhenyouareoverthebridge"...ashortstory fromalocal By Patricia Kent-Friedman The sigh of relief after hours of delays, and worse, the vacillation between excitement and frustration over the traffic, let alone impatient children, and the constant requests for food, drink, and restroom stops. My father did not believe in stopping for anything, he only believed in loading up on beer at the A framed liquor store at the Bourne Rotary. He would always make sure to grab my siblings and me with little barrels of juice and sugar, and we were happy with that. Route 25 had not been built yet, and Route 28 was more of a parking lot most of the time. Sadly, there were no drive-thrus yet, so we were trapped in this metal box, luckily, we had "Sandy's" restaurant, a haven of ours right over the bridge. In my day, things were very different. We did not have a roof rack on our car, so with seven of us packed tightly in we could only bring so much with us. Just one grocery bag full of clothes and our favorite toy for each of us. We lived in bathing suits and flip-flops, so we didn't care much, but we always had to make room for one outfit for the church at the very least, even if we wore that same outfit every…single…week. We arrived at Cape the day after school got out, and excitedly escaped to "Peters Pond Park", to many they would only see a pond, but we saw it as our "Disney Land". We did not have running water at the pond. If we wanted to go to the bathroom or even wash ourselves, apart from using the pond, it was a hike to find and use the restroom. Nothing was more upsetting than seeing the dreaded sign on the bathroom door, "Out of Order". Our days were filled with fun, friends, boating, and much more…our favorite toy was a giant tractor-trailer truck tire, it was large enough that 10 of us could play on it. We lived on the beach, played for hours in the woods, built forts, and even went shell fishing and boating. Apart from the beach, we lived in a trailer at the pond and a tent we brought from home. I thought we were rich, and that was all that mattered. During the week our parents still had to work, and they commuted back and forth. While they were gone, we watched over each other. Neighbors and friends were always around, so even though my parents worked a lot we were never alone. I look back now at one of my favorite memories of my father, cracking open a beer after a stop at the A framed liquor store, smoking a cigar, the ball game blaring, and goofing around with my siblings as we sat in traffic. Those 3 rows of bench seats in our station wagon were everything to us because in the back we could look at all the cars behind us and make funny faces at them to keep us entertained. Looking back, it