It is the most perfect morning. I would call this a Nantucket morning, cool and clear and brilliant- just missing the water ( in my backyard anyway). This is the weather that generations ago, everyone went north for, to Nantucket and Maine, to escape the humidity and heat of DC and the South. From DC and Baltimore they went to Campobello Island (FDR) and the breezes of Nantucket. Farther south they left the rice plantations of the SC and Georgia coasts and went to the mountains, the Smoky Mountains and the Appalachian coolness. The magnificent estates like Biltmore and Greenbrier were all built by a generation with no air conditioning. I wonder if the summer economies have slowly dwindle in these retreats as a younger generation with cold blasting in their homes all summer looked for other pleasures, not simply to escape heat. I have never gone to Nantucket because I wanted warmer ocean waters to play in. I went to Nag's Head. But I have friends, who grew up going to the northern beaches because they did as children. These friends had wealthier parents than mine. It is just interesting that they (or we) continue the pattern set as children and take our kids to the same summer places. Nobody swims in Maine or Nantucket, the water is freezing but you do eat great lobsters. Swimming off NC is one of the best memories I have and I can close my eyes sitting in my backyard and relax for a bit replaying those walks on the beach. So, today, this is a morning for my Nantucket friends to relax, have a cup of coffee and smell that salt air with a preppy sweater thrown around your shoulders as you sit and enjoy New England memories.
this post is beautifully written. really cool description.
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