Chalker Beach, Saybrook, Connecticut

During the last August weeks of 1954  I was a four-year old beach bum, happily hunting seashells on the shores of Chalker Beach in Saybrook, Connecticut where my mother, aunt, sister and cousins rented a shorefront cottage paid for by our working dads who stayed home on their jobs.     

That on the night of August 30, 1954 my dad was working as chief audio engineer for NBC's Today Show in NYC, and my uncle was a New Britain firefighter,  proved  to be a blessing.

That night when Hurricane Carol pummeled the shore where I had scampered hours before, I recall being tucked away in bed up in the cottage loft, frightened by the sound of waves pounding over the sands onto our front porch.  I'm surmising we didn't have a radio, and in those pre-satellite days of non-instantaneous communication and storm tracking, we two families on our vacation had no idea Carol was banging on our door.  A storm? Yes. A reason to evacuate? No. Telephones in the cottage? No. 

During the fury of that night, my dad, faithfully on the job at NBC, learned through news coming over the wires that  the track and acceleration of the hurricane had us imminently in her sights.  Dad called my firefighter uncle to the rescue.

Showing up as unexpectedly as the hurricane itself, my uncle came in the night to do what he does best:  save people.  My memories are few, but vivid as old black and whites in an album. I rushed down the wooden pull-down stairs from the sleeping loft, clutching something -- maybe a blanket.  We piled into the old black car.  My uncle tells how my mom's car wouldn't start until finally he pushed it and off we sailed.  As though it were yesterday, I can see black roads and forceful rains glistening in the white headlights of gridlocked cars  as we cousins huddled together excitedly.  I felt more safe and amazed than fearful.     

My next recollection is my uncle leaving us alone in the car to join other men who had to clear a massive tree fallen across the road.  Then I felt more fearful than amazed or safe.   

End of my memories, but for one.  Some days later we returned in bright sunlight to that old comfy cottage.  Lifted off her foundation, she now sat across the road in an about-face.  My uncle chuckles whenever he finishes the story, reminding us that all in the cottage was demolished but for a bowl of nuts that sat unscathed on the kitchen table.     

So, that our dads had sacrificially stayed on their jobs  was a very good thing for us all.        

Millie Madrick