Block Island - 1959

Block Island lies due south of Rhode Island and east of Long Island, almost equidistant from both. We rented a house in the middle of nowhere; the beach wasn't close, the town wasn't close, the fishing wasn't close, but it was a small island, maybe 6 miles long by 3 miles wide, so you could get anywhere on a bike. I clearly remember the ferry ride over from Point Judith. It was windy, with choppy seas. John and I sat outside right up in the bow of the ferry, sang sea shanties and purposely got soaked by the spray. It was great fun.

As usual, we had a full house. In addition to my parents, grandmother, Olwyn and John, my Uncle Frannie and Aunt Lalee stayed for 2 weeks, and my two married brothers and their families each stayed a week. Rob, still single, visited as well.

The best beach was Scotch Beach; it had good waves for body surfing and decent surf fishing too. We always took our fishing poles to the beach and caught plenty of pollock and scup. If you wanted to catch flounder, you had to either rent a rowboat and bottom fish in the new harbor area of Great Salt Pond or drive around to the other side of the harbor and fish the channel entrance from shore. We would catch lots of flounder from a rowboat but they were on the small side. I much preferred catching fewer but larger fish in the channel.

There were 2 lighthouses on Block Island, we lived not far from North Light. It was a good beach-combing area. The more famous light was Southeast Light, standing above the Mohegan Bluffs. This lighthouse has since been moved inland a bit due to cliff erosion.

There was one town on the island, New Shoreham. It wasn't much of a town, just a few shops and some run down hotels. There were some formerly grand hotels dating back to Block Island's better days, now sagging in the middle and boarded up, located on the east side of the island north of town. My opinion, as a twelve-year-old, of Block Island was that it was a pretty boring place. I'm glad we spent only one summer there. Thank God for the body surfing and fishing.