A scorchah in the summah

As a NH native, I am allowed creative license to randomly delete R's from the ends of certain words. I distinctly remember hearing folks up in NH use the word "scorchah" in reference to a really hot day, as in "it's gonna be a scorchah today!". I haven't lived in NH for almost twenty years, but I can still slip back into the lingo after being there for a few hours. My big sister has quite a strong accent and I love to get her going on a topic so I can listen to what comes out of her mouth. She has a knack of giving a word with one syllable, like floor, a second syllable, so it sounds like "flo-wah". As a kid, I never picked up on these nuances of NH dialect, but now that I live in NY I notice every missed R and extra syllable. And I love it.

I grew up on the seacoast and my childhood summer days were often spent at the beach, with my Mom and two sisters. My Mom would be basking on her beach towel, wearing a skimpy crochet bikini, her body slathered in Bain de Soleil orange gelee. My oldest sister, Joyce would usually be baking her skin on a neighboring towel, humming whatever 70's tune was blaring from our transistor radio. (Remember those pre-Ipod contraptions? To this day when I hear the song that has the line, "I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life", I swear I can smell salt air and hear a sea gull call.) Pam, my middle sister, wasn't one to lie still for too long so she was generally off exploring, or splashing in the waves by herself. And me? Well, I am ashamed to say it, but I was a giant pain in the ass at the beach. I hovered under an umbrella, whining continually about the heat, sand and sunshine. What an ingrate, right? I mean, how lucky was I to be growing up on the coast, minutes from this vacation oasis. Every summer tons of people came from all parts of the U.S and Canada to spend a few days on Hampton Beach. My Mom was a saint to put up with my incessant complaining during those long, steamy summer days. If I were her, I would have thrown me in the sea and let the tide take my whining ass to the Gulf of Mexico. I did eventually grow out of my hatred for the beach. In fact, now I adore going to the beach and I will lie on the sand for hours. I'm still not much of a swimmer, though I will bob around in the waves, until something icky touches me underwater, then I have been known to shriek and scamper out the water, with all of the grace of a lumbering sea lion. Despite the fact that at the time I didn't enjoy my beachtime as a kid, I love to look back on those memories and sometimes I'll make some cucumber sandwiches, put on some 70's tunes and be transported back in time to Hampton Beach, circa 1975.