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scores of Ukrainian families and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church. Every Sunday, grocery store owners from the 24th Street neighborhood would settle them selves appropriately under different pilings of the pier. The boards on the pier provided about a forty foot wide strip of shade all the way to the water. Access to the pier itself was open only to local fishing club members. Ukrainian seashore lovers were divided into three groups: the walkers, the talkers and the watchers. Only the watchers resembled Americans. They lay or sat on the beach, shading their faces with hats or umbrellas, and watched the talkers and the walkers. The talkers generally stood around, often changing position from foot to foot, sometimes kicking the sand. They formed circles of at least three and sometimes as many as {ive or six. Hand shaking introductions were observed as usual. But what amazed Americans who had wandered into this Ukrainian enclave was the kissing of ladies’ hands as they stood in their bathing suits. The chief topic of the talkers was jokes. A hearty laugh from the group indicated that the joke was excellent, attracting watchers who would move closer to the group in order to listen to the next joke. The second most popular topic was Ukrainian politics. The walkers, in the meantime, would fall into ranks of three or four, sometimes in more than one file, and proceed at a ’’spazier” pace from the pier to the Dia mond Beach resort complex at the end of the Wildwood beach. There, they would stop, turn briefly into talkers, and after resting, in rank formation as before, walk back to the bridge. For the watchers, the sight of the depart ing or returning walkers prevented boredom and allowed for interesting comments and speculation about who was with whom at the beach that day and why. When a large modern hotel called the Pan American was built at the edge of the beach and Crocus Street, life at Ukie beach changed. Due to the proximity of the Pan American’s swimming pool, "the youth” began to gather on the hot dry sand far from the water’s edge. For them, the pier action was now passe and the action was now in front of the Pan-Am. And it was here that ’’the flower of Ukraine” practiced the rites of youth — rock and roll blasting from radios, coca-cola cans full of ’’mystery juice”, never ending volleyball games, and boy and girl watching. The sand castles at the water’s edge were left behind for the next group of little ones. ’’Youth's parents, a safe distance away on the cool wet stand, relaxed and turned from watching kids to watching the walkers and the talkers. The size of the youth group var ied like the tide coming in and going out again. High tide would be reached in the last week of August when all Plast and other camps had ended. Low tide came on Friday just before Labor Day, for at that time, the great youth pilgrimage to the shrine of youth’s rite of passage at Soyuzivka began. With the youth gone North, the sea and American vacationers had Wildwood Crest beach to themselves again. So it was at the Wildwood Crest shore. The summers as the tide rolled in and out, one after another, the sand castles at water’s edge rebuilt by each new group of children. The fines for losing your kid at the beach increased along with the price of Mack’s pizza on the boardwalk, but so did our wealth in America. Fewer veal cutlets were brought to the beach as Ukrainians became accustomed to steak and lobster. New hotels took over the sand dunes and more and more Ukrainian grand parents went down to Florida for the real palms in lieu of plastic ones. The youth groups of the sixties, seven ties and eighties sun themselves in Mexico or the Carri- bean more often than at Wildwood Crest. And then there is Ukraine, receiving the summer homage of its uprooted sons and daughters. Yet as the sun sets over the bay across from the beach, memories evoke sounds and scenes that emerge with the movement of the tide —children’s laughter, the talkers’ emphatic opinions, the watchers eavesdropping on a funny joke while the walkers’ “spaziergang” leaves Ukrainian footprints on a New Jersey beach for all time. COOKY’S CORNER SUMMER SOUP Cold Cucumber Soup (6 servings) 1 tablespoon butter 1 small onion 1 large cucumber 1 quart chicken broth 3 tablespoons fresh dill 1/2 envelope unflavored gelatin 1/4 cup cold water 1 cup sour cream Salt White pepper 1. Chop onion. Peel, seed, and slice cucumber. Boil chicken broth. 2. In small saucepan, melt butter and cook chopped onion until soft. Do not brown. 3. Add cucumber and cook 1 minute, stirring. Add dill. 4. Add onion and cucumber mixture to chicken broth and simmer 10-15 minutes until cucumber is very tender. 5. Soften gelatin in cold water and add to soup. 6. Remove soup from heat and add sour cream. 7. Add salt and pepper to taste. 8. Puree soup in blender, strain and chill for three hours. 9. Garnish with cucumber slices and dill. 24 ’’НАШЕ Ж ИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 1995 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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