Sharks teeth, fried perch, canasta, friends, family and Carl's Ice Cream

Most of us have great childhood memories, whether it be time spent at Grandma's, wonderful family vacations, or simply a childhood summer spent with friends building forts, swimming, biking, playing.

I admit I had a great childhood despite being bullied for years – bullying in the 1960s wasn't what it is today and I'm grateful I made it through those years unscathed. My best memories, however, were the yearly vacations to "the river" in King George County, Virginia – a few miles outside of Fredericksburg.

The cabin was much more comfortable after our hosts, Dee and Pop Linton, added a large 2nd bedroom and a bathroom onto the cabin. No more did we have to trudge to the outhouse at the edge of the cornfield – braving God knows what ... mice, snakes or spiders. Instead, we put up with rather large, black water beetles.

My sister, Pris and I got to use the new bedroom, which had a twin, as well as a full size bed in it. We'd lay awake at night listening to those big old bugs hit the metal floor of the shower stall. Still, they were preferable to the alternative in the outhouse.

My favorite past-time at the river was to walk the shore as far as I could go, which was usually to Fairview Beach several miles down and collect sharks teeth at the river's edge. I never questioned why I could collect sharks teeth at a river or whether or not they existed out in the channel in which I swam regularly. I simply LOVED collecting them.

I was good at it too. I could spot the tiniest tooth and even managed a plenty of large ones as well. By the time I was grown and no longer going to the cabin, I'd amassed a collection of over 1,000 teeth. Much to my great delight, when I took Pris back to Virginia 10 years ago, we visited our friends who now live on the property on which the cabin sat and we went down to the beach and looked for shark's teeth and I found one right away.

Bingo!

Imagine my shock a few years ago when I read that a man had caught an 8 foot bull shark in the Potomac River. I'm ever so glad we never saw any while spending all those years swimming way out into the river.

Imagine a time when one could walk the beach at the tender age of 10 or 12 or 14 alone, and not be worried about being attacked! That's how life was at the river. Sometimes Dad walked with me, but most of the time I was by myself – feet at the edge of the warm water, picking up sharks teeth, enjoying the sun, the light breeze on my skin, the absolute freedom of simply being.

One in awhile I discovered a few unpleasant things such as the time I stumbled across a sack full of dead kittens. Yes, someone had drowned a batch of kittens in the river somewhere. Unfortunately, they weren't the only dead critters I saw - sometimes it was puppies. Rotten people ...

Occasionally my mother would spy a piece of a dish or pottery and carry it home along with her precious pieces of driftwood. As a child, I never knew of the sinking of the steamboat Wawaset on Aug. 8, 1873, very close to where our pier was – some of those pieces my mother picked up may very well have been remnants of the sunken boat.

In fact, the spot where the Wawaset caught fire and sunk was known as Chatterton's Landing (remember the beautiful manner house Chatterton?). Over 80 passengers and crew perished in that sinking. All the years we had fished in and around that area, swam, played and walked – we had no idea of the disaster.

The remains of the boat were recently discovered by divers about 250 yards off shore in the area of Chatterton's Landing, located very close to where the old Chatterton farmhouse, known as Little Chatterton, had sat.

I have no idea if anyone has any other photos of this old, spooky boat, which was tied up down near Chatterton's Landing. The large piece in the foreground was a thick cable that was attached to the boat and to some sort of anchor on land, in addition to cables out in the water.

There was a very old spooky boat that was moored out in front of Little Chatterton that we were told had broken loose from Aquia Creek, further down the Potomac – a place where "old boats go to die." Someone, somewhere had decided to simply moor the old boat near Chatterton's Landing and let it rot.

It was eerie there. Pris and I would walk the beach at low tide, sometimes having to walk out into the water, around rocks and jetty's to get to the beach in front of the boat. Why we did it, I'll never know, except there's nothing like the thrill of a little spookiness to make your day.

The farmhouse was abandoned by then, it's windows darkened like sinister eyes, peering at us as the house sat just off the beach in a little copse of trees that shadowed it.

 We'd heard of several boating accidents near the moored boat, when boaters had no idea of the underwater wires, gotten too close to the old boat and flipped their boat over.  People had died there and unbeknownst to us, it was where over 80 people perished in the Wawaset sinking nearly 100 years before.

There wasn't much left of the old boat – the sides mostly, which were wooden and it had trees growing right up and out of it.

It sure was one of those places where you felt uneasy, uncomfortable, and the temperature always seemed about 20 degrees cooler than anywhere else. I'm sure by now the shoreline has changed some and that old boat exists no longer. Now there are million dollar homes scattered along the places I walked – where there was nothing but trees, bamboo forests and quiet.

Nights at the river were as pleasant as daytime. There were no TVs, no Internet in that day, and no telephones! I don't even remember if we had a radio. What we had was each other – the four of us, Mom, Dad, Pris and myself (my brother was married with a child and earning a living by then).

We laughed, we talked, we reminisced. We read tons of books and we ate well. Food at the river was always plentiful – fresh Jersey tomatoes, corn on the cob, fried chicken, fried perch that we'd caught ourselves, and we'd be treated to as much pop as we wanted – namely, Orange Nehi and Dr. Pepper – two things we couldn't get in New Jersey at the time.

That was in the day that no one worried about cholesterol, heart disease or even cancer. You simply lived life to the fullest and enjoyed it – from food to recreation.

Many a night Pris, Mom and I sat at the table and played canasta – watching the river traffic, listening to the night sounds. I'm sure our voices could be heard out on the water – we spent most of the time laughing instead of playing cards, Dad off in a corner reading and humming. Anyone who remembers my Dad, knows he was a hummer – a comforting, pleasant sound associated completely with my beloved Dad. I miss his humming.

Some nights we headed out in the car for an ice cream – another one of our traditions, which we enjoyed on more than one night while in Virginia. If you are from the Fredericksburg area, then you've most likely had Carl's Ice Cream, which is actually custard.

Carl's Ice Cream looks the same today as it did 50 years ago when we enjoyed regular visits during our vacations in Virginia. If you get a chance to go there – try a half pint (or larger!) of the chocolate custard. Oh yummy!

Carl's has been around forever and still makes his custard from the same old machine as years ago. I've never had anything remotely as delicious as a half pint cup of Carl's chocolate custard.

When Pris and I returned to Fredericksburg in 2003, we found – to our great delight – that Carl's was still open and we had a cup of custard every day for lunch. Sinfully delicious. We both crossed Carl's off our bucket list.

There can never be a time when life is as good and trouble-free as those summers of my youth. I had no worries, I slept well, and I had the best parents, brother and sister in the world.