Another Piece of the Puzzle

"John Spilsbury, an engraver and mapmaker, is credited with inventing the first jigsaw puzzle in 1767"  Internet sources

Many times our family beach trip was just that.  It was my immediate family that took up residence there, my mother and father, my brother and sister and me.  But often, especially on long holiday weekends, the house hosted everybody on my mother's side of the family. This group included my grandmother, my great aunt, my aunts and uncles and their children who were my first cousins.There were about twenty people total in a three bedroom house. I remember that it was crowded, but never suffocating. Men and women, boys and girls all found a place to eat and to sleep.

My aunt did something one July 4th that became an  immediate tradition.  She dumped the pieces of a 500-1000 piece jigsaw puzzle on a card table in the den  With no instructions everybody knew to participate.  Over the next several days whenever you walked by the table you were expected to stop and find a few pieces. Slowly a picture began to emerge from the miscellaneous pieces. By the end of the weekend the puzzle was done.  The picture was complete.

During the hottest part of the day, the younger cousins had to come up from the beach and take a nap. This was mostly to get out of the midday sun and give the adults a break.  As we got older, we were allowed to do something that was nearly as fun as much playing on the beach. Within walking distance of the house was an adolescent's treasure trove.  It was a beach store called the Seahorse.  The Seahorse was part gift shop, part saloon for the adults and part arcade. It was the arcade part that interested me. There were only about five or six machines, but that was plenty for me.  I don't recall ever having to wait to play. The machines that interested me the  most were the pinball machines and the baseball machines. In case you missed them, the pinball machines had real metal balls producing flashing lights and went ringing and dinging their way around the board, propelled by flippers on the bottom and sides. The ball finally disappeared into the machine. With the press of a button, the machine  popped up the next ball that the user put in play with a spring loaded plunger. The ball zoomed up into a loft of delightful lights and noises. And then it fell back into the playing surface. The object was to keep the ball alive long enough with the rubber bumpers and flippers to rack enough points to win a free game. Years later in Las Vegas as I played the slots with my wife in the Paris casino, I didn't want to win money as much as wishing I could win  a free game. Similarly the baseball games at the Seahorse had real bats and balls. The outfield included ramps where the ball could be launched into the seats for a home run.  A grand slam was like a fireworks display. The deep "thunk" of the free games was particularly satisfying. The machines only cost a dime, but it was still exciting to arrive at the store and find free games already on the machines.  Some kid didn't run out of money, but ran out of time. I always had more time than money, so those free games worked out well for me. Between the games already there and the ones I won, I could easily  play for a couple of hours on less than fifty cents. Even in "today's dollars", that wasn't very much money to  have that much fun.  The Seahorse, playground for decades for youth and adults, fell to condominium development years ago. Under the definition of "highest and best use", I'm sure it was a good trade.  But it's hard for me to believe the current use is much better than what I experienced as an adolescent.

While working a jigsaw puzzle, it's the picture that drives the process.  Can you begin to imagine trying to work the puzzle upside down?  It's the same pieces in the same shapes, but no picture. So as I piece together my childhood for you, it's the picture that drives the story. Imagine with me the picture of a family, not a perfect family, but a beautiful family in a beautiful place sharing days, weeks and months together. I said I was at the beach house with my mother's family. What about my father's family? Where were they?   They were never intentionally excluded, but they were never intentionally included either. Thinking about it now, I'm quite sure the Helmses felt like welcomed guests and not quite like family. It's like protons and electrons. They depend on each other for their existence, but they never meet. I was there, not by virtue of being a Helms, but by virtue of being a Redmon. My father, who had no Redmon blood, was welcome because he had the good sense to marry a Redmon. My mother was a Redmon by birth to her mother and to her father who bought the beach house  from sisters in 1947. My grandfather bought the house, which sits just across Highway 98 from the dunes and the beach, for about $2,500.00

When the picture of my life is complete, the pieces from Laguna Beach, Florida will take up a large part of the puzzle. It will be a  large part not just based on time, but of significance.

Soon the entire Helms clan who are descendants of my father and his brother will be gathering at a beach house in Alabama on the Gulf of Mexico. I'll be there not because I'm a Redmon, but because I'm a Helms.. We've  been asked to bring some food and refreshments.  I think I'll also take a jigsaw puzzle. By the time the weekend is over, we should have another beautiful picture to add to the story of our lives.