A Hoosier holiday

by Theodore Dreiser

Franklin, however, reached in his pocket and gave him fifteen cents.

“Why fifteen cents, Franklin?” I enquired.

“Oh, well,” he replied, “it’s an easy way to get rid of them. I don’t like the looks of this place.”

I turned to look at the recipient back among his friends. His mouth was pulled down at one corner as he related, with a leer of contempt, how easy it was to bleed these suckers. He even smiled at me as much as to say, “You mark!” I leered back with the greatest contempt I could assemble on such short notice—a great deal—but it did not cheer me any. He had the fifteen cents. He was of the same order of brain that today can be hired to kill a man for fifty dollars, or will undertake to rob or burn a house.

And after Ashtabula, which was as charming as any of these little cities to look at, with wide shady streets of homes and children playing gaily on lawns and in open lots everywhere, came Geneva-on-the-Lake, or Geneva Beach, as it seemed to be called—one of those new-sprung summer resorts of the middle west, which always amuse me by their endless gaucheries and the things they have not and never seem to miss. One thing they do have is the charm of newness and hope and possibility, which excels almost anything of the kind you can find elsewhere.

America can be the rawest, most awkward and inept land at times. You look at some of its scenes and people on occasions, and you wonder why the calves don’t eat them. They are so verdant. And yet right in the midst of a thought like this you will be touched by a sense of youth and beauty and freedom and strength and happiness in a vigorous, garish way which will disarm you completely and make you want to become a part of it all, for a time anyhow.

Here lay this particular beach, high up above the lake, for all along this northern portion of Ohio the land comes close to the water, retaining an altitude of sixty or seventy feet and then suddenly dropping, giving room for a sandy beach say sixty or seventy feet wide, where a few tents may sometimes be found. And on this higher land, facing the water, are strung out all the cottages and small hotels or summer boarding places, with occasionally some stores and merry-go-rounds and restaurants, though not as a rule the gaudy rumble-jumble of a beach like Coney Island.

And the costumes! Heaven bless and preserve us! The patrons of this beach, as I learned by inquiry, come mostly from Pittsburg and points south in Ohio—Columbus, Dayton, Youngstown. They bring their rattan bags and small trunks stuffed to bursting with all the contraptions of assumed high life, and here for a period of anywhere from two days to three months, according to their means, associations, social position, they may be seen disporting themselves in the most colorful and bizarre ways. There was a gay welter of yellow coats with sky-blue, or white, or black-and-white skirts—and of blue, green, red or brown coats, mostly knit of silk or near-silk—with dresses or skirts of as sharply contrasting shades. Hats were a minus quantity, and ribbons for the hair ranged all the way from thin blue or red threads to great flaring bands of ribbon done into enormous bows and fastened over one ear or the other. Green, blue, red and white striped stick candy is nothing by comparison.

There were youths in tan, blue and white suits, but mostly white with sailor shirts open at the neck, white tennis shoes and little round white navy caps, which gave the majority of them a jocular, inconsequential air.

And the lawns of these places! In England, and most other countries abroad, I noticed the inhabitants seek a kind of privacy even in their summer gaieties—an air of reserve and exclusiveness even at Monte Carlo—but here!! The lawns, doors and windows of the cottages and boarding houses were open to the eyes of all the world. There were no fences. Croquet, tennis, basketball were being played at intervals by the most vivid groups. There were swings, hammocks, rockers and camp chairs scattered about on lawns and porches. All the immediate vicinity seemed to be a-summering, and it wanted everyone to know it.