Entrance to the Pier

When I was a child, our Maine summers centered on York. We knew its beaches and the familiar rhythm of spending time there. A trip to Old Orchard Beach took us away from that routine for a day. We did not go often, which made the pier a place I remembered long after the summer ended.

Under the covered walkway, there was more to do than simply look at the ocean. We played games, chose food, and stopped to have caricatures drawn. I remember the fun of sitting for a drawing and then seeing what the artist had made of us. The caricature was something to carry home from the outing, a reminder that we had gone somewhere different. The food and games belonged to the same experience. We came to wander, make a few choices, and enjoy whatever caught our attention along the way.

Old Orchard Beach drew summer crowds on a scale that felt different from the time we spent in York. The pier brought much of that activity together in one place. From the beach, we could enter the walkway and find games and food with the water just beyond. For a child, one visit was enough to make an impression. I did not need to come every summer to remember it.

Returning years later with Marty, I stopped beneath the “Welcome to the Pier” arch. Above it, a sign read “Since 1898,” and a banner marked the pier’s 125th anniversary. The first pier opened in 1898, but storms have damaged it repeatedly, and the pier standing here today opened in 1980. I knew the structure had changed since those childhood visits. What brought the memory back was arriving at the entrance and knowing the pleasures that waited along the walkway.

I could still picture us stopping for caricatures, finding a game to play, and deciding what to eat. Those were small parts of a day, yet they are what stayed with me. Standing there with Marty, I was grateful that our occasional trip from York had left me with such a lasting memory, and that I had the chance to return and add another visit to it.