Since I had the summer off, I decided to start a one-man Summer Camp for Malachy.  He dubbed me “Camp Dad,” and he dubbed himself, “Camp Son.”  Instead of spending over a grand and putting him in a summer program, I thought to myself, “Wait, I CAN DO THIS!”  We would have more flexibility in schedule.  We could go on a Family trip and do other fun things together.  Malachy LOVED the idea.

His first request was to have a campfire and roasted marshmallows.  I don’t know what possessed me to promise him one.  As July drew near, he got more and more excited about the idea of a campfire and marshmallows.   I started to fret, and thought to myself, “How are we going to do this in the City?”  A few days before our Camp was supposed to take off, I actually did a Google Search for Campfire in Manhattan, Camfire in NYC.  Guess what?  I found one!  I found something that said, “Beach Campfire!”  It was going to happen on July 2 at Jacob Riis Park, from 7:30pm-9:30pm.  I asked Shien and she said, “Sure!”  Still, I thought, maybe it was going to be a big fire, and we wouldn’t be able to toast marshmallows.  We kept telling Malachy that if it didn’t happen at the beach, we  would toast it at home by candlelight.

At the Beach with PoPo

I called a couple of days in advance just to make sure it was for real.  I got the car from Staten Island, and we went after dinner.  As usual, I relied too heavily on GPS.  It took us through local traffic, and I was so confused because it said it was in Queens online, and we were driving through local traffic in Brooklyn.  I thought it was going to take us to the wrong place.  Anyways, when we got there, NO CAMPFIRE!  I kept figuring it was the July 4th weekend, and that they just decided to cancel it.  There were a few people around, and we walked around the beach for a little bit and decided to stay just a short while and then go home…

"There's A Hole in the Beach!"

I tried calling the number a couple of times that I had called 2 days earlier.  No answer.  I kept looking far off in the distance, and saw a group of people.  I decided I had to check it out to see if that could possibly be it.  IT WAS!  I couldn’t run back to tell them, because it’s SO HARD to walk fast in the sand.  I called PoPo, and told her the great news.  Malachy was SO excited!   He got to have his roasted marshmallows and even a hot dog!  There was some even some campfire singing; the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.  Unbelievable!  Another thing I could never have imagined.  A campfire in NYC, at the beach!  SO COOL!

Toasting Marshmallows at the Beach!

First Beach Campfire EVER for all of us!