[tophcfa]

Fondly remembering the annual family vacation at Eastham, MA on Cape Cod, staying across the street from Nauset Light Beach on Cape Cod. Went to the Wellfleet drive-in with my brother and sister to see Jaws that summer 50 years ago when the movie was released. Have probably watched the flick about 20 times since then. Never felt totally comfortable swimming in the ocean since watching that movie, not that it stopped me.

Funny thing is that back then there were no great whites on the Cape and Islands, including Martha’s Vineyard, where Jaws was filmed. Since then, the bounty on seals was lifted and the seal population has exploded, attracting numerous great white sharks. Now, Jaws is actually a real thing there and great white encounters with swimmers and surfers are an annual event. Three years ago my wife and I watched a great white create a bloody scene hitting a seal off the beach in Truro, MA.

As a side note, about four years after Jaws was released I had a summer job during College at the Harbor View, in Edgartown, MA on Martha’s Vineyard. The resort I worked at put up the cast of Jaws during the filming and stored/worked on the mechanical shark used in the movie in an old barn on the property. The guy who owned the property (my boss that summer) got the part as the undertaker in the movie in exchange for his cooperation with the filming. During that summer we used to have keg parties on the beach, right by the bridge where the shark in Jaws swam under the bridge and attacked the little boy in the sail boat on the salt pond. Must have done about a hundred backflips and gainers off that bridge : )