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It’s rare that Ponyboy gets nostalgic. When he was younger, and the passing of his parents were more fresh, any little thing would make him think of them. It was so bad that Darry and Soda had to limit the number of family photos hanging around the house, otherwise he’d burst into tears, sometimes throwing up from how bad it was. Nowadays, he has a good few family photos hanging up in his, Dally, and Johnny’s apartment. His favorite is the one he’s looking at now: a photo of the only time they went to the beach. Well, technically Skiatook Lake isn’t a proper beach in the sense of being by the ocean, but it was more than enough for Pony and his brothers.
He was around seven at the time, and he’d been begging to go to the beach for longer than he could remember, according to his parents, and after almost a year of saving up (in case they got into an accident of some sort), they were able to afford taking a day off to go. He vaguely remembers bouncing around, so much so that his parents and Darry laughed and called him ‘Sodapop 2.0’ because he was being so much unlike himself and more like Soda. Apparently, on the way there, he rambled off so many facts about aquatic creatures that he’d scared Soda into tears, with his jellyfish and shark facts, which then made Ponyboy cry, which made Darry pout and tear up, and it took his parents five minutes to calm them all down and reassure Soda that there’s no jellyfish in the lake.
It was at that beach where he learned to fish, and what sand felt like under his feet and between his small fingers. It was there that his Daddy taught him to swim, and Mama had shown him and his brothers how to make a sandcastle. He remembers teaming up with Darry to push Soda’s head under the water, and how Mama had scolded them when Soda got water up his nose. He also remembers Soda’s revenge; gathering hot sand with a bucket and dumping it on their heads while they were oblivious and playing in the water. Mama scolded Soda for that, but Daddy had laughed and dunked the three boys in the water as a ‘punishment for causing mayhem.’ Then Daddy had to explain the word mayhem to them. Later, they’d taken a family photo and gathered shells and driftwood and sand and put it all in a bag. The next day, they made a picture frame with what they had gathered, and put the rest in little jars, glued them shut, and each brother got a tiny jar on a necklace, half-way full with sand, tiny shells, and wood splinters.
It was that beach that Johnny and Dally took Pony for his 21st birthday. Because they knew he loved it, loved the memories he made there. So they took him there, and let him cry for a few minutes. They splashed water at each other and took turns holding their breath, and panicked when Dally pretended to be dead. Then they pushed him under as revenge. They built sandcastles and buried Dally in the sand when he fell asleep on a towel, and cackled when he woke up and couldn’t get out. Ponyboy shared the facts with them that had made a kid Sodapop cry, and Dally did a dramatic impression of a wailing Soda until Pony’s stomach hurt from laughing. Then, at the end of it all, they collected sand and shells and driftwood, and took a picture together. By the end of the week, a homemade picture frame covered in shells was sitting next to the frame of the Curtis family at the beach.