Rehoboth Beach used to be sparsely populated, with waterways and undeveloped regions of land fit for outdoor activities. It was a beach town surrounded by marshes and open land.
Rehoboth Beach has developed drastically, and the area around the seaside town has filled with strip malls and open roads. New infrastructure has made it easier to travel to Rehoboth Beach, and the number of people living in the region has increased.
In the past, clamming, fishing, crabbing, and boating on the ocean and surrounding waterways was common. There was also a boardwalk with games, mini-golf, and other activities at Rehoboth Beach.
Water activities in this region are less common and sometimes not possible when sewage levels in the waterway are too high. Going to the boardwalk, as well as shopping in the strip mall outlets surrounding Rehoboth Beach, is now more common.
Interviewer: How did this place, how did Rehoboth Beach look 20 years ago?
Interviewee: 20 years ago, Rehoboth Beach was a relatively small seaside community, what was great about Rehoboth Beach was like a residential town that was pushed up against the edge of the ocean. You’d go and you’d sit on the porch…you’d rent houses and you’d sit on the porch, you’d talk to your neighbors, and then in the morning, you get up and walk a couple blocks to the beach, hang out of the beach and in the evening, come off the beach and be in a kind of a nice residential neighborhood. And so it kind of had a small town feel and felt like you were, away from the hustle and bustle of the world. That was 20 years ago.
Interviewer: How has it changed?
Interviewee: So we’ve been going to Rehoboth Beach every summer for the 20 years. Actually, my extended family’s been going there for 80 years. Of course I grew up hearing the stories of the rowboat that was named the happy dragon that they took out on the bay. And the five-hour drive to get Rehoboth Beach. But now Rehoboth Beach is a two-hour drive on superhighways from Philadelphia airport. The trick is when you hit Rehoboth Beach now or you get within about five miles of what used to be this quaint little town you get slammed into this stop and go traffic on a road that’s eight lanes across, it’s full of retail on both sides it’s really, kind of, a nightmare of overdeveloped, overhyped, over-messed urban sprawl for five miles between where the highway ends and where the little town begins. But eventually, you fight your way through that, and you get to this little town, it still has its original charm. The zoning, whatever they have done within cities, within the limits of the original town has kind of preserved that otherworldly character, the town which still makes it a great visit. Did I answer your question?
Interviewer: Yes. Thank you very much. I have two more questions. Some of it you’ve gone into previously, but we can elaborate more here. So question number three is, what are some of the things you used to do here 20 years ago?
Interviewee: So 20 years ago, we spent a lot of time in the day playing in the surf. And we’d usually take a couple days during the week and do water activities. We’d go out clamming one day we go out fishing, flounder fishing another day. In fact, 20 years ago I even had a chance to be in a rowboat. My dad rented a rowboat, went out on the bay in a rowboat and we must of got sunburned and didn’t catch any fish but had a grand old time with that. That was 20 years ago, a lot of that has changed. Occasionally we’ll go out and we’ll get clams but we always have to read the advisories about whether there’s too much sewage in the bay and we can eat the clams or not eat the clams or eat them at our own risk. I think the liability of letting people off the street rent rowboats and go out in this uncertain current and tide and maybe get swept into the ocean was too much for the environment and also legal environment these days, so nobody does that, you can’t do that anymore. But you still can spend a day on the beach and they reserved a lot of the character of the original harbor and you can have kind of a family good time playing arcade games and the little kids, we’re watching the grandkids now going on rides in the arcade. Am I answering your question again?
Interviewer: Yes, that’s good. The last question was some, what are some of the things that you do here now? And you’ve started going into that a bit. Could you elaborate?
Interviewee: Okay, yes I started talking about some of the things we used to do that we can continue to do, but because some of the old activities are gone, let me tell you about the new activities. One of the activities we’ve done several times in the last few years is we’ve rented, we’ve taken out a charter boat and we’ll have 10, 15 people from the extended family get on the charter boat that will carry us out the middle of Delaware Bay where we drop the lines in and try to catch fish. Now I remember growing up, we used to catch big fish. Big flounders, blue fish. Now we take this boat out, way out into the middle of the bay. And we catch a punch little tiny croakers, which tells me that something’s changed a bit over the years in terms of what the sea gives back to us.
Another thing we do now, which we used to do, but take more relish, we got more gusto is we do a family crab beach and one day we’ll order a bushel of crabs and put newspaper on the table and get everyone around the table and spend hours cracking crabs open and just sharing a good time there. So those are some of the activities in addition to the beach and the boardwalk that we do.
Interviewer: Thank you very much for your time.
Interviewee: Well, it’s been a pleasure reminiscing with you and sharing some of these beautiful memories.
Interviewer: All right. Thank you. Goodbye.