Diehards Do Their Best to Salvage Sunday's Soggy Indian Summer Weekend Festivities

By Donald Wittkowski It's called Indian Summer Weekend, but Rae Guthrie, Marjorie Ostrowski, Cathy Matthews and Edie Nicholson were dressed for winter on Sunday afternoon. Bundled up in coats, hooded sweatshirts, baseball caps, gloves and scarves, the four friends from Pennsylvania shivered in the chilly winds and dreary rains that were reminiscent of a November or December day at the shore. Despite the soggy weather, these diehards of Ocean City's Indian Summer Weekend celebration were enjoying themselves while eating seafood in the loggia of the Music Pier. They said they come down to Ocean City every year for the Indian Summer festivities, even when the weather, similar to Sunday, is less than summer-like. "It's like an annual event on our calendar," Matthews said. June and Mike Adams, of Sellersville, Pa., and their friend, Joyce Sleeter, of Telford, Pa., also use Indian Summer Weekend for a getaway at the shore every year. Soggy weather scared away the crowds from the Boardwalk and Music Pier. Sunday's storm wasn't going to spoil their weekend or prevent them from enjoying some seafood, they said. June Adams was savoring some New England clam chowder to chase away the chill. "It's nice and warm, so on a dreary day like today, it keeps you nice and warm," she said. The heavy rain caused the Indian Summer seafood festivities to be abbreviated. Food vendors were supposed to set up shop on the Boardwalk, but instead were forced to move their grills to the Music Pier's loggia, an open-air structure covered by a roof but vulnerable to the winds blowing off the ocean. Del's Grill and Spadafora's Seafood, the only seafood vendors that showed up, lamented that the storm scared the crowds away. "Horrible," Tracey Rooney, Del's manager, responded when asked to describe Sunday's business. "We had only about four people, " Rooney said. Ed Aleszczyk, who was manning the counter at Spadafora's, offered a similarly gloomy assessment. "With the rain, it's been terrible," he said. Aleszczyk added that he was looking forward to nicer weather on Monday, the final day of the Indian Summer celebration. From left, June and Mike Adams, of Sellersville, Pa., and their friend, Joyce Sleeter, of Telford, Pa., were down at the shore for a getaway weekend. "We have one more day to go, so hopefully everyone comes out," he said. Sunday's rain also washed out plans for local store owners to set up sales tables along the Boardwalk and on Asbury Avenue between Sixth and 14th streets. The downtown business district appeared quiet Sunday afternoon, a dramatic contrast to the thousands of shoppers who crowded the Asbury Avenue corridor on Saturday during the Fall Block Party celebration, one of the city's biggest annual events.