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It wasn't until a year ago that, at the bottom of a box of Eastman Kodaks, I discovered a stash of silent 8-mm film taken by my grandfather during their halcyon holidays in Bermuda. Vignettes of my grandmother bicycling past low-shuttered shops on Front Street and hunting for coins cast from shipwrecks in the coves of Horseshoe Bay fade into clusters of bay grape and mangrove, cocktails on terraces that zigzag across coral rock cliffs, and yellow-and-white-striped umbrellas that look almost toy-like from above. The footage is from the 1950s, but it may as well have been taken yesterday.
Returning to the Coral Beach Club last May, I found the familiar pink-and-green upholstery and chinoiserie of the clubhouse, the same colorful curtains and walls painted to look like wallpaper, even the same old Amazon parrot, Alonso (named after the king in The Tempest, which is believed to have been set on the island), that used to squawk at me when I was a kid. The yellow-and-white-striped umbrellas still line empty stretches of coral sand, the pink-and-white Frozen Hut still serves rum swizzles, and you still have to wear white on the tennis courts and dress for dinner. (The island's bizarre and distinctive dress code—blazers and ties on top, Bermuda shorts and knee socks below—also remains firmly in place.)
