Few things in my life have been as consistent as “Jaws.”

I have no friendships as old as my relationship with “Jaws.” It debuted 50 years ago this spring, soon after Memorial Day, and for those of us who spent summer breaks getting wrinkled in water, it ruined the next eight weeks. It was the first movie I saw in a theater (or in my case, a drive-in). Having grown up and regularly vacationed not that far from where it was shot, whenever I catch a snippet of “Jaws” on TV, even decades later, I am partly watching a film and partly seeing family photos, a childhood and home movies from New England beaches, circa 1974.

Boardwalk arcade games.

Unleashed dogs.

Suntan oil, not sunblock.

Sublime lethargy, soundtracked in one scene by a beach radio that’s faintly wafting Olivia Newton-John’s “

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