The South Fork of Long Island,Reminiscence
Dec 23, 2010 13:03:20 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2010 13:03:20 GMT
While culling through the umpteen gazillion papers,memorabilia etc. at my mother's house,I ran across several writings of my own,tucked away in a closet, in the room that was once mine, the brief time that I did actually live there. Upon rereading this particular one,I realized how much it truly describes for me,with fond recall,the place I grew up,and the memories it holds for me.
Mind you,this was written circa 1978. Much has changed in terms of the landscape there,but,the essence of it, to a large degree, holds true to date.
I have several others I will post over time.
I wasn't sure where to post this,so,feel free to move it if you feel it belongs elsewhere.
The South Fork of Long Island,when one has lived there year round,bears little resemblance to the Hamptons of the summer society columns of our day. The summer influx distorts its true character. In the off-season it is still a rural place with a quiet village life. When the summer ends friends fall back upon themselves and people seem relevant again. It is the beauty of the land that holds the people together. There are hauntingly beautiful days in the autumn when you feel you do not want to be anywhere else on the earth. Little wonder some of America's finest artists chose to settle there.
You do not have to go to the ocean every day to remember it is there; the roar and smell of the sea is never far away. Wherever you go,when you leave for a while and then return,and finally cross the Shinnecock Canal,which forms the South Fork,you feel you are coming home.
Returning one day,in a lethargy,I glanced out my window; things flickering obliquely before my eyes brought me awake: lush potato fields on the flat land,village greens,old graveyards drowsing in the sun,shingled houses,ancient elms along the streets,and far in the distance the blue Atlantic breakers.
It is likely some of the most lovely terrain in America,and because of that,and its proximity to Manhattan one hundred miles down the road,I feared it would become a parking lot. In summertime,the New Jersey liscence plates grew more and more abundant,always a fearsome sign.
From an airplane flying into the city,one saw the higher civilization coming out that way: earth ripped raw,shopping centers,strip malls,developments,all that immense apparatus at the edge of the great American schizophrenia.
Once at a local tavern I asked a young potato farmer why he had sold the acreage up the way to W.T. Grant,which would install it's largest store in the eastern part of the island. "Because my Grandmama and I are out for one thing,"he said,"and that's the buck".
I could not quarrel with that. Instead,after a tender silence,on a napkin,I wrote from Faulkner's "The Bear": "The ruined woods we used to know don't cry for retribution. The men who have destroyed it will accomplish its revenge". The young man,a good fellow I had known all my life,pondered this message: I could tell he was turning it around in his mind. Then he said: "I knew you were with me."
It is a land that enlists loneliness,and also love. It reminds me a little of the Mississippi Delta,without the delta blood and guilt- no violence to this land,and it demands little. The village itself,among the oldest in America,remains part of the land that encompasses it. It is a place of bleak winters,of long nights and silences.
A very small town,especially in the winter,numbering just over a thousand people. The names of the oldest families reflect the Anglo-Saxon blood source. Just as the potato fields bring back the Mississippi delta,the village too reminds me of the same,because along the streets,in daylight and in darkness,there are sounds of Afro American voices,all the vanished echoes. It is nearly thirty percent Afro- American,mostly Southerners who migrated up a generation or more ago to work on the potato farms. And one of the sadnesses of the town is that it does not have the despair and cruelty and tragedy of remembrance-the shared past,the common inheritance of the land. There is an old Afro American man whom we all know,who perambulates around town at all hours,drinking cheap wine behind hedges and trees,talking incessantly to himself,head aslant in his aimless journey. No one knows where he sleeps,if he does at all. Eight or ten times a day I would see him ,one moment down by the railroad tracks,then near the church,and I have even sighted him as far away as the next two towns,some seven to ten miles away. After living in the South I believe he is a reminder to the town of something it does not truly understand of itself,but,then,that is a fragile thing...
Mind you,this was written circa 1978. Much has changed in terms of the landscape there,but,the essence of it, to a large degree, holds true to date.
I have several others I will post over time.
I wasn't sure where to post this,so,feel free to move it if you feel it belongs elsewhere.
The South Fork of Long Island,when one has lived there year round,bears little resemblance to the Hamptons of the summer society columns of our day. The summer influx distorts its true character. In the off-season it is still a rural place with a quiet village life. When the summer ends friends fall back upon themselves and people seem relevant again. It is the beauty of the land that holds the people together. There are hauntingly beautiful days in the autumn when you feel you do not want to be anywhere else on the earth. Little wonder some of America's finest artists chose to settle there.
You do not have to go to the ocean every day to remember it is there; the roar and smell of the sea is never far away. Wherever you go,when you leave for a while and then return,and finally cross the Shinnecock Canal,which forms the South Fork,you feel you are coming home.
Returning one day,in a lethargy,I glanced out my window; things flickering obliquely before my eyes brought me awake: lush potato fields on the flat land,village greens,old graveyards drowsing in the sun,shingled houses,ancient elms along the streets,and far in the distance the blue Atlantic breakers.
It is likely some of the most lovely terrain in America,and because of that,and its proximity to Manhattan one hundred miles down the road,I feared it would become a parking lot. In summertime,the New Jersey liscence plates grew more and more abundant,always a fearsome sign.
From an airplane flying into the city,one saw the higher civilization coming out that way: earth ripped raw,shopping centers,strip malls,developments,all that immense apparatus at the edge of the great American schizophrenia.
Once at a local tavern I asked a young potato farmer why he had sold the acreage up the way to W.T. Grant,which would install it's largest store in the eastern part of the island. "Because my Grandmama and I are out for one thing,"he said,"and that's the buck".
I could not quarrel with that. Instead,after a tender silence,on a napkin,I wrote from Faulkner's "The Bear": "The ruined woods we used to know don't cry for retribution. The men who have destroyed it will accomplish its revenge". The young man,a good fellow I had known all my life,pondered this message: I could tell he was turning it around in his mind. Then he said: "I knew you were with me."
It is a land that enlists loneliness,and also love. It reminds me a little of the Mississippi Delta,without the delta blood and guilt- no violence to this land,and it demands little. The village itself,among the oldest in America,remains part of the land that encompasses it. It is a place of bleak winters,of long nights and silences.
A very small town,especially in the winter,numbering just over a thousand people. The names of the oldest families reflect the Anglo-Saxon blood source. Just as the potato fields bring back the Mississippi delta,the village too reminds me of the same,because along the streets,in daylight and in darkness,there are sounds of Afro American voices,all the vanished echoes. It is nearly thirty percent Afro- American,mostly Southerners who migrated up a generation or more ago to work on the potato farms. And one of the sadnesses of the town is that it does not have the despair and cruelty and tragedy of remembrance-the shared past,the common inheritance of the land. There is an old Afro American man whom we all know,who perambulates around town at all hours,drinking cheap wine behind hedges and trees,talking incessantly to himself,head aslant in his aimless journey. No one knows where he sleeps,if he does at all. Eight or ten times a day I would see him ,one moment down by the railroad tracks,then near the church,and I have even sighted him as far away as the next two towns,some seven to ten miles away. After living in the South I believe he is a reminder to the town of something it does not truly understand of itself,but,then,that is a fragile thing...
