A trip down Memory Lane

Since we had rented a car for the week from the Glen Cove Enterprise, we decided to take a trip down memory land to my childhood home in Levittown and Frank’s house in Massapequa.

Levittown was once flat, treeless potato farm country.  Farmers let the vast acres of land go pretty cheaply when nematodes wiped out their crop in the 1930’s. After World War II, William Levitt and his sons developed the area to meet the housing demands of returning GIs and their new families.  At the peak of construction, thirty houses were being built each day for a selling price of $7,990!!  My parents bought this one at 32 Prentice Road in 1950.

Built on a concrete slab, it had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room separated by a fireplace from the kitchen with a GE oven and a Bendix washing machine, plus an attic.  More than 17,000 of these houses were built between 1949 and 1951.  All were a far cry from the mansions of Long Island’s Gold Coast!

Here is the house today.  The only recognizable feature is the push out bathroom window partially hidden behind the tall corkscrew bushes.  Like every other Levitt house, its original bones are now hidden behind major expansions and remodeling.  No plaque marks the property as the home of the Buckheits from 1950 until 1966.

On to 348 Forest Avenue in Massapequa.  Frank’s old house looked the same except for a new exterior of aluminum siding, a chain link fence and some overgrown bushes.

Since Frank’s Aunt Arlene still lives nearby, we stopped in for a short visit.  She proved to be an informative repository chock full of Wiegand/Werner family history!

And as good friend John Wolak celebrated his 60^th birthday in Richmond, VA we had dinner at Huntington’s Canterbury Ales with his and Frank’s fellow Maritime College classmate, Andy Charlton.

One of THE TOP TEN THINGS to do on Long Island the week of July 24^th (at least according to Newsday) was the Shop Super Saturday, a celebrity-studded designer garage sale hosted by Kelly Ripa.  With tickets priced at $450-$650, we opted instead to attend the 6^th best thing to do – The Feast of Saint Rocco.  The self-proclaimed ‘best feast in the east’ takes place in Glen Cove to honor Saint Rocco, patron saint of dogs and protector against the plague and contagious diseases.  Who could pass up all that great Italian pasta and pastries plus the Giglios, an Italian marching band? 

Added entertainment was provided by Vic Vincent.  He and his band played favorites from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s made popular by Italian-Americans – Dion, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Frankie Vallie and Johnny Cash (?).

Our ‘semi-repaired’ GPS/Chart Plotter returned to us on Wednesday from its weeklong cross-country trip to California and back.  With all her electronics back on board, Lazy W was ready to leave Glen Cove Brewers Yacht Yard and head east to Port Jefferson. 

Port Jefferson looked like a great place to dock 43-foot Lazy W in a marina since the town fans out from the waterfront.  However, the fee for ‘non-resident transients’ at Port Jefferson Town Marina was an astounding $6 per foot per day plus a daily fee for electric.  That is more than we want to pay for a room in a nice hotel – and we were bringing the room!!!  So we snagged a mooring ball from Setauket Yacht Club for $50 and hailed the SYC launch for a lift to the town dock.

A tribute to the shipbuilding past of Port Jefferson

Port Jefferson was originally called Drowned Meadow because the downtown area was tidal and "drowned" by the tide twice a day.  Drowned Meadow was not a pleasant name for a town and it was later changed to honor Thomas Jefferson.  P.T. Barnum of circus fame owned a tract of land here.  Local lore claims that he intended to make Port Jefferson the home base for his circus but the townspeople put a stop to that plan.  The reality is that he owned hundreds of properties across the Long Island Sound in Bridgeport, CT and that town was the winter quarters of the circus from 1880 until 1927.   Barnum even served as Bridgeport’s mayor in 1875.  Nevertheless, Barnum Avenue now runs through the tract of land he once owned in Port Jefferson and one of the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson ferry boats bears the name ‘P.T. Barnum.’

The woman manning the Chamber of Commerce desk highly recommended that we attend that night’s free Harborside concert featuring Desert Highway, an Eagles tribute band.  They lived up to her praise and provided the fans with ninety minutes of incredibly great music.

 

The following evening we enjoyed the company of Frank’s Uncle Lawrence, Aunt Mary and cousin ‘little’ Larry.  Our heartfelt thanks to all for great food and conversation at Ruvo’s Restaurant.  (Once again I carried the camera along but failed to capture the moment!)   The threat of severe thunderstorms never materialized so we were able to ride the open SYC launch to and from town with no fear of being struck by lightning!