Sixty-Something: The East End Inspires Imagination

The first of March 2023 has come and gone. The daffodils and tulips are rising in the many gardens and fields on the east end. Just as quickly as March has arrived the same perhaps is true about the coming summer. That being, the magic of an east end summer will be here sooner than one might expect. After all, there was no real winter weather this year. Us sixty-somethings and older folks truly are glad we ducked the task of shoveling snow from our driveways. Now, as the days get longer and warmer, we get to spend more time outdoors. It was the splendor of the possibilities of appreciating the beaches, parks, bays and the ocean that inspired many of us to come out east to live.

There are just so many wonderful summer days on the east end, how can one truly describe the best ones? I like to think the best is always yet to come. There is always a future and at this moment I am fully anticipating a wonderful spring. I went to the boatyard at Three Mile Harbor to start the process of reincarnating my forty-eight-year-old sailboat for another sailing season. As the boat like me ages, then the process to spruce her up for sailing safer becomes harder, but the results are more satisfying.

The changes in how things get done, have been most noticeable since the darkness of the Covid-19 episodes. Back then I wondered when and if the darkness of that disease would end. Now that it has, I appreciate my freedoms of movement and assembly so much more. Though journalism I have learned about the folks whose imaginations have created the local world we sometimes take for granted. The fact that the bays are clean, our ocean pristine, and there is an abundance of open space is testimony that some cared to preserve a purity we should never take for granted.

As I age, I really feel how important living in a place with farms, winding roads and big skies is. The cost is high but there can be nothing more valuable than quality living, especially as the golden years are at hand. The truth is in my life every year has had golden moments. Children being born, love being found and nourished, along with successes and even disappointments. Yes, there have been some failures, painful defeats, and huge loss through deaths. On the other hand, every morning when I go out to fetch our Newsday delivery I pause and look around.

The very first thing I see is a rising sun or even a gentle morning drizzle. I so enjoy those first few steps down the front stairs past the garden pines across the lawn to the mailbox to retrieve the paper. Everyone must feel the promise of a new day, often with the opportunity to get some things done one just couldn’t do yesterday.

I now know there are dreams that may never be fulfilled, and at the same time I enjoy dreams that came true. Everyone who has heard the bubbly laughs of grandchildren understands the pure joy that is. When I left the comforts of my parents’ home to start my journey through life, I imagined many wonderful things. I still do. With the time left there are so many things still to do. That is why I cherish the east end of Long Island so much. It is here that all my dreams and aspirations have brought me. Many locals at times feel upset that they have to share their domestic tranquility with the “tourists.”

I fondly remember my days living and working in Manhattan pre-9/11. My dream was to make it big. I sometimes walked home from my office on 42nd Street and Sixth Ave through the lower half of Central Park up to 83rd. In the spring there were the blossoms, in the summer it was crazy busy with tourists, in the fall the colors of the leaves on the old majestic trees had me always looking around. Then there were the walks with the acoustics of new fallen snow in the winter. It was on those walks I guess I imagined the life I now have out on the east end of Long Island. Living here is special. We all know that.