Les parfums de la nuit

Six months ago there was ample snow...replaced now by pending ample rain and leaves.

Have you noticed that winter doesn't really smell like anything and that fall smells so much? Such a difference between now and and those early days of the year- or early spring for that matter.  We are right on the water - ocean - bay and there was the barest hint of the water going back to winter clear the other day...we could smell the salt....bits, whisps of scents... and in the evening....night perhaps....perfumes...

 

Sometimes we envy our pets their sense of smell. The "madelines and tea" of Proust, the kitchen on Thanksgiving morning, the woods after a rain - so many things that are big and obvious but our pets; well they smell in nuance and remember in detail.

Our Neighbor just to the East and a little North

Off of Orient Point on the eastern tip of Long Island is a stretch of water called Plum Gut.  It is a channel between the eastern end of Long Island Sound where it meets up with the Atlantic Ocean and Peconic Bay. There is a tough tidal pull through there and it gets plenty rough - but it is where the fish are and a trip to "the Gut" in a late summer evening with a full moon is something to remember.  On the map, so you are oriented,  this stretch of water is on the left side.  The Island is the famous or infamous Plum Island.
Every morning a ferry boat leaves Orient Point full of Plum Island workers and docks near that little man made bay. From there you walk off the dock and onto a waiting bus for the short ride to the main facility (upper left part of the island overlooking the Gut).  It is really the only part of the island still in use. The roads and other distinguishable features are from days and decades gone by when it was at first Fort Terry and then, the chemical warfare facility after the second world war.  The east end of the island (right side of the picture) is the business end of Fort Terry as it was were the great anti-naval howitzers and cannons were located. The howitzers have long since disappeared but their remains and mountings are still there.  They are the round white spots on the spine of the island are perhaps best pictured as "pits" maybe 50 yards in diameter and several stories deep.  Tunnels and roads connect them.

Why this remembrances today?  This isn't the date in history when the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor and we launched the Spanish American War. 113 years ago.  "Remember the Maine - to Hell with Spain" was the real slogan of which we remember only the first part.  Fort Terry got green lighted because we were assuming that the Spanish Fleet was going to sail into Long Island Sound up to the East River and level New York so these fortifications were built.

We think about this place today because there was the snippet in the news of it being sold to real estate speculators or made into a park.  Those rumors pop up every now and then.  Some of us are glad we are old and won't see resolution in our lifetime.

Howitzers are huge weapons of war.  Where cannons have long barrels, howitzers are short and squat and are meant to shoot shells up high and rain down on the enemy targets. They were ideal for knocking out ships of the time as all the armor on a ship was in the sides so if shot directly at it the shells would kinda bounce off. Howitzers shot  high, arcing shots, that came down nearly vertically (in comparison) and went through the decks like a bomb from a bomber. Fort Terry had these and they shot shells about the size of Volkswagen bugs (slight exaggeration).  When Fort Terry was good to go, it could land a shell with precision anywhere in about 20 miles of the place and certain parts of the south shore of Long Island along the deserted parts are marked with huge potholes - 50 feet across to this day - that evidence the "let's get it right" gunnery practice. Unless a ship was carrying howitzers that could come "down" at a target, being in one of these holes was about the safest place on earth in case trouble broke out.

So that is Fort Terry on Plum Island, set in motion to some extent by the sinking of the Maine a long time ago.  Obviously many locals have spent some time there and got a "cook's tour" on a number of occasions, each of which was fascinating. With Homeland Security the way it is, if you wash ashore while fishing in the Gut the fellas with guns will surround you before you hit the beach.  It will be unpleasant to say the least.

Such a little island. An outpost if you will.  It didn't chose its fate. My hunch is that it just wanted to be an island, pristine, gorgeous and out of the way.

Gershwin Lullaby

Its going to rain some tonight - after a week of alternating pretty dry and les deluges.

The other morning after that last storm, we went down to the center of the Village right about daybreak.  The streets were wet and slick clean; puddles and fog and stillness.

We talked about New York City years back, walking the streets at 3am or some hour that is only known to kids in college out for pizza.  We thought of Gershwin and his lullaby...

This piece is so New York in the 20s but not much later. It feels of the city and isn't intended to put anyone to sleep but be an ode of sorts to last call at Clancy's Bar or a cab ride after a rain - with streets glistening, puddles mirroring and night people cleaning for the dawn. We can see it in the music. Plain as day.

Get up early in the morning and see.  Here are two versions - the original piano and the version for string quartet.  Play it often.

On the Transmigration of the Souls - 9/11 John Adams

We seem pretty removed from this event some 100 miles due west and now a decade ago.  In the firehouse on 3rd Street there is a memorial and it is all but certain that someone lost family or an associate.

We do remember that, although so far away, the smell of this ruin that manged to come all the way out here and make a forced substitution for our fresh air and tranquility.  If you took the LIRR home that day or perhaps the Jitney, every so many persons had dust on them...caked on a shoe where the body meets the sole, on handbags, in smudges in the hair or on the forehead..dust..a horrible fine powder.

It is just time right now when the first tower fell and created the first of two awful dust clouds.  Just now.

Pullman Strike, Labor Day, High School Basketball....

Some of us were talking yesterday about our national holiday set for today and it was mentioned that a few of us grew up in places where there were sharp lines of difference between management and labor.  In case you missed it growing up, it was the common "joke" in spots in what is now the rust belt that you could always tell management from labor because management had put down their strike signs so they could hold vicious dogs in both hands....

We somewhat remember origins of this day (the Pullman Strike resulting in Labor Day)  from one of our high school American history classes for some of us taught by one Mr. Meeth who had the brains of -  well he had them and they kept him alive but as far as anything "firing" in that noggin of his is highly questionable. He was also the basketball coach. Our freshman and sophomore years, interest in basketball was so high because we had back to back great classes, to the point where we put two teams of freshman each 20-0 and two junior varsity teams each 16-0. Expectations were high until Meeth cut the team back to 8 players (he had actually ordered only 8 uniforms; his lucky number) - not enough even to have a scrimmage and in 3 of the first 5 games we finished with only 4 players in the last quarter...that incredible mindset was characteristic of our little slices of our American History. The fifth game we had to concede because in the middle of the 3rd quarter we were down to 3 players and were talking an awful beating (it was 105-35 at the time - no kidding).

We digressed to our far away, and we stress "not local",   high school days as at the time, after the 5th game, the players kinda 'went on strike'...and it is worth mentioning that our school's varsity team had just set the class A record for consecutive basketball losses at 40 and during our 3 years on varsity, we won 5 games and lost 43 with another 23 in a row to close out our career?  Anyway, that gave us reason to call a halt to things.  His response was, as he had cut 4 black players - the only 4 to trim the squad down to 8 short slow white guys, was to try and bring them back and suspend us from school for insubordination. The black players refused although with them we would have had half a chance - and I'm not being racist here, they were just simply better than we were.

Three of us, in the midst of this were in the top 5 in our class of 650 graduates and protested along now with half the student body.  We  came to school and went to American History, 2nd period, and Meeth informed us he was going to fail us regardless and had the three of us removed from the classroom by the dean of students (aka "the enforcer").  One of the other kid's parents took the school and Meeth to court and the matter was "resolved" be court order well before it went to trial (we remember it being by last period of the day in fact).  Now that we think about it, the lesson may have been about teaching why there are labor unions and laws and the necessity of certain institutions. Some of the stuff unions do is off the charts crazy and  can't be support but in general without some degree of organization "management" tends to think more god-like than man-like... take the last few years for example....

We urge some reflection on the Pullman Strike that led to today's holiday (see link above).  The entire episode was a sad state of affairs with no side having lily white hands.  Juxtapose that with the sadly true story of  labor and management in the form of a high school basketball team and a sad reflection on how things can polarize in an instant when common sense is lost.

A real stumper

We believe that this is a picture of Ms. S. Bush, circa 1910, outside her Millinery Shop on Front Street. Ms. Bush had either a friend or an associate or a clerk - no matter, but who is who is another matter entirely.

This has nothing to do with the 'class' system of who owns and who is 'help'.  If you remember the Broadway Musical "Hello Dolly", the subplot revolves around two women in just this type of store. Exactly.

These two could be Irene Molloy and Minnie Fay waiting for their Barnaby and Cornelius. What is charming about this photo is of course the "set". 79 Front Street puts this store in the first block west of Main and although we can picture it approximately, it isn't immediately familiar to us so we are bound there, camera in hand, to see what we can see. Obviously were are looking for a double door and to the left, a 4 step-up to another door probably leading upstairs.

If we find it or not, it is, again of no matter.  What does count is that two women ran a shop a hundred plus years ago and sold hats and led lives we know nothing about and will know nothing about.  That doesn't make this shop and these women any less important - in fact it heightens them.  People don't have to go through life as big fish in big ponds to have lives.

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