Local Lore

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 date in history was when the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor and we launched the Spanish American War. About 114 years ago right about now in fact.  "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.

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.  We were talking to someone who  spent some time there and got a "cook's tour" on a number of occasions, and the conversations were 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.

Makati IP Addresses

This blog is part and parcel of Greenport, NY's website (http://www.greenportvillage.com/) and it pretty much seeks to be that "neutral observer" one reads about but never can find.  As such, we try not to be either vain nor self-deprecating; just stay strictly middle of the road so to speak. When setting out on that course, we decided to admit total ignorance when we found it in our part and observe it for what it is and was.

The website receives a substantial number of visitors from the Philippines, almost as many as Canada and that catches our attention as almost all of our visitors from the Philippines have an "IP" in the Manila suburb of Makati, a city of roughly half a million souls. Now our ignorance and provincialism as Ben Franklin once said "springs forth fully growed".

One of our readers wrote to us from the Makati "IP"  address and we fairly assume that he is responsible to some extent for spreading the word about this blog and the village website.  When he wrote, he identified himself as having spent summers here in Greenport and retired to a suburb some distance from Manila - a good drive away - and our minds, void of any knowledge whatsoever, immediately assumed things.  We thought that this was a case of one rural area simply exploring another rural area - one set of country bumpkins gazing at another across about 8500 air miles.  Our ignorance rested in our (mis-)conception of the Philippines and Makati specifically and it really showed up here.

So what brought all this up?  We were reading back through our blog to an early post about Plum Island and the Spanish-American War (http://greenportvillage.blogspot.com/2011/12/over-edge-of-earth.html)  and that brought us to the Philippines and our "war" with them that came under our sphere as a result.  So what history we have of that Island Nation is a result - for many in our generation - of school books that still looked at it as a colonial "republic", which is was until after WWII.  As such, we had some blurred conception of the place - something between a National Geographic documentary and Douglas MacArthur vowing to return.

When Makati started turning up in our Google Analytics we knew that some of the hits were a result of the above mentioned former summer resident and we had visions of his surrounding area that were clearly erroneous and here we were in this idyllic seaside village to which they "must be looking at in wonderment and awe".  We apologize for our ignorance.

To be clear, Makati is a "big cheese" town in Asia, the financial capital of the 13th most populated country on the planet, highly cosmopolitan and decidedly "some pumpkins".  Tim Tebow, the NFL whiz, was born there by the way.  He wasn't born here - he was born there - to parents who were on religious mission in the 1980s. Hmmm let's see. Let's do missionary work in this Philippines version of Wall Street. But we are a neutral blog and won't go there - rampant colonial stereotyping and all that.

We do invite our Makati IP address readers to keep in contact and drop us a line now and then.  Just don't poke fun at our colonial mindsets and we promise to think some before we reach any more conclusions.

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.