The Trip To Memory Island - Part 1

My Father called me in September and asked if I wanted to go on a road trip. We planned a trip to Long Island, Nisseqogue and Tri Villages to be precise. My father lived in several homes on Long Island during his childhood and he wanted to see them one more time. The trip was planned for last Sunday. My father flew in earlier in the week and we had a fun time apple picking at the orchard and playing miniature golf with the girls. Sunday morning we started our trip. Though the gps directions weren't bad, they also weren't the ones I probably would have taken without it. We made good time to the island and after a quick rest stop continued on to Nisseqogue.

My father struggled to remember. The roads he had walked and rode his bike on as a youth were now paved over or turned into private drives. Where estates once stood, developments now reigned. We finally found a small winding road to the water that formed a small spark of memory in his eyes. There was an old red barn and outhouse that looked familiar to him.

He walked down to the water not only to see the path of memory, but to get his bearings based on the water. As he walked back up the path towards the Escape, I could see the spark of memory did not catch fire, but he seemed a bit more energized and we continued to drive. I named each road we passed hoping to fan the small spark of memory, but nothing was clicking.

A few minutes later, we stopped at a hiking trail to decide our plan of attack. The trail called to me, but this was not my trip, so after several moments, we got back in the car and began to drive on.

After a couple, “I think I remember this's”, we came upon an opening the water was on our left and a house being built on our right, Artesian Way. “Pull in! This is it!”, my father yelled excitedly and I pulled hard right on the steering wheel. To the left a large brick building was battling time and the elements.  To the right, a large new build, in the front, an immense winding tree stood severely trimmed and unsuccessfully trying to hide scaffolding.

My father's face, previously drawn and tired from our journey, got a childish glow and the dwindling spark of memory flared out of control. It was the Lane's Estate. He and his family lived there for a short while. The immense winding tree provided shade and play for a once younger man.  We walked to the entrance of the property and across the street to the water.

The cement pilings of a dock in my fathers memory still stood. He began telling stories of hunts and boat trips in vessels that probably disappeared long before the dock had.

We walked back to the main house and when we got there, met the architect of the current structure. He was taking some measurements as we approached. After finding out my father had lived there so long ago, he explained that we had just missed the old house by a year and the new one was being built on the old one's foundation. He offered to show us around. A pond had been added to the property in front of a newly redone workman's cottage.

My father and I continued walking the property. We found the hot beds where my grandmother would start her plants. We walked the woods and trails that had led to other houses of the estate. The ones we found were in different states of repair. My fathers memories were flowing in faster than he could relay them to me. He was shocked that the stone drainage on the sides of what had been the driveway were still there.

He remembered the wall next to the carriage house that he sat on as a child. He was happy to find what we had, but was annoyed that he could not find the old ice house. We got back in the Escape and continued driving down the road to Short Beach.

My father had wanted to see the large rock that haunted his memory. More gulls than people were at the beach and we walked following the surf. When we got to the rock, my father commented on how it was smaller than he remembered it being in his youth. I thought, last time he saw it, he was using much smaller eyes.

As we started driving away from the beach my dad screamed, “Pullover!”. He saw, what had been, a small fountain on the side of the road.  It was part of the Lane's Estate and used to flow fresh water for people traveling to and from the beach.  Now it was barely holding itself together under the weight of time.

This stop was an especially meaningful one for him. When he looked up from the fountain, he found the ice house he had been looking for. It was up on the hill, in the woods.
With my father's memories coming back in rapid succession, he was ready to drive back towards Stony Brook, where other of his homes had been. He was remembering many more roads now and we went up and down roads while he explained who lived in what house, how it was to ride his bike up this road or that and how, what was now homes, was once potato fields.

After passing a circular stable, we came upon a drive to the Huntington residences. My father lived with them for a short while and knew the houses well.

We took some trails that belonged to the house down to a point about 50ft above a small trail and the water. My father's eyes were now young and spry and he was ready to move on and find more of his youth. We found another house that he had lived in and after stopping for a few minutes decided, that after 8 hours of driving, it was time to find a B&B to stay at.

We headed for the Stony Brook Inn. It had been renamed the Three Village Inn, but had not changed much. After securing a cottage (We decided we'd rather stay there than the main building. There were two queen sized beds and a view of the yacht club.) hunger took over.  We had not eaten all day, we were ravished.  We went to Mirabella's the Inn's restaurant. The swordfish was excellent, but afterward we were stuffed, so we decided to take a walk.

We walked across the street to the dock and the Stony Brook Yacht club.

 We walked to the outside display of an old Hercules ship figurehead and a whaling dingy.

At this point I have to explain my experiences with Long Island. When I was younger, my Nanny had a summer cottage in a village near Stony Brook called Pouquatt. We went there several of my pre to early teen summers for a week or two. My grandfather had bought the place when my mom and uncle were younger and that is where my mother and father met. I had very little memory of Long Island outside of Pouquatt, Port Jefferson, St. James and a little bit of Stony Brook. When I saw the Stony Brook post office small embers of memory hit me. My mom had taken me there when I was an early teen to see the wings of the eagle flap at noon. Flap is really not the right word, but they move. My father said it also made a noise, but I did not remember that. I did however remember going to the Inn and the dock with younger eyes. My dad and I grabbed an ice cream from a store in the same strip as the post office.  We then headed back to the dock, the cottage and to bed.