Short Story

Paradise Found

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for The Unicorn Challenge where we ar1
asked to get creative in 250 words or less using
the photo below as inspiration. This is my story.

© Ayr/Gray

Eastern-most Long Island, New York. A little village called Montauk. “The End”, according to locals. Drive to the tip of the peninsula, walk a few steps and you’re in the Atlantic Ocean … literally.

1984 was our first visit. “Let’s go out for a weekend. If we don’t like it, we won’t go back.” Famous last words. We stayed at a no frills family motel on the beach; it was paradise.

Step outside the motel and watch your toes disappear into the sand. Big pool filled with sunburned families having the time of their lives. Huge towels and colorful umbrellas cover the beach.

An old salt regales us with tales about the first German U-boats arriving off Montauk in June, 1942. Psyched, we ride our bikes to the lighthouse where we discover WWII bunkers buried deep in the woods.

Montauk’s pizza place and ice cream joint are constantly busy. Drive five minutes west on ‘the stretch’ to a place known simply as “LUNCH” for a mouth-watering lobster roll or puffers and chips.

At night little fires dot the beach, glowing and crackling. Kids stab marshmallows with long sticks and plunge them into the flames for a gooey sweet treat that won’t be eaten again till next summer. Our boys’ hair is sun-streaked, skin bronzed, feet perpetually coated in sand. They’re happy as clams.

In time we started renting a house with a pool; vacations lasted six weeks; 35+ years of unforgettable family memories made, Montauk style.

Man, it was paradise!

NAR©2024
250 Words

The Unicorn Challenge-16/08/24

The Memory Motel has been a fixture in Montauk since the mid-1920s. When the Rolling Stones were out at the east end, they would visit the bar at the motel for some heavy drinking, dancing, shooting pool, tussling, scuffling, and playing the only piano in town until sunrise.

This is “Memory Motel” by the Rolling Stones.

https://youtu.be/FJ4be-0Nt0s?si=mP0lpYtWe2zg_AFA

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

51 thoughts on “Paradise Found”

  2. Everything about this story makes me smile. Thank you, writer Nancy.

    “gooey sweet treat that won’t be eaten again till next summer” Yummy, yes, and this highlights to savor those moments we can’t access every day. 💖

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    1. Michele, I was very pleased when that little line came to me! Isn’t it true … all the fab things we do on vacation we try to replicate when we get home but it’s never quite the same. The only solution is to return the following year to re-capture the moment.

      So glad to know that line resonated with you as well! Thank you! ♡

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      1. Oh yes, so true. “Never quite the same” ~ Years ago I tried to recreate a delish dish I had in Albuquerque, with hatch chilis. Mine was fine but not the same, no. 😂 The many joys of trying and enjoying new experiences. ✨ You’re very welcome and thank you for the sweet read, full of beautiful imagery. 🥰🙏🏻

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  3. You’ve brought it all to life in this piece. I love the gentle nostalgia of it, and the richness of family and fun times along with details about Montauk’s history as well as special places from your times there, and the small things – the sand, the towels and umbrellas, the food. I can almost smell the ocean. 😊

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  5. I drove out on Long Island all of once — and it is lovely once you’re there.

    It was a short stay and clearly not long enough for me to remember it with the fondness of wanting to return. Maybe I needed to drive all the way to Montauk. Mostly I remember the god-awful traffic of getting onto the Long Island Expressway.

    You almost make me want to brave it again — to spend a week near a lighthouse, dipping my toes into the surf, and relaxing.

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    1. Haha! You sound like me; I drove to Staten Island twice, both times by accident! 😂

      The traffic on the LIE is dreadful but it’s bad everywhere these days. Too many cars on the road. Honestly, Sally, Montauk isn’t the same since covid when all the yuppies fled Manhattan and made the town party central. It’s now THE place to be and the prices are astronomical. Very sad. 😞

      To paraphrase Vito Corleone “Look what they did to my village”.

      Aim for another lighthouse; Sag Harbor is lovely!

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  10. very cool (the story and the experience)

    (small world dept: back in the day of commercial fishing, the Montauk light was one of the last signs of man on the trip out to Georges Bank)

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  15. Love the pace of this, Nancy: the tenuous start building up to the full-blown, fabulous family holidays.
    Such memories.
    A warm and comforting story, a fertile ground for good futures.

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    1. Thanks very much, Jenne.
      As the years went by, our boys grew up, got married and brought their own children to vacation with us. I daresay more than one grandbaby was conceived in Montauk!
      Vacations in paradise were some of the happiest times, ones I will always remember.

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