Written for Song Lyric Sunday –
Inescapable Concept of Time.
Here’s how the theme inspired me.
Tag: Montauk
Bug Off!
Written for John Holton’s Writer’s Workshop
for the week of February 13-20 in response
to his prompt: Tell us about an encounter
with a bee or wasp (or hornet). Here’s my story.
Storm Front
Today in Jim Adams’ post entitled ‘The Seven Seas’,
he has asked us to write about a song that features nautical
terms, words connected with ships, sailing or navigation.
Written for Song Lyric Sunday, this is my choice.
Paradise Found
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.
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 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.
THE BIG STING
Open a map of New York, go as far east as possible and you’ll find the town of Montauk – a laid-back fishing village kissing the Atlantic Ocean. I lived there for the first 18 years of my life with my brother and parents before heading off to college.
Winters were harsh and barren, a sharp contrast to the summers teeming with tourists escaping the cramped and sweaty streets of Manhattan in search of the perfect wave, the perfect tan and the perfect lobster roll. Springtime in Montauk is mesmerizing with trees budding, flowers sprouting up through the ground and the delicious smell of the ocean. We’d keep the windows open at night and fall asleep to the sound of the waves.
Our house was off the beaten path, with only two neighbors within walking distance. In the house on the left lived a young couple with rambunctious five year old triplets: Timothy, Thomas and Theodore – ‘The Terrorizing Trio’. Befitting their status as triplets, the boys had identical mountain bikes – one red, one blue, one green – which they rode with wild abandon on the dirt road, through our back yards and down to the beach.
Our neighbor on the right was the usually phlegmatic Doctor MacGregor – never-married, retired history professor-turned-nature-enthusiast. He was particularly particular about the upkeep of his yard and the glorious profusion of flowers attracting all varieties of birds and insects. His pride and joy was a tall redwood apiary which housed eight honeycomb trays. Inside reigned the queen, surrounded by her working and droning subjects. Mac, our secret nickname for the professor, would don his protective gear every day and inspect the hives and the honey production, all the while puttering and muttering, making sure everything was as it should be.
And it always was …. except for THAT day when mom happened to be outside hanging the laundry; she looked up at the sky and saw a huge black swarm rapidly approaching. Mom ran into the house and yelled for us to “close all the windows and doors”; we watched anxiously as thousands of buzzing bees hovered over our house, took a sharp turn and headed straight for town. After the bees took off, we were shocked to hear the usually mild-mannered Mac angrily shouting and cursing; we ran over to see what had gotten him all riled up.
Trevor, the triplet’s father, raced over from the other direction to see what all the commotion was about. We all arrived at the professor’s yard at the same time to discover a disheveled and blustering Mac wandering around the remnants of his beloved apiary. Splintered pieces lay in a heap on the ground, the redwood gouged and marred with clearly visible traces of blue, red and green paint. Trevor groaned audibly and raced out of Mac’s yard toward his own house, yelling out the triplet’s names as he ran. It was obvious they had crashed their bikes into the apiary and were probably hiding from the inevitable fallout.
As we silently helped Mac clean up the mess, we became aware of screaming and shouting off in the distance; it was coming from the village as horrified townsfolk ran for cover from the angrily stinging horde of bees.
It took a long time for the residents of normally tranquil Montauk to settle down after that day; the only one who benefited from the bee attack was the town G.P., who was kept busy tending sting after sting after sting.
As for Timothy, Thomas and Theodore …. they were found hiding behind their garage crying and covered from head to toe in bee stings. The boys were in a lot of discomfort (not to mention trouble). Trevor felt sorry for his sons and he was not unsympathetic but the triplets needed to be punished for the damage to Mac’s apiary. They were grounded for three weeks – one week for each boy – and their scraped bicycles were temporarily locked away in the shed.
As for Professor MacGregor …. he’s taken up birdwatching.
NAR © 2023
Join me today
for the third installment of
I’m With The Banned.
It’s a good one today!
https://rhythmsection.blog/
THE WALK
One day while on vacation in Montauk, we watched as a woman emerged from her hotel room. She told her young son she was going for a walk by the ocean and to stay with the other kids by the pool. We said we’d keep an eye on the boy and she murmured her thanks. The boy watched his mother walk down the beach until she disappeared behind a sand dune.
Some time later, the boy jumped up yelling “Where’s my mom?! I can’t see my mom!” The boy became frantic and ran toward the beach. Families followed, scouring the area with binoculars. Lifeguards, police and the Coast Guard were called and searched until dark when the hunt was postponed until morning. Jeff and Nina Morgan, the hotel owners, comforted the boy and watched him overnight.
At dawn the search began again. In the afternoon, the woman’s clothes were found about a mile away, neatly folded and almost completely buried in the sand. Beachgoers and boaters were questioned and a helicopter surveyed the ocean with no luck. The mission was halted. When the police talked to the boy, he tearfully explained that his dad was gone and his mom was very sad. We all had the same dreadful thought: suicide.
The boy told the police his name and address; a few phone calls were made, unanswered questions resolved. The father had abused his wife and son, beating the boy terribly. To save her son, the mother attacked the father, hitting him over the head with a fireplace poker, killing him. The boy said his mother cried for the healing waters of Montauk. He had no relatives and after petitioning the courts, the Morgans were granted custody.
The disappearance of the woman was a ghastly experience for everyone yet most of us returned to the hotel the following summer, I think in part to check on the boy. We learned his name was Tobias but the Morgans called him Toby.
We were delighted to see he was physically thriving under the loving care of his adopted family but the emotional scars were deep. And every day Toby would walk down the beach to where the water meets the sand and stare off at the footprints in the distance.
NAR © 2023
The Elephant's Trunk 