The Long Island Blog

Summer is in full swing. Heat, humidity, thunderstorms (luv them), beer, boats, bbq’s, beaches. And just when I thought it would last forever something happened to remind me that the end is just around the corner.

It was Saturday night. There were steaks on the grill and cocktails in hand when Karilyn mentioned that she had seen Halloween pumpkins and school supplies on sale at the store earlier in the day. Right then and there my summertime bubble burst. I felt as if someone woke me up during a really good dream.

School supplies? Pumpkins? Already? UGH!!

We spent a good half hour discussing how sick it is to have Halloween stuff in the stores at this time of year before resuming normal conversation.

On Sunday morning I found this poem taped to my office door.

On a quiet beach somewhere on Long Island’s north fork.

Passing Summer
by Karilyn Drago

Already shadows grow longer,
night falls more quickly
creeping up on me, as a lover from behind.
Tree frogs call to one another,
sing the melody while crickets chirp the backbeat
and the spider spins her silken web.

A hot July, air barely breathable,
gives way to these cool evenings
with August yet ahead.
It is a false promise, yet a welcome respite – lie to me.

Today I saw school supplies, pencils and notebooks, alongside pumpkins and scarecrows upon the shelf
whispering of cooler days to come.
Not yet, but soon.

I am not ready to concede, oh no, not yet.
Thirty days and more ‘til Labor Day.
It will be hot again.
Summer, firm in her grasp will claim me once more,
unwilling to yield to September and beyond.

I pour another glass of Chardonnay
and toast the summer stars
as they cling to the coal sky -
the overture -
before Cassiopeia and the golden leaves of her
evening gown.

If you were on Long Island yesterday afternoon you may have heard about the tornado warning and maybe even witnessed a severe summer squall blowing through your neighborhood.

We were sitting on the dock at the Snapper Inn enjoying cocktails and the shade provided by thick black clouds. They seemed to be north of us, so I figured whatever was coming would pound the north shore and leave us alone. How wrong I was.

At first there were only a few drops, then it started to rain hard enough for us to move from the dock to the tent. And then, within a matter of minutes the sky opened up and the wind started blowing. Really blowing… The winds even knocked down a tree on the grounds that had been toppled and saved 25 years ago in a different storm.

According to the National Weather Service the storm came through at 40 to 50 mph and produced wind gusts up to 60 mph. Based on what I saw I don’t doubt those numbers.

Here are some pictures…

Black clouds. Nothing to worry about...

A little rain.

The rain begins in earnest.

Visibility is reduced and the wind picks up.

Driving rain is blowing inside the tent; customers and staff race to close the panels.

Storm damage: Down for the second time in 25 years, this tree's trunk is now broken and cannot be saved.

Not long after the rain started, the skies cleared and the evening sun cast a golden glow on boats in the river.

After a long day slaving away at the computer I went out for some dinner at Kingston’s Clam Bar. It was very windy yesterday and along the way I encountered this dust blowing across a soccer field.

There was so much dust in the air my eyes were burning.

For dinner I had clams and oysters on the half shell followed by a plate of fried calamari, and all washed down with a couple of pints of Paulaner hefe-weizen, a summertime favorite beer.  (Sorry no pictures of dinner.)

After dinner I noticed the planet Venus shining brilliantly in the western sky. The picture just doesn’t do the scene justice, but I hope you get the idea of how beautiful it was.

Venus is the very bright “star” in the picture above. You can see the yellow glow of Kingston’s dining room to the right.

Blues skies, potted plants, and beach umbrellas are all signs of summer on Long Island. Lately, though, the weather hasn’t been summer-like at all.

With all the rain we’ve had it’s hard to get our hopes up, but let’s just hope that starting today, summer is finally here for good.

Here’s a YouTube video that I made while lamenting the end of summer. I’ll spare you the rant because I did that last year, but I like the video. Not so much the me part, but definitely the music.

“Sunday,” a melancholy instrumental from the album Great Balls of Fire Island, says more about that post Labor Day feeling than I could ever write.