July 4th
Laura and I went to Montauk for the weekend. It was beautiful - a place that I would heartily recommend, and be happy to return to again and again. Montauk is the first northern beach town that reminds me of Florida, although I found the idea of snow on the sand during the winter to be pretty weird. I had never been to Montauk, although it has been on my wishlist ever since I was a copy editor at The New York Times, and had to edit endless articles about weekend getaways to Long Island for their computer news service. The town is organized pretty well. The shoplets are in the center, hotel gulch, where we stayed, is on the Atlantic Ocean side, and the snooty Hamptons area is on the Long Island Sound side. At the very tip of Montauk, the very end of Long Island, is the giant Montauk Point State Park, home of the famous Montauk Lighthouse. The park is completely undeveloped, and it’s a marvelous 12-mile bike ride from hotel gulch and back.
We went to a “books by the pound” sale. I looked and looked and looked, and found a short novel by Yukio Mishima. Meanwhile, Laura’s bag bulged with a dozen books. I felt like such a philistine, I revisited a couple of books that I had almost picked up. I read The Women’s Room many years ago, and it made me very angry. But the feminist issues that the book addresses now seem to be rather quaint complaints. If I had to choose a good angry feminist theme today it would probably be along the lines of “I am not your fantasy.” So I chose Caucasia instead, a novel about racial identity. It was pretty good.
We went to Kenny’s fabulous Fourth of July party on Monday. There were about 500 people this year - poor Kenny. The fireworks were fantastic, though.
Rarrrrrrrrrrh! Chomp. Garrrrrrrrrrrrrh! Chomp
The Atlantic Ocean is quite angry. I bought a boogie board, but did not get a chance to use it.
Beware those ocean-front homes
The storms will gitcha.
You’re just a memory of a love that used to mean so much to me
Yes, it’s *that* Memory Motel. It’s on the ocean, I guess you know it well.
We stayed at a hotel named after a different song
The Born Free Hotel was actually quite nice, and very pet friendly. Several little dogs sat outside on the porch with their families. I wished that scrunch_the_cat liked to travel.
Montauk Lighthouse
Lighthouse view
The Montauk coast is quite beautiful
Lighthouse lamp
They actually use a 50-watt bulb in the Montauk Lighthouse. It’s all about the construction of the lamp, which reflects the light.
