Then I recoil.
It’s nostalgia.
For Long Island?
I’m experiencing the graduation effect, discussed in such shows as How I Met Your Mother and capitalized upon by such musicians as Vitamin C. Now that our departure is imminent, I’m becoming sentimental and, against all odds, developing a fondness for that which I so recently found distasteful. I suddenly admire the tenacity of the shirtless man who screams on our corner, the holiday cheer of the house decorated for Christmas all year long, the earthy scent of dog poo from the lawns of our eight immediate neighbors. I applaud the convenience of nearby highways and strip mall offerings. I discover that relentless traffic affords us time to contemplate life’s great mysteries, and I find the excessive honking of impatient drivers is not a symptom rage, but of passion.
I decide that the carrot glow of a fake tan in February is an iconic cultural beauty.
And why not award the word “dog” two syllables? It’s a good word; let it last!
If I’m applying such a sheen to the aspects of Long Island I once spurned, you can imagine how I feel about the parts I’ve always appreciated:
Pizza sauce has never been tangier, and its cheese is the perfect creamy compliment to the light salt and yeast of the dough. The ideal marriage of fat, carbs, and pureed tomato. Yum.
The untouched dunes of Robert Moses State Park are a natural wonder; I marvel at the landscape: plumes of sea grass sprout from the sands, the cobalt sea rushes against the shore in frothy licks and sparkles beneath the sun, as if its surface is encrusted with diamonds. All this, beneath an endless cerulean sky.
When we attend a Billy Joel cover band concert, I feel united with the crowd as we sway to the crooning of “Piano Man” or bounce to the beat of “You May Be Right.” The ‘sweet romantic nights’ he refers to in “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” occurred just thirty minutes away from where we stand! We are so proud of our Billy, an accomplished product of this paved island. He, along with so many other entertainment treasures, are our exalted alumni: Jerry Seinfeld, Rodney Dangerfield, the Baldwin brothers, Mariah Carey, Billy Crystal, Kevin James, Eddie Murphy, Pat Benatar, and Francis Ford Coppola. These artists are our graduated peers, the upperclassmen whose legends echo in the aisles of King Kullen, ping off the concrete of the expressway overpasses, and reverberate in the train cars of the Long Island Railroad. Their creative genius was nurtured on the very grounds on which we honk, and they left the island inspired.
Now that we, too, are departing, I can only hope that maybe, just maybe, so can we.
