A little west of the end of the world
When the school year came to a close my family loved nothing more than to pack everything up and drive to what they like to call the end of the world. Well technically, a little west of the end of the world. Before the newer generations got their hands on it, it was a decently reserved place, humbling really. The town was filled with small businesses, local surfers, and celebrities who wanted to hide in plain sight for the summer. Two weeks in and you already wanted to gag at the sight of a collared shirt or an obnoxiously patterned Lily Pulitzer dress. It wasn't strange if you ran into Alec Baldwin picking up his coffee at the local Starbucks or Gwyneth Paltrow holding up the car line taking an obscene amount of time saying goodbye to her kids at camp. We get it, you packed them vegan gluten-free chicken tenders for lunch in a sustainable container. We all are trying to reduce our carbon footprint by getting the fuck home, Gwyneth. Starstruck was not a word placed in this district's dictionary. Once you pass the welcome sign your car was wiped of any memory you had of a celebrity. Well, that's how it used to be. I am not in denial that this was an act of gentrification just reminiscent of a time when it was easier to say the words East Hampton without being ridiculed for it.
My whole family would drive out for the summer; it was a tradition. My mom was the youngest of 7. The age gap between my mother and her eldest brother consisted of 17 years and due to that age gap by the time my mom was 14 he was already having kids. The extended family just continued to overextend themselves, totaling in 30+ cousins and a lot of names for a new significant other to remember. There was and always is an event. Weekdays were for family dinners. Weekends were for extended family gatherings and Sunday nights were for Salad Bowl. Which is an intense and yet more complicated version of the game charades. It felt familiar, the air was easier to breathe. Maybe that's why people laughed harder and the nights went longer as couples would hog the checkerboard dance floor. The surrounding tables were filled with kids trying to catch a break from their parents who were overserved with expensive red wine and eventually escaped the beach where the wave crests were lit by the moon and the boys would give girls their blazers. There wasn't a sight of a phone. Mainly because the founding fathers of the beach clubs would roll over in their graves. But catching service was a game of cat and mouse as there's only one cell tower on the island. Yes, one cell tower. The common misconception about this part of Long Island is that there would need to be Cell phone service for all these well-established people to spend their days. Wouldn't they need to be of reach? All signs point to yes but the answer is they don't want to be. “Sorry I didn’t see this, I am out on Long Island.” became a rather redundant phrase to the finance companies and or large conglomerates of the big apple. It was a perfect excuse to escape the day golfing with your buddies rather than sitting by your email all day. As for years this has been an opposing argument, the locals have voted against building more cellular towers and yet still beg for communication. Its always been a very grass is always greener type of community.
A smaller sub town just a half a mile from the main happenings of east hampton lies where I spent the first 10 summers of my life. The houses were further apart and almost all gated implying they requested that privacy. It was something I was accustomed to. I mean people living behind curtains. It refused to bother me as I knew their lack of authenticity comforted them. My house was invisible from the street, a long driveway swallowed in trees. It was probably my parents' marital struggles that they were trying to keep concealed. My father resented my mother for dragging us out there every summer. He associated it with materialism and the 1% which never felt natural to him. He felt as if he was playing a role and that the clothes were slightly too small and the shoes too uncomfortable. The smile too… how do you say? Fake. It never suited him and therefore we hid. Quite a juxtaposition because the house was the epitome of light. High ceilings, white walls, furniture that looked too pristine to sit on. There was a room for couches we could rest on and that was behind multiple doors. Climbing up one flight of stairs, walk down a hallway, and turn right. A spiral staircase that might give you a minor asthma attack will lead you to the lighthouse. Which resembled nothing of the sorts, it was a 360 rooftop deck with a view of the ocean and it was just high enough to eavesdrop into the neighbors' dinner conversations that echoed in the empty space.
The air whistled sweet gossip as the Fahrenheit would fluctuate. Mothers liked to critique other people's daughters and you would not get through lunch without some sort of familial drama. Passive aggressiveness was a love language and gifts were a form of forgiveness. The offsprings of these self-proclaimed adults liked to take a load off at the beach bar where they would order a few south-sides with floaters and get slightly drunk enough to take a nap on the sand, wake up and rotate. When their freckles came out of hibernation and they were the right amount of crisp to still tell their Upper East Side dermatologists they wore SPF, they would continue the night at a local bar by the name of Stephen Talkhouse. An ordinary dive bar from the outside but a stage that held Mick Jagger, Van Morrison, Billy Joel. The list could go on. That was before it became commercialized and the cover increased to a whopping $50. The teenagers would stumble into the snack bar the next morning, order a horrific amount of fries, and gab on about their Talkhouse Endeavours. Their ears must have been blown out by the speakers at the volume they always talked. My friends would anxiously await as it seemed to be a right of passage amongst the generations. I was unaware that when you fast forward 10 years everything becomes extremely popular. Luckily, I know a guy who knows a guy.
There was always an overwhelming amount of adult language at the kid’s table which is probably why we felt like we could've been cast for the movie 13 going on 30. By the time we were 10 we knew enough corporate jargon to join the business field. As the adult table constantly looked like it required a mediator and maybe we should think about moving it away from the pool before someone gets pushed in. Apologies were always said before dessert but if the altercation was severe, it was smoothed over with brunch the next morning.
Works Cited
“Peter Honerkamp Ready To Mark 30 Years Owning The Stephen Talkhouse.” 27 East, 4 July 2019, www.27east.com/arts/peter-honerkamp-ready-to-mark-30-years-owning-the-stephen-talkhouse-1334309/#:~:text=Since then, 55 Rock & Roll,Famers Taj Mahal, and Coldplay.
Walsh, Christopher. “Neighbors Object to Springs Cellphone Tower Plan.” Neighbors Object to Springs Cellphone Tower Plan | The East Hampton Star, www.easthamptonstar.com/government/2021722/neighbors-object-to-springs-cellphone-tower-plan.