Very interesting to learn. I wish I could make a trip back and explore the Island again. I used to go fishing with my father to so many spots on both the north and south shore but I was young and paid little attention to geography.

One of my best childhood memories is of spending a week at the home of my parents' friends right on the water in Shinnecock, just east of the canal. I've tried looking on Google Earth to find that house. I'm sure it was south of Montauk Highway, as it was right on the beach with a dock into the bay. It was small and older, but paradise to me. Google Earth seems to make a turn right where I think that house should be, and does not photograph the houses right on the water. I would imagine the house is no longer there, no doubt replaced by something newer. I wonder what Hurricane Sandy did to that beachfront. I've tried to find the children of the family who are about my age, but to no avail. Memories of Long Island will always be my happy place.

In 1928 my maternal grandparents bought a house on W.36th St. in Coney Island. It had been formerly owned by my grandmother's brother, so the family had been in Coney Island a while. My mother was a Coney Island girl, and I was born in Sea Gate. Tho we lived in Bensonhurst for 12 years, we were at my Grandma's every week, and also at the homes of my parents' friends who were all in Sea Gate. I spent the next 6 years right on the beach in Rockaway. I'm 12 miles from the beach now, the farthest I've ever lived away from the water. Had I listened to Bob who came from Dana Point I would have been down at the beach for the past 50 years, but I had roots already sunk deep in the Valley. So here I sit with scorpions, rattlers, tarantulas all while the mournful sound of bell buoys in the fog echos in my heart.