In a message dated 6/4/2002 6:53:46 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> Nope, wouldn't expect you to live in the Hamptons...but you should go out to
> dinner there sometime and tell us what a good time you had.

John,

Actually, the last Saturday I was at FBF in May I had a date to meet a writer
in Easthampton at a book signing (something about Chocolate for the Soul?),
but I remained happily camping instead. Driving, and parking, in the Hamptons
on the weekends is a pain.

Early when we moved out to the unHamptons we made a few forays into the
Hamptons -- something us lesser Western mortals are discouraged from doing --
particularly that we do not slum up the beaches. One evening in Westhampton,
we had gone to visit a nightclub (place was boring and we left within a half
hour -- the world is full of bored people looking for something fun to do,
and I think that sums up the Hamptons) I had this vision that we would park
the car on the main drag on Saturday nights and have our son sit on the hood
while Kathy & I read books. The idea being that we could use him as his own
bait to attract a wealthy girlfriend. That great vision lasted all of five
minutes. We prefer true love to money.

He did work two summers attending a parking lot at a beach club, arranged by
his not wealthy x-girlfriend (though she may have been something of a nut
case if that helps)... then he ended fixing computers for the owner's & their
friends. He also met an acquaintance of Camus there who would come around the
parking lot to talk. Unfortunate, I suppose, that anything my son learned
about Camus did not stick in my head, particulary when presented with
mother-loving quotes at especial dinner parties hosted by friends.

Memorial Day weekend I was sort of supposed to go out to the Hamptons to a
party with my son and his present smart-girlfriend at a friend of a friend's
house, a guy whose parents died and left him with acreage and a mansion, an
ocean worthy sailboat, and enough money that he does not have to do anything
but party. I was game for the adventure, expecting decadence ala Fitzgerald,
but the phone connections never came off and it sounded like potential
members of the party spent the weekend lost in teh ozone driving around LI.

We have neighbors, rough-neck motorcycle people who had a paying gig to dress
up in their biker garb and attend a party in the Hamptons as local color.
That was a party I would have liked to go to.

When I go out to the Montauk Lighthouse, which I am anticipating doing a bit
more often in future, I get to cross the Hamptons. I'll make sure, as per
your request, to find an adventure to report on. One thing REALLY cool about
the Hamptons, though, is the windmills. We have windmills and tidal mills
along the south shore.

Another thing cool is the layers of history. The NY SHPO had a map, as I
remember seeing somewhere, that located minute areas of archeological
significance from Riverhead to the East. The area was fully occupied by
Native Americans prior to the European invasion.

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