Homeless in the Hamptons

 

Homeless in the Hamptons

One Friday in 1962 my buddy, Jamie Quinn and I decided to go to Montauk Point in his early Ford fat-fendered pickup truck. We both worked together at Seymour's BoatYard and it seemed like a pretty solid plan that was hatched about an hour before quitting time that warm summer afternoon.

Let's see........ operator's license? No that wouldn't be necessary, he had a junior
operator's license which qualified him for daylight driving. The trip was about ninety miles, but at the speeds we were used to traveling, we should easily be there well before dark. We would make a weekend of it and be home by late Sunday. I had no license at all so, I would be the map reader, or “Davert the Navigator” as I was called. His truck was a raw example of power with a large V-8 engine from a later model Buick and straight exhaust stacks that terminated by the side windows, next to our ears. Not to worry, it was summer, and we were sixteen!

More about this truck: As young teenagers, our peer group was preoccupied by the idea of “cruising” in this overpowered hot rod and often used it to haul junk, trash and garbage to the dump in East Northport. It was our source of gas money. In those days, we called it like it was; a dump. Nowadays, it would be referred to as a landfill and I suppose the landfill operators are some kind of engineers now. Things seem to change for the purpose of developing maximum revenue. Anyway, this truck with the four bald tires it was what we hung our hat on that weekend.

At four-thirty, quitting time arrived and we were on the road by four-thirty-one, Jamie was jamming gears, stacks-a blowing, engine whining and we were off! Somewhere between Northport and Montauk, we stopped for dinner at a greasy “joint” where they served hamburgers, coffee and the like. Claude King's 1962 hit, “Wolverton Mountain” was emanating from the Wurlitzer jukebox. Funny how music provides a time freeze-frame. In my mind's eye, I can still see that place with the chrome edged Naugahyde stools.

A full belly and.....back on the road again. We made it to Montauk Point as planned, before sundown and my cohort decided that his truck would make a great beach buggy, so he drove it out onto the sand at the point. As it turned out those bald tires didn't do well and the truck became entombed in the sand immediately. Not to worry, he let most of the air out of the rear tires and like magic, the truck climbed out of it's hole and back onto the pavement. We headed back out on the highway, but the tires were nearly flat, so we found the nearest air source and pumped them back up. A quick stop for cigarettes and the battery went dead. Not to worry, we pushed it to a roll and popped the clutch, a starting method we were very familiar with. By now, night was beginning to fall, so we decided to head back east until we found a good spot to set up camp for the night.

Quogue.......... It's a place on the south shore of Long Island that most people had never heard of back in 1962. Situated in “The Hamptons”, this little hamlet would do just fine for our overnight stay. Now, the trick was to find a nice spot to pull over. We found that spot in an oceanfront motel parking lot and pulled up as close to the ocean as we could and killed those loud exhaust stacks. The gentle ocean breezes floated by as we bedded down for the night in the back of that old truck without a care in the world.

I was awakened sometime during the night, not by the motel owner, not by the police, but by the truck bugs! This same truck we had used to haul garbage and trash to the East Northport dump, now our place of peaceful slumber, had become a nightmare of truck bugs! When I was a little boy, I was told that the boogie man would get me but I never envisioned the truck bugs! It was a lesson in cross contamination but even then, I'm not sure we connected all the dots. We suffered through the night with the truck bugs and by dawn's early light things began to look a little better. What could be better than a swim in the Atlantic Ocean at dawn? Down the beach we ran and dove into the waves right in front of that motel. We had partaken of this million dollar location all night long and now we were using the beach, all free of charge of course.

When we had finished swimming, we pushed the truck to another start, fired off those loud, belching exhaust stacks and found our way to breakfast. I guess we may have spent a sum total of ten dollars or less for the whole trip, including fuel. Today of course, this type of behavior would bring vagrancy charges.

The year was 1962 and with spiritual reverence I recall that just for a weekend, we were “Homeless in the Hamptons”. It's a snapshot in time that we will never experience again. Long before Billy Joel ever arrived at that prestigious zip code, we were in a “New York State of Mind”.