The House on the Knoll

                                                                The House on the Knoll

A stroll down Northport's memory lane takes us to the "House on the Knoll". It was located on the southeast corner of the infamous "S" turn on Waterside Avenue. It burned down sometime in the 60's and has never been replaced. Today, a stand of woods occupies the foundation footprint. Many auto accidents occurred here from young adults who were racing down Waterside, many of whom were coming from the Post Tavern after tipping a few too many. I know, my father replaced the mailbox there more than once. The address was simply RFD #1, Northport NY. Try to get a letter delivered today with an address like that. It truly was a time when "everybody knew your name".

Our family lived there from 1952 to 1954 and it was the beginning of my innocence lost, a last vision of Santa Claus. Our "neighbor", Marcus (Butch) O'Sullivan was the bearer of reality. He was a kind of free soul and did not engage in such ridiculous fantasies. Other "neighbors" (this was a rural environment) included The Cadbys, Lincoln Anderson, The Lupones, Doug Stone, Leslie McGuire, The Hatfields, The Goshens and the Rucks to name a few. Our school bus was a green one (bus #1), the only one in Union Free School District #4 that was green at the time, as the standard yellow busses had just come into service and ours would soon go into mothballs. I think it was a REO and it had a real loud transmission (typical of standard shift trucks in the forties). Our bus driver was Ralph Skidmore and he had a very shaky hand due to Parkinson's disease which he pretty much ignored. He was also a very accomplished wood worker, using dangerous power tools such as a table saw with that shaky hand. In those days people just did what they had to do and didn't whine about it.

Our next door neighbor to the "House on the Knoll" was and cranky old coot by the name of Mr. Manker who owned the Manker Estate. He was reputed to be a millionaire at the time and had a beautiful mansion on the hill with a large pond in the "bottom land" (where we poor-folk lived). He also drove a Ford wooden bodied Estate Wagon with monogram lettering on the doors. Anyone who could afford such luxury certainly was a millionaire. He was Hell on trespassing and came over to see my mother a time or two regarding the trespass behavior of myself and my brother, Steve. He later sold the estate to the Cadby's who were much more sociable and we used to visit with Hillary and Sheila Cadby in the beautiful "Mansion". Hillary later changed her last name to Hart, but I never knew why.

It was a youthful time of climbing trees, cowboys and Indians and discovery. We got our first TV and our first vacuum cleaner while living there. Mom and Dad had discovered the age of electronics at a place way out on Jericho Turnpike called "Friendly Frost". Popular TV shows were, of course Howdy Doody, Captain Video, The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, Superman, Ozzie and Harriet and a curiously inconspicuous little show called "Filbert The Flea". We loved "Filbert the Flea" but were probably the only viewers. I don't think the show lasted very long. Some of the television sponsors of the time were Ovaltine and Kent cigarettes with their revolutionary "Micronite Filter". Those cigarettes were often recommended by doctors! No wonder we all smoked like chimneys! The TV weather forecast came to us from a man named Tex Antoine who called himself "Uncle Weatherbee". He was a sketch artist who worked with an easel to illustrate the coming weather with smiley suns and frowning clouds.

There was a darker side to the "House on the Knoll". There was a legend that ta woman drowned in the pond next door (Manker's Pond, behind the barbed wire fence). My mother had always talked about cool "pockets" of air between the house and the car. She said that it was a "haunting" feeling and often times felt uneasy when walking from the house to the car (near the pond). At the time, we didn't pay it much mind. Maybe she had the ability to feel something that we couldn't.

In October of 2000, my wife and I made the Pilgrimage back to our roots in Northport and in the woods on this very site, I located the old foundation and actually found the kitchen sink waste pipe that went into the ground where the kitchen sink once stood. It was, alas humbling to stand where my mother washed our dishes and prepared our meals as she nurtured our family a half century earlier in these modest surroundings that were my beginnings. She passed on in 1999, but much of her I carry with me today in my thoughts and memories of what was once "The "House on the Knoll"