Ode to Pete Young

 Ode to Pete Young

It's hard to believe that Pete is gone. Before I am gone myself, want to make a tribute to my old friend, Pete Young……..

I met Pete through a group of friends that frequented Seymour’s Boat Yard, around 1961 or so. Pete’s dad, John Young was a one-time dock manager at Seymour’s and had left to open the Harbor Marine Sports Store at the corner of Bayview Ave. and Main St. He was a good friend to all of us no-counts who regularly gathered at his store for a visit. He allowed us to call him “John” and to we 15 year olds, it was validation that we were adults (even though we weren’t). The players in this group were Pete, Myself, Jimmy Ball and Jamie Quinn. At the time, we each had our own powerboats and Pete (or Yuk as we called him) was no exception. We painted them all the same color (light blue with white trim) and Pete applied his artistic hand on the sides of our boats with our club name, “The Cavitators”. Cavitation is a phenomenon in which rapid changes of pressure in a liquid lead to the formation of small vapor-filled cavities, in places where the pressure is relatively low. When subjected to higher pressure, these cavities, called "bubbles" or "voids", collapse and can generate an intense shock wave. In our case, the voids occurred around the propeller which caused the engine to rev significantly. Making your outboard engine cavitate was the marine equivalent of hot rodders “leaving rubber” on the streets. We generally tore up the water ways, much to the chagrin of Dexter Seymour, Jamie’s grandfather who owned Seymour’s Boat Yard and ironically, was the Harbormaster.

The following year, 1962 ushered in a new era of hooligan behavior when Jamie became the first in our group to be accepted by the DMV licensing division and we all took to the road in Jamie’s hot rod ‘48 Ford truck. The four of us piled into that old pickup truck like sardines and boldly careened around Northport and East Northport hurling cat calls at the fair sex on the sidewalks and generally making fools of ourselves the way young punks do. I remember one time, Jamie threw me the keys to the truck and said “hey Bruyn, take the truck for a spin”. The fact that I had no license was of little importance to me, so Pete and I got in the truck and took off on a joy ride. On return, coming down the steep hill of Lewis Road became a wild adventure when I applied the brake and my foot fell to the floor. I knew enough to downshift so I did, managing to slow down to about 30 miles per hour but as we approached the bottom of the hill, I realized this was going to be a white-knuckle turn. Somehow, we made it onto Bayview and luckily, no traffic was coming. I parked the truck at Seymour’s and gave Quinn his keys back. Jamie said “you dumb-ass, you should have pumped the fuckin’ brakes”. Like so many things in life, hindsight is 20/20.

By early in 1963, I passed my road test (after three tries) and became a legal driver. My first car would soon follow, a ‘56 Chevy with all the cool stuff which blinded me to the fact that it was a major oil burner, exactly what my dad told me to avoid when buying a car. So, at age 17, it seemed to me that performing a ring job would be an easy enough thing to do. But where? We lived in an apartment. Pete was happy to volunteer his dad’s garage for the operation. I had no mechanical experience but not to worry, Pete would be our guide! His dad, John had a different view. He didn’t mind letting me use the garage, but he told me Pete was only good at disassembling cars; in other words, he was a “junk man”. Undaunted we set out to do this over the Easter vacation of 1963 which was about two weeks and as it turned out, we needed all of it. I borrowed some specialty tools from the auto shop teacher, Mr. Phillips and we spent every minute of every day working on this car. Pete’s dad (John Young) would come home from work each day and just shake his head. I can still recall some of the music on our shop radio. Andy Williams “Can't Get Used to Losing You” and the Chiffons “He’s So Fine”. After two weeks of dawn to dusk dedication, we finally were victorious and all of Pete’s Hot Rod Magazine education paid off. I would have many hours of “happy motoring” until a larger engine caught my interest, but that is another story.

Then there was the famous (or infamous) camping trip at Colonial Sand and Gravel, a dredging site the north side of the Asharoken isthmus. In those days, camping certainly did not mean camping; it was a euphemism for a “drink-out” and we were onboard. This particular “camping trip” started downtown on Main St. where we found someone old enough who was willing to buy us beer……..a case of it. The plan was simple; just carry the beer by foot down to Colonial Sand and Gravel, a laborious trek by any measure. We chose the route as “the crow flies” which took us across Steers Sand Pit, over hill and over dale. A case of beer gets pretty heavy after awhile so we passed the load back and forth. We finally did arrive at the “camp site” on an entrance channel off of Long Island Sound and planted the beer in the water to keep it cool. As we finished putting it in nature’s cooler, we saw a large tugboat under a full head of steam, plowing up ocean sized rollers as it approached the channel. We quickly jumped in the water to surf those big rollers. Our drink-out was starting off with a whole lot of fun written all over it! But not so fast! When the rollers had dissipated and the Tugboat slowed down to make it’s landing, our thoughts turned to opening a brew but we discovered that the rollers had washed our beer into the channel and all 24 cans were gone. We launched a Search and Recovery Operation but never found even one. Now we had to deal with the thought of camping all night without any beer.

We lit a campfire and began to tell campfire stories. The real scary kind like the hatchet murderer on Scudder Ave. who was never found. Vegetation in that sand environment was just dead trees with no leaves and Pete’s naturally deep-set eyes by the flickering fire light became the marquee for his horror tale. Each of us took our turn in relaying stories like the “hook man” and tales of escapees from the nut-house. We all scared the Hell out of ourselves, and nobody slept that night…..at all. There seems to be a thrill of some kind for kids of that age to dabble in the subject of horror and that night was more memorable than if our beer had not been washed away.

Pete had an artistic flare and he expressed it by making airbrush “weirdo tee shirts”. He made me several and as I remember, one of his favorite characters was that of “Hiram”. This character rode in a ‘32 Ford roadster with a ridiculously large engine from which he would cook a hot dog on the exhaust manifold as he drove. Hiram also had a hypodermic needle sticking out of his head. I understand Pete used his talent to become a commercial artist.

We remained friends for some time, well into 1963 but the natural effect of new interests became reality. For me, it was the young ladies. It always seemed to be a deal breaker for old friends. My interest in one particular young lady could be construed as tunnel vision and I saw her to the exclusion of just about everyone. In time, Pete went one way and I another, normal attrition to be expected with growing up. I did talk to him on the phone in year 2000 and he was tentatively making plans to come to a reunion in St. Augustine, but he had to beg off due to family constraints. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to see him, but I’m sure glad I got to talk to him. To Pete, I dedicate this little slice of life from the early 60’s. Sail on, old friend!