Still in the Hamptons by Dan Rattiner

Author:Dan Rattiner [Rattiner, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Rich & Famous, History, United States, State & Local, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA)
ISBN: 9781438444147
Google: b7vX_xNKDU0C
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2012-07-25T04:00:19+00:00

Lillywhite's

Late in the afternoon on a bright, bitter-cold December day in 1986, I was driving on a my family slowly home from Bridgehampton in a big old Volkswagen camper bus with a Christmas tree on the roof. A huge snowstorm had come through the day before, and although the streets had now been plowed, there were great dunes of snow on both sides of the highway remaining, glittering in the sun.

We entered East Hampton from the west, driving down Woods Lane under the great arch of the snow-covered elm trees, and where the road made the sharp turn to the left to get onto Main Street, I came to a complete stop. Just to the right was Town Pond, all iced over. Out the window I could see hundreds of children and parents, all bundled up in brightly colored snowsuits and hats, either walking awkwardly or gliding along on ice skates. Everyone was talking and chattering happily.

“Daddy, Daddy stop the car!”

“I know! I know! That's why we're here!” I said.

And of course, this was the next thing on my plan for the day. We'd stay there skating, and then, at sunset, walk across the street to the Maidstone Arms and attend the annual tree lighting and Christmas caroling on the inn's snowy front lawn.

Cars were parked every which way by the side of the road.

“There's a spot,” my wife said.

The kids weren't even going to wait for us. Grabbing their skates, they tumbled out of the car as soon as it came to a stop and were off crunching through the snow to immediately disappear into the mass of people on the ice.

“They're fine,” my wife said. And now she was off, too.

About an hour went by. The sun began to set. I spent some of the time skating and some of the time sitting in the van with the heat on, such as it was. I was forty-five years old and now discovering physical limitations. I needed the breaks.

In those days, Volkswagen heating systems consisted of metal flaps that opened up as you drove along, so the wind could flow over the heated engine and into the cockpit. Parking with the engine on for heat was really just a symbolic activity.

I watched from the car at dusk, and as the spotlights mounted up in the elms around the pond came on there was something new happening on the ice. It was a full-bore hockey game, led by some of the bigger kids. A frozen outfall pipe, defined by two concrete walls at one end of the pond, served as a goal. A thirteen-year-old, crouching in front of it with his stick ready, prowled from side to side, guarding it.

For a while, this hockey game mixed dangerously with the little kids still on the ice. The puck flew here and there. The big kids chased it, carefully picking their way through the little kids. But then, the little kids, at the urging of their parents, were beginning to leave. Meanwhile,

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