I Think Thomas Wolfe Had This Place in Mind!

“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Saturday March 21, 2015

Sunny 77°F/25°C in Rancho Santa Margarita

Buongiorno,

  To me, it stands to reason that anyone contemplating a return to their home town after a long absence will reflect on Thomas Wolfe’s line, You can’t go home again!

No Going Home Here

Forty five years after I graduated from high school, and thirty four entire years since I had even ventured back to my home town, I received an invitation to a class reunion. I opened the envelope, read it, and tossed it on my desk. What’s that, dad? My son, Mike, asked.  I showed it to him. You’re going, right? I stared at him. Of course, you’re going, dad, and you’re taking me with you. I've never seen where you and Uncle Packy grew up. With that bit of prodding, I made the reservations.

Downtown Riverhead

   To reach the town that I grew up in, Riverhead, Long Island, you’ll deplane at either JFK or La Guardia, maybe even Islip and take the Long Island Expressway east from New York City for a couple of hours until the Expressway ends. At the Expressway’s end you’ll drop onto New York State Highway 25, known to the locals as West Main Street. Go over the railroad tracks and keep going past the sign that reads, Welcome to Riverhead – Gateway to the Hamptons.  The big red brick building on the left is the Suffolk County Historical Society, right near the old Henry Perkins Hotel which is now a residence for senior citizens. But, in its day, it was Riverhead’s “happening place.” Just ahead, Roanoke Avenue veers off to the left. Peconic Avenue is a right turn, just past the Chase Bank at the corner. I remember when it used to be the Riverhead Savings Bank, and a crazy old lady named Amorette used to stand on the corner by the big clock, waving and greeting passersby and doing her part to help the cop on the corner direct traffic. (Main Street photos from Google Earth).  

Local Landmark- The Big Duck

   Except for my brother’s college graduation in 1969, I hadn’t set foot in the old hometown since high school. And now, in 2003, if it hadn’t been for my son, I may never have gone back. Back when I was growing up here, Riverhead was a bustling farming community on the edge of a famous resort area – The Hamptons. The big crops were: Long Island Potatoes, Long Island Cauliflower, and, of course, Long Island Duck. There’s still a great big concrete duck out on Flanders Road. It used to be a poultry store. Now it’s a museum and gift shop devoted to all things that go quack. And in an area where there used to be dozens of duck farms, there is only one left, out in Aquebogue where we had lived right after World War 2. The primary crops these days are wine grapes. Blight took care of the potatoes decades ago. Downtown shows its wear and tear and is obviously struggling to make a comeback from the urbanization that decimated small towns all over the country. Riverhead is still the county seat. But, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s “One Man One Vote” ruling back in the ‘60s, political power shifted west to the more populous areas closer to New York City. The Grumman aircraft factory that sprang up in the ‘50s in Calverton to the west of downtown provided thousands of high tech jobs until the Cold War ended.

  Further east, we see the newly restored Suffolk Theater on the left, and the Atlantis Aquarium on the right.

Tuthill Funeral Home

We pass the Tuthill Funeral Home on the left. Both my parents’ funerals were there. Mom died in 1961 from breast cancer. Dad died four years later. A stroke, the doctor said, but, I knew it was from a broken heart. Continuing east, we cross the Long Island Railroad tracks again. The line goes all the way out to Greenport. On the left is an old apartment house that my folks lived in when they first moved here in 1940. Further down on the left is our old house, at 810 East Main Street, the one where I spent most of my growing-up years. It’s been an office building since we sold it after dad died in 1965.

Where Packy and I Grew Up

  From here it’s an easy drive out Main Street to the junction of County Route 58, where East Main Street becomes Main Road through Aquebogue, Jamesport and on to Mattituck and Southold. It’s this stretch of highway that Thomas Wolfe had in mind when he said what he did, because the Old Aldrich Home, the eleven room mansion that we lived in when my folks first came back to Riverhead after World War 2 is now a derelict leftover from better times, abandoned lo, these many years and left to crumble as the years pass by. We pass this splendid ruin on our way down the road to the Modern Snack Bar. I am shocked by the sight of it, and a wave of sadness overwhelms me.  This is where we lived when my little brother took his first steps.

Charles "Packy" Botula - First Steps 1946

I started in the first grade at Aquebogue Elementary School, just a short walk past Downs General Store and Post Office. The house was once owned by the Aldrich family, very well known in these parts. It was built in 1873 when sailing ships still outnumbered the steam-powered craft in the waters around Long Island. In fact, the legend was that it was built by a sea captain named Aldrich who designed the home to provide a high vantage point at the top so his wife could look out to the bay nearby and catch a glimpse of her husband’s sail. In fact it was built by John Elliot Aldrich who crafted homes for the rich and famous, and was about to start construction on a summer home for railroad magnate E.H. Harriman, when he died in 1906.  So, it may be that Aldrich, the builder, crafted the mansion for a prosperous sea captain. No matter how it’s told, it’s a good story.

Mike and Packy Botula 1946

  My folks faced some tough times during that period. Post-war housing was extremely scarce. America was being challenged finding jobs and homes for all those returning veterans and their new families. Years of war-time privation left an almost uncontrollable desire to buy things. Dad would often tell the story about how the family moved five times in eleven months right after the war. During 1946 and 1947 the only places for rent were vacation rentals, summer bungalows that weren't designed for year around living. No insulation. No central heating or air conditioning. But somehow we did it. Mattituck, Jamesport, Aquebogue. In Jamesport we didn't even have a fridge. The ice man would deliver ice for the icebox twice a week and Packy and I would get our baths in an old Wheeling galvanized wash tub with water heated on the stove. We stayed in each place for a few months at a time. Then, fortune smiled and the house on East Main Street became our home until our parents died in the 1960s.  When we moved from Aquebogue right after the war the old Aldrich House was already well showing its age.

   The last time I was back in Riverhead, in 2013, the old house was looking positively deplorable. Another family had purchased the property from the Aldrich family, and now the old house is known locally as The Old Corwin House. It’s one of more than a dozen historic homes that have fallen into disrepair and sit, abandoned and forlorn across the landscape of Long Island’s North Fork. A recent grass roots effort to declare this stretch of the highway a designated historic area foundered in a deluge of bickering among the affected property owners.

 Surviving classmates from our Class of 1958 are already talking about a 60^th anniversary reunion in 2018, which would be the most likely event to draw me back home. If that happens, I don’t know what the old house would look like by then. Maybe I’ll be greeted by a vacant lot. Maybe, if there’s a miracle, someone will restore it and turn it into a Bed and Breakfast. Or maybe it will just continue to rot. Supporters of the Main Road Historic District Initiative say they are determined to try again. But, for the time being, the Old Aldrich house continues to decay. I guess in this case, Thomas Wolf is right in saying, you can’t go home again. But, one of my old homes is still in view, and the sight of it for me is excruciating.

Ciao,

MikeBo

©Mike Botula 2015