| Title | , Richard Beyer, Email (10 Mar 2004) (N.p.: n.p., n.d.). | |
| Short Title | Richard Beyer, Email (10 Mar 2004) | |
| Source ID | S116 | |
| Text | As a former Swamprat (Emeritus), as the few Brookhaven kids were known at Bellport High School, (when it was really in Bellport) in the 1950's, and as a former resident of Beaverdam Road, I want to thank you most sincerely for and congratulate you on the wonderful Hamlet website you have served up for us old nostalgia freaks. Outstanding!!! I am attaching my Dennis Puleston (Jr.) story as a Word document, and a few links to some Brookhaven related items. If you have time to peruse these you may enjoy some of them. If you would care to add any of my published poems, based on "Rrds, Town of Brookhaven, Up To 1850," and which now reside on the Long Island Genealogy website, you are more than welcome to add them, but I'm not sure they would be much of a value add. Anyway, by way of introduction, here is a brief (for me, I'm VERY wordy) recap of my Brookhaven years. The first paragraph of my mini-bio: "My Dad tired of commuting to the Dime Savings Bank in Brooklyn where he worked for 17 years and in the summer of 1953 took a job as Manager of the Patchogue Medical Group and moved us from Centre Avenue in East Rockaway to a big barn of a house in Bellport. The Great South Bay was ¾ mile away at the end of our road at Howell’s Point. I fell in love with the open spaces, the salt marshes, the fields and the streams, and everything about it. A year later we moved to the next little hamlet to the east, Brookhaven, and built a house. Sisters Suzie, 4 years younger, and Sally, 8 years younger, had to change to Brookhaven Elementary but I was able to remain at Bellport High for grades 8 through 12 and life got even better in Brookhaven. Beach combing, trapping, commercial fishing, clamming, camping, hunting in the woods and swamps (now “wetlands”) filled my days and my seasons. My pals were fellow swamppers and river rats, and we always had a plethora of boats, most of questionable sea-worthiness. Even though I flunked chemistry and geometry the first time around in H. S., I was driven to take a shot at The N. Y. State College of Forestry at Syracuse in 1958. It was an educational semester and the administration there had the wisdom to discontinue my academic career when it was over. I’d done farm work during my H.S. summers but after Syracuse I clerked in our local (only) general store, the Brook Store, from February until September. Then I went south in the autumn of 1959, loved it and stayed." Our home was on the north side of Beaverdam Road, just a smidgen west of where Edgar Avenue meets Beaverdam. My Dad bought Mrs. McAvoy's side yard, but she would not sell us quite enough of it so we could site the house further back off thed, based on the zoning laws. It was a triangular plot that went all the way back to the school fence where it ended in a point. The little house "behind" us (where in more recent years Jeff Buck and Jo Ann Comstock lived) was occupied by two sisters, one of whom was an artist, Ella Ballard. The next house east (where the Nelsons lived just before we built, was occupied by the Barteaus. Then came the library. Mrs. McAvoy's house was at the corner of Fire Place Neck and Beaverdam. My sister-in-law, who lives in Montgomery, on a recent visit here, read Bob Starke's article about Old Inlet in the Post-Morrow newsletter and asked me when I was going to write my Brookhaven memories. Of all the times and places in my lifet is still the dearest and probably the clearest. But I don't have the literary Umph! to make it interesting for others. Sort of like a travelogue... we went here, we did this and we saw that... but if you weren't on the trip it can just be snooze fodder. I can tell you we had some wonderful characters in Brookhaven in the 50's, and I knew many of them. Delivering to shut-ins and elderly for the Brook Store was a real education. And I worked my high school summers at Robinson's Duck Farm and have been (many times) involuntarily inoculated for every disease know to duck. I hope you were in Brookhaven long enough to see the old Champlain home, behind the pond next to Beaverdam Creek, when it was at its best. I have wonderful photos and memories of that. On late winter nights the Fire Dept. would cruise by anpray an inch of water on the ice so that all us skaters would have smooth ice the next day. Geoff Champlain was a pal of mine and I was very close to the family; my children are named after his parents. I mowed lawns and baby sat for a number of people there, including the Alburgers (I know he was at the Lab for many years). In July of 2000 I visited Bellport & Brookhaven for 5 or 6 days and had my last visit with Dennis (Sr.) and Betty Puleston, thanks to Lucia Nelson (Norman's sister), and with a number of others, including Faith McCutcheon (one of the Champlain girls) and Bill and Ruth Reynolds who were teachers of mine a Bellport. Anyway, I just wanted to say hello and let you know how much I am enjoying all your hard work. Brookhaven was a very special place, and it still is. I am so glad that others appreciate it as much as I did. Please, keep up the good work. Best Regards, Richard Beyer Cullman, AL http://longislandgenealogy.com/WyandanceGardener.html http://longislandgenealogy.com/SmithHorse.html Our Homepage: http://www.angelfire.com/al/safariman/index.html Something Else: http://www.geocities.com/bwanasafari/VintageWhine.html | |
