**Disclosure: All opinions expressed here in are own and not by the developing company, and/or it's affiliates, in any way. **
LEETE'S ISLAND
|
|
I am making an assumption at the outset of this piece. It is that we have all nurtured the fantasy that one day, one of our buddies will patent a lifesaving drug, discover a region-rescuing mineral deposit, or found a super successful NPO that rescues an endangered species of one kind or other. So, this buddy from our wonder years, with whom we attended life changing live shows stoned to the point of euphoric drooling, collectively solved the world’s problems on booze-soaked camping trips, and briefly battled over a girl with whom one of us had no chance with and the other was already fooling around anyway, this pal, closer to us than our own siblings, we have all dreamed, could one day make it big and invite us along for the ride, right?
I’m not a bad person, in-person. Perhaps I’m a little terrible on the page, but this is where the work gets done. It’s on the page that we write what we dare not say so that others may read what they claim they would never think.
I don’t have a buddy who patented, discovered, or founded much beyond a handful of small, owner operator businesses whose t-shirts and hats I wear proudly. However, I have this buddy who has been in my life since we stood outside of gas stations and asked high school seniors to buy us cigarettes. We went through a fairly comprehensive party-phase when we attended funk shows in New Haven, Connecticut every weekend. We purchased Grey Goose vodka, one point seven five milliliters at a time, not with a fake ID, but with the beards that grew thick on our tanned faces and by speaking to the fellow at the counter in our late teenage tenor voices. We grew up fast physiologically, so why not take half a gallon of top shelf vodka to the trestle bridge in Stony Creek and wax philosophic about all the things that were doing us wrong?
“People don’t get us,” (passes the sliced lime).
“Adults control us,” (oh, diet tonic? I’ll make it work for tonight).
“Rage Against the Machine is so much more thoughtful than the Dead,” (runs out of crushed ice).
And on we went, knowing it all, pretentiously fancy free, wandering about town with our backpacks filled with heady books and mindful journals, top shelf vodka and a half dozen limes, we wore hundred dollar folding knives clipped to the tool pockets of our Carhart cut offs, and we clutched a bag of ice in each hand, the cool weight swinging by our sides.
I’m not a bad person, in-person. Perhaps I’m a little terrible on the page, but this is where the work gets done. It’s on the page that we write what we dare not say so that others may read what they claim they would never think.
I don’t have a buddy who patented, discovered, or founded much beyond a handful of small, owner operator businesses whose t-shirts and hats I wear proudly. However, I have this buddy who has been in my life since we stood outside of gas stations and asked high school seniors to buy us cigarettes. We went through a fairly comprehensive party-phase when we attended funk shows in New Haven, Connecticut every weekend. We purchased Grey Goose vodka, one point seven five milliliters at a time, not with a fake ID, but with the beards that grew thick on our tanned faces and by speaking to the fellow at the counter in our late teenage tenor voices. We grew up fast physiologically, so why not take half a gallon of top shelf vodka to the trestle bridge in Stony Creek and wax philosophic about all the things that were doing us wrong?
“People don’t get us,” (passes the sliced lime).
“Adults control us,” (oh, diet tonic? I’ll make it work for tonight).
“Rage Against the Machine is so much more thoughtful than the Dead,” (runs out of crushed ice).
And on we went, knowing it all, pretentiously fancy free, wandering about town with our backpacks filled with heady books and mindful journals, top shelf vodka and a half dozen limes, we wore hundred dollar folding knives clipped to the tool pockets of our Carhart cut offs, and we clutched a bag of ice in each hand, the cool weight swinging by our sides.
Here I sit, twenty-five years later. I’m overlooking the Long Island Sound from a screened in porch surrounding a cottage. It was built just after the hurricane of ’38 leveled a dozen other cottages on Leete’s Island. This un-insulated four bedroom survived and has been kept up by the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest living Leete, my buddy Josh.
He doesn’t own the cottage. It was rented for him and his family for two weeks as a Christmas gift from his folks. Cottages on Leete’s Island can be bought and sold, thusly may be owned, but no bank will lend you money for one as the land beneath them is not for sale. There are likely many financial whatnots and legal what have yous, but I was on the verge of completing my thought.
Josh, like so many independent thinking and capable youths dropped out of high school, had a stint in recovery, completed his undergrad at an ultra-progressive New England college, and spent half a decade living in the high deserts of the west coast. He partied like Hemmingway, let thoughts weigh heavy on him like Melville, went a little Burroughs-mad, and ran off to be like Abbey. Then he returned home, got a job, got good at it, and started his own company in that field in which he excelled. All this led to him falling rather out of favor with his family, then completely back into favor, then he started a family of his own.
He doesn’t own the cottage. It was rented for him and his family for two weeks as a Christmas gift from his folks. Cottages on Leete’s Island can be bought and sold, thusly may be owned, but no bank will lend you money for one as the land beneath them is not for sale. There are likely many financial whatnots and legal what have yous, but I was on the verge of completing my thought.
Josh, like so many independent thinking and capable youths dropped out of high school, had a stint in recovery, completed his undergrad at an ultra-progressive New England college, and spent half a decade living in the high deserts of the west coast. He partied like Hemmingway, let thoughts weigh heavy on him like Melville, went a little Burroughs-mad, and ran off to be like Abbey. Then he returned home, got a job, got good at it, and started his own company in that field in which he excelled. All this led to him falling rather out of favor with his family, then completely back into favor, then he started a family of his own.
They’re at dinner with his eighty-nine-year-old grandmother who still drives for Meals on Wheels and carries a .38 when she walks the narrow streets of Leete’s Island because several decades back she was attacked by either one big wild turkey or several wild turkeys aggressing in concert. I’m seated, laptop open, sun setting, mezcal iced, feet up, and writing my memories and appreciations before they return.
Josh makes a fantastic living, and his young family is beautiful and unhesitatingly generous. However, the reason I get to spend a week with my own young family within a frisbee toss of the lapping tides of the Sound, all while the gulls discuss all that gulls have to discuss, is more genealogically oriented than it is a matter of wayward youths making their livings as adults and discussing it all over beverages.
The Leete family was gifted this land by King George, yes, the one from Miranda’s, Hamilton. More importantly, they have done whatever they had to in an effort to keep the land, not so much for profit and value, but for posterity. Josh’s mom was swimming off a beach just a mile from where we put in our boats to go for a paddle down to Stony Creek, our old stomping grounds. His second cousin is currently having a barbeque at the cottage across the narrow beach road from me. His Great Uncle was raking up some sticks along the split rail fence that lines state route 146, flanked by two, four-hundred-year-old barns, each larger than three stacked Seven Elevens. The family presence of the historic Leete’s is still palpable to those fortunate enough to explore their namesake island.
Josh described for me the old photos of Leete's standing on a beach just down the way. The people were wearing turn of the century bathing costumes in the foreground while cows made their way by, en route to the upper pasture. Many of the original ‘cottages’ were actually tent platforms twenty years before the Model T was invented. The story goes that people tented here for entire seasons in shelters my current readers would more closely associate with the tents used in turn of the century big game safaris than with a New England beach vacation. As people came to love their time on the island, the industrious New Englanders did what they could to improve their tents. The tents grew walls, walls sprouted roofs, and so camps became cottages. The visitors couldn’t buy the land beneath them as it wasn’t for sale, but they could cottage on it, even rent out their cottages so that others might enjoy them. This practice of cottaging and sharing cottages is still very much in effect as I finish the last of my drink and the family Leete return from their dinner out with three healthy generations of Leete's who supped at a Friendly’s Restaurant turned Greek Diner and the times continue to change on the Connecticut shoreline.
As we paddled west off the island from Shell Beach, every stroke brought into view a different multimillion dollar abode. The classic cedar sided six-bedroom home would float by and the tasteless vinyl sided eight-bedroom with central great room and ostentatious cupola would slip into view. An almost gothic looking mansion came into view with four stone chimneys and a front porch from which occupants could ostensibly take in all the bird residents and aquatic passersby. I turned to Josh. “I’ll take that one,” I called wryly over the sound of the waves. “okay,” he responded, neither affirming my desires nor denouncing them as foolishness. I paddled on and watched the schools of Snapper Blues flipping and rushing at their prey below my boat. I caught sight of Josh, he was looking back, back at Leete’s island, her cottage residents strewn about her shore like freckles that show themselves after a day in the sun, erratically placed, but somehow looking like they were always supposed to be there. Josh was a Leete, and he didn’t care about my fantasy mansion. He wanted to put his feet up on a small porch, open an IPA, and quietly express his contentment through dreaming eyes that ever find the water and quietly observe the changing of the tide.
Josh makes a fantastic living, and his young family is beautiful and unhesitatingly generous. However, the reason I get to spend a week with my own young family within a frisbee toss of the lapping tides of the Sound, all while the gulls discuss all that gulls have to discuss, is more genealogically oriented than it is a matter of wayward youths making their livings as adults and discussing it all over beverages.
The Leete family was gifted this land by King George, yes, the one from Miranda’s, Hamilton. More importantly, they have done whatever they had to in an effort to keep the land, not so much for profit and value, but for posterity. Josh’s mom was swimming off a beach just a mile from where we put in our boats to go for a paddle down to Stony Creek, our old stomping grounds. His second cousin is currently having a barbeque at the cottage across the narrow beach road from me. His Great Uncle was raking up some sticks along the split rail fence that lines state route 146, flanked by two, four-hundred-year-old barns, each larger than three stacked Seven Elevens. The family presence of the historic Leete’s is still palpable to those fortunate enough to explore their namesake island.
Josh described for me the old photos of Leete's standing on a beach just down the way. The people were wearing turn of the century bathing costumes in the foreground while cows made their way by, en route to the upper pasture. Many of the original ‘cottages’ were actually tent platforms twenty years before the Model T was invented. The story goes that people tented here for entire seasons in shelters my current readers would more closely associate with the tents used in turn of the century big game safaris than with a New England beach vacation. As people came to love their time on the island, the industrious New Englanders did what they could to improve their tents. The tents grew walls, walls sprouted roofs, and so camps became cottages. The visitors couldn’t buy the land beneath them as it wasn’t for sale, but they could cottage on it, even rent out their cottages so that others might enjoy them. This practice of cottaging and sharing cottages is still very much in effect as I finish the last of my drink and the family Leete return from their dinner out with three healthy generations of Leete's who supped at a Friendly’s Restaurant turned Greek Diner and the times continue to change on the Connecticut shoreline.
As we paddled west off the island from Shell Beach, every stroke brought into view a different multimillion dollar abode. The classic cedar sided six-bedroom home would float by and the tasteless vinyl sided eight-bedroom with central great room and ostentatious cupola would slip into view. An almost gothic looking mansion came into view with four stone chimneys and a front porch from which occupants could ostensibly take in all the bird residents and aquatic passersby. I turned to Josh. “I’ll take that one,” I called wryly over the sound of the waves. “okay,” he responded, neither affirming my desires nor denouncing them as foolishness. I paddled on and watched the schools of Snapper Blues flipping and rushing at their prey below my boat. I caught sight of Josh, he was looking back, back at Leete’s island, her cottage residents strewn about her shore like freckles that show themselves after a day in the sun, erratically placed, but somehow looking like they were always supposed to be there. Josh was a Leete, and he didn’t care about my fantasy mansion. He wanted to put his feet up on a small porch, open an IPA, and quietly express his contentment through dreaming eyes that ever find the water and quietly observe the changing of the tide.
The Leete family was gifted this land by King George, yes, the one from Miranda’s, Hamilton. More importantly, they have done whatever they had to in an effort to keep the land, not so much for profit and value, but for posterity. Josh’s mom was swimming off a beach just a mile from where we put in our boats to go for a paddle down to Stony Creek, our old stomping grounds. His second cousin is currently having a barbeque at the cottage across the narrow beach road from me. His Great Uncle was raking up some sticks along the split rail fence that lines state route 146, flanked by two, four-hundred-year-old barns, each larger than three stacked Seven Elevens. The family presence of the historic Leete’s is still palpable to those fortunate enough to explore their namesake island.
Josh described for me the old photos of Leetes standing on a beach just down the way. The people were wearing turn of the century bathing costumes in the foreground while cows made their way by, en route to the upper pasture. Many of the original ‘cottages’ were actually tent platforms twenty years before the Model T was invented. The story goes that people tented here for entire seasons in shelters my current readers would more closely associate with the tents used in turn of the century big game safaris than with a New England beach vacation. As people came to love their time on the island, the industrious New Englanders did what they could to improve their tents. The tents grew walls, walls sprouted roofs, and so camps became cottages. The visitors couldn’t buy the land beneath them as it wasn’t for sale, but they could cottage on it, even rent out their cottages so that others might enjoy them. This practice of cottaging and sharing cottages is still very much in effect as I finish the last of my drink and the family Leete return from their dinner out with three healthy generations of Leetes who supped at a Friendly’s Restaurant turned Greek Diner and the times continue to change on the Connecticut shoreline.
Josh described for me the old photos of Leetes standing on a beach just down the way. The people were wearing turn of the century bathing costumes in the foreground while cows made their way by, en route to the upper pasture. Many of the original ‘cottages’ were actually tent platforms twenty years before the Model T was invented. The story goes that people tented here for entire seasons in shelters my current readers would more closely associate with the tents used in turn of the century big game safaris than with a New England beach vacation. As people came to love their time on the island, the industrious New Englanders did what they could to improve their tents. The tents grew walls, walls sprouted roofs, and so camps became cottages. The visitors couldn’t buy the land beneath them as it wasn’t for sale, but they could cottage on it, even rent out their cottages so that others might enjoy them. This practice of cottaging and sharing cottages is still very much in effect as I finish the last of my drink and the family Leete return from their dinner out with three healthy generations of Leetes who supped at a Friendly’s Restaurant turned Greek Diner and the times continue to change on the Connecticut shoreline.
As we paddled west off the island from Shell Beach, every stroke brought into view a different multimillion dollar abode. The classic cedar sided six-bedroom home would float by and the tasteless vinyl sided eight-bedroom with central great room and ostentatious cupola would slip into view. An almost gothic looking mansion came into view with four stone chimneys and a front porch from which occupants could ostensibly take in all the bird residents and aquatic passersby. I turned to Josh. “I’ll take that one,” I called wryly over the sound of the waves. “okay,” he responded, neither affirming my desires nor denouncing them as foolishness. I paddled on and watched the schools of Snapper Blues flipping and rushing at their prey below my boat. I caught sight of Josh, he was looking back, back at Leete’s island, her cottage residents strewn about her shore like freckles that show themselves after a day in the sun, erratically placed, but somehow looking like they were always supposed to be there. Josh was a Leete, and he didn’t care about my fantasy mansion. He wanted to put his feet up on a small porch, open an IPA, and quietly express his contentment through dreaming eyes that ever find the water and quietly observe the changing of the tide.
If you enjoyed reading this, check this out: