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February 06, 1997 - A Not-So-Wintry Walk on the Beach6A • The Suffolk Times • February 6, 1997 A Not -So- Wintry Walk on the Beach Once again we've been able to take advantage of Long Island's crazy weath- er. Last week a mild spell came along and gave us a series of warmer- than -usual days in the 40s. Barbara and I took advan- tage of the perfect weather on Saturday for a walk along the sound beach. All along our northern shore there are places you can drop one car off and then drive east or west Focus two or three miles in another vehi- on cle, get out and walk the beach Nature back to the first by Paul car. It's so much Stoutenburgh more rewarding than walking up the beach and then having to double back. If you plan your walk just right, you can choose to have the wind on your back, which in itself makes quite a difference especially if a raw northeasterly wind is blowing off the sound. Our walk was from west to east, seeing the usual wind at this time of year is out of the northwest and therefore was pleas- antly on our backs. We were surprised as we got out of the car to see so many peo- ple out enjoying this warm, sunny February day. One group was made up of young people — eight or 10 of them — just exploring the beach. Another was a family with young children. They had their colorful buckets and were beach- combing. Others had just come to walk along and enjoy the day, which was so unusual at this time of the year. Besides people, the gulls were out in great numbers also. The.shoreline was dot- ted with their white bodies and out on the rocks they huddled so close together they looked like caps of white snow on the black rocks. Further along we'd see red - breasted mergansers, those notorious div- ing ducks with their long narrow bills lined with sharp needle -like teeth that come in so handy for capturing the slippery little fish they dive for below. Many had already courted a mate and the gaudy dark -and- white males weren't too far away from their drab reddish -brown females lest some roving male might move in. With the sun and wind on our backs, we found walking most com- fortable as we headed east- ward. The sound water sparkled in its winter clarity and we could look through it as if we were looking into a fishbowl at home. The tide was out, which gave us twice the beach to walk on. At the high tide line the waves had thrown up thousands and thousands of slipper shells, all collected together in an endless row. The afternoon light gave the mass of shells a pinkish glow on its path- way to the east. What had caused their demise is any- one's guess. Perhaps in an extremely low tide they were caught in one of our cold snaps and froze. Whatever it was, this endless line of slip- per shells would be with us throughout our two- and -a- half -mile walk. Probably the one thing most visible along the sound shore was the erosion from upland. By that I mean the wash down from the rain runoff. Great masses of wet silt had eroded from the banks, some of it running right to the water's edge. Gullies from the tiniest to great giants spilled their golden -brown soil down the bank. In miniature it looked like the great mud slides we've been hearing about out west that raised such havoc with the people there. At two or three spots we could even see more clearly this scary phenomenon of mud slides, for here and there great chunks of the bank, one the size of a garage, literally slipped away, leav- ing great gaps in the cliff wall. We could see how mud slides could sweep away a home or cover over a road and why it was so necessary for our town to make strong regulations to keep homes back away from this treacherous eroding cliff. To further our concept of mud and dirt slides, there were the distorted remains of stairways going down to the beach. Many Suffolk Times photo by Paul Stoutenburgh BEACH STONES —For those who see more than just a beach, a winter's walk can reveal a vast array of wonders. Here wind created tails on every stone along the way. were completely gone, others ripped apart in a wild array of planking, posts and steps. Yet, some remained and were intact. They were the lucky ones. Each stairway or place where a stair once was represented a home above, which we could not see from below. As we went along we finally reached an area where there were no traces of stairways or hous- es. The beach even seemed to change for there were no bulkheads, nothing but the great bare slanting banks 60 to 80 feet above. We were walking along the area where farms still ran up to the sound. Even the footsteps in the sand from fellow beach walkers had ended. It was as if we were at the point of no return. We marveled at a huge boulder that had just recently tumbled out of the bank the size of a dump truck or more. Now it would become one of the hallmarks that make up this impressive shoreline along the Sound. Further along we saw another huge rock that had actually split away `For a winter walk it couldn't have been much better.' 75 Years Ago Feb. 10, 1922 What About the Band ?: [Editorial] Just about everyone around here has rather taken the Greenport Band for granted. We have enjoyed their concerts and expected them to donate their services at our parades, celebrations, benefits and so forth, yet we have never done anything to help them, with the exception of some few businessmen who donate a dollar a month toward the salary of Prof. Schwarzkopf. Our Village Hall will soon be ready for occupation, and in it there will undoubtedly be some vacant rooms. Don't you think it would be an excellent idea to give the use of one of these rooms to the band, in exchange for which they would furnish music at our public celebrations, free of charge? At present members have to pay $75 rent and their heat, light and music, as well as for their able director. It is hard for them to make both ends meet. Let's help the band along and in return we feel sure the members will give us good music whenever we so desire. 50 Years Ago Feb. 7, 1947 Cutchogue Man No. 14 in Insurance: Walter Luce of Cutchogue has just received word from the vice president of Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York that he ranked No. 14 in the United States for the month of December for paid -for business. Advertisement: Don't wait for a breakdown, have your refrigerator checked. Greenport and vicinity, $4. Send a postcard to Brook's Refrigerator Service, 200 Main St., Greenport, or telephone Greenport 574. 25 Years Ago Feb. 10, 1972 New Basketball Record: A new record was set by Allen Edwards of Greenport in the Tuesday night game against Shelter Island. Scoring 34 points and 18 rebounds, Edwards broke the previous all -time Long Island scoring record set by Art Heyman, a basketball player at Oceanside High School who played at Duke University and for the New York Knicks for three years. Allen, who became All Suffolk champ in his junior year is now champion scorer of all Nassau and Suffolk. He is expected to break the 2,000 mark in Friday's game against Pierson. More $ for Schools: Southold School District, which voted down a $5 million proposal to build a new high school, could have built 10 new schools for the price of one C5A aircraft, said U.S. Representative Otis Pike at the Southold PTA meeting last Friday night. "We need a new order of priorities," the Congressman said, adding that $5 million for a high school is a low figure in Suffolk County, where schools capable of graduating 1,000 students a year cost an average 10 million dollars. from its parent rock and took its place at the bottom of the bank. Storm - ravaged lobster buoys were probably the most conspicuous bit of riffraff that lined the shore, conspicuous because of their bright color. Most had New York registrations burned into them while others had Connecticut imprints. After all, that is just across the way. The buoys have changed in my lifetime. Once they were made of wood but now plastics have taken over. They are much lighter and more buoyant but I wonder if they last as long as the old wooden ones, for most of the plastic ones we saw were bro- ken or marred in some way. We saw oldsquaw and goldeneye ducks farther along the beach. These are true wild wintry weather ducks and handsome ones at that. They, too, were starting to pair off in anticipation of spring. We passed the eroded and crumbled remains of someone's once -proud beach buggy that had gotten so far and then was swal- lowed up by the sound. Most of it had been eaten away by the elements but there was enough left to know it was a vehicle of some sort. We finally rounded a point of land where there were familiar boulders off- shore. They were old friends for years ago I dove around these very rocks for lobsters and black fish. That was when diving was in its infancy and, by the way, when lobsters were lobsters, not the little ones just barely legal size that are so common in the markets today. We'd walked during the best time of the day. We'd seen what many had missed by staying at home. The sun had lowered itself so the gentle wind that followed us most of the way had now cooled itself down. Our timing had been just right. For a winter walk, it couldn't have been much better. Why not try it some time? `Paws' Shop Under New Management GREENPORT —North Fork Animal Welfare League's thrift shop, Yana's Cause for Paws, 211 Third St., is under the new management of volunteers Gertrude Iglesias and Carol Wirtz. New shop hours are 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. All donations will be accepted until 2 p.m.. Call 734 -2703 after 5 p.m. or 477- 8709 during shop hours to volunteer.