My Hometown Waters

Last summer we went home to my hometown.  As we navigated the familiar streets, I heard  myself singing in my mind, "I have often walked on this street before..."  The air was full of the aroma of ocean salt. It's a beautiful area, so it draws the affluent, the tourists, the vacationers and second home owners. I cannot blame them for yielding to the temptation to spend time there. It is a place where, over the years,  local people lived hard lives and those who work hard elsewhere go to play.

The ocean and the bay beaches are magnets to both the year-round residents and the visitors alike. In summer, the ocean beaches are often so crowded that it's hard to find a quiet spot in the sand to place your towel, to lie down and 'catch the rays.'

 The waters have been far more to local folks than a playground. Many of them for hundreds of years have made their living on the sea as fisherman or shell fishermen.  While tourists spend enormous amounts of money for dinner in a seafood restaurant, the natives are dining on whatever they've gathered themselves or what their fishing friends have given to them. 

The harbors are dotted with marinas where fishing boats and pleasure boats too, are docked and moored, awaiting their trips on the water.

Town Pond is what you see when you enter the Village. It is where the early settlers watered their flocks of sheep. Today it is a welcoming site to those who visit and natives who are returning home from somewhere west of home.  In the winter, it freezes, providing a skating area for those who are athletically inclined, or want to brush up on their skills.

East Hampton is filled with water ways for swimming, canoeing, pleasure boating, or working. The sun sets over the bays and some of the harbors and coves, and I can honestly say that the sunsets cannot be surpassed.

Although we are very happy where we reside today, the waters of Home are what we miss most.