Just a Small Town Girl

I think of the lyrics to Journey's " Don't stop believin" and that line comes to mind. It is funny how in most songs, one little line sticks out for me. The title of this post is one of those lines. It sticks and stays there in my head, with Steve Perry's raggedy voice echoing in the recesses of my mind, the rest of the song going on, but loudest of all is that line.

I guess I should back up and say that I really didn't intend to revisit the song thing, but today the line popped into my head, and I can't get it out of there. SO we will call this entry another in probably an ongoing series of music from my mind.

I really am a small town girl, born and raised here in Patchogue. Left only for a while, 6 years, when I first got married and moved to Westhampton Beach, a town some 23 miles from here. I love that the supermarket is here, that we have a main street, although it is dwindling and changing to a seedy main street. I love that I have the convenience of the library, one of the largest on the south shore of Long Island. I love that my kids are still relatively safe if they ride their bikes beyond the front of the house. I love that I have the choice of two little leagues for my kids, and that I found one, for Patrick, anyway, that made him happy for the past couple of years. I love that people who grew up here come back, and stay. It is getting to be too much on this generation for them to stay, property taxes being what they are, the housing market and job market being what they are, and the reality is that I won't know where my kids are going to settle until they find that place, in all likelyhood, away from here. My mother used to say that her grandfather used to say the following about Long Island: It is a rich man's playground. I am beginning to believe that. Even the "regular" towns are becomming just that. They are full of the poor or the rich. The middle class, or working class is quickly disapearing form our little towns here on the Island. Don't ge tme wrong, we fit into neither category, we are fighting to keep our heads above water, just like everyone else. I just love living here. I love that my children will and are attending the same high school that I did. They went to a different elementary school, and the boys to a different middle school, but, I am still glad that they went to my school district.
It is an accident that my family wound up here in Patchogue. My parents were both natives of Westhampton. They didn't know each other before they were older though. Westhampton had two primary schools. The one on 6 corners, and the two room school house that my dad attended, on Montauk Highway. Mom moved to Brooklyn at 12 to live with her mom and her step dad, and Dad continued on in Westhampton. They met as teenagers when Mom was visiting her grandfather, uncle aunt and cousin. She frequently took the train "home" on weekends, especially in the summer. My parents got married in Westhampton (the same church I got married in, by my design) and set up house in Quogue, later to move to Westhampton. Dad worked for the county, dredging the Great South Bay. The commute was awful, he was working in Bayshore, so they decided, after a bid on a house in Westhampton fell through, to buy a little Cape Cod style house in Patchogue. It was closer to Bayshore, so Dad wouldn't take forever to go to and fro to work. You see, Sunrise Highway, it wasn't completed. It ended at the street before my parents' and then you had to go "down" to Montauk Highway for points east of Patchogue. So that is how my family became Patchogians.

I guess I moved off point here. The history here, the past the present and the future. I don't know, maybe it was a roundabout point to give folks a little of my background. I just let it go and flow, and see where the words take me. Maybe I will tryout pieces from time to time to give you all a little of my history, my time here on earth. My memories of growing up here, of living here, of traveling to and from here. A series if you will........hmmmmmmmmmmm, those are some ideas to fill the pages!