Long Island Sound, and Beyond

New London is a cross between Newport and Fall River.  Mostly Fall River. After I had observed this, my wife reported after walking a bit in the area that she had "seen a lot of Fall River" in her few blocks. Our ferry was the USS Henlopen, an LST that was part of the Normandy landing force. Cross over to Orient Point on western Long Island and it is a different world, of subsistence agriculture, small Baptist churches, family restaurants, and old motels along the shore, all valiantly trying to stay alive. The strategy seems to be to try and revive it all with vineyards and winemakers, perhaps hoping to attract visitors up from the Hamptons sampling some authenticity.  This seems to confirm the claim that western Long Island is culturally part of New England, not New York, as it looks like the interior places just off the mansion-heavy shorelines of New England well up into Maine. 

With the Baptist influence, I was rather charmed to see a sign for Sunrise Service Rd.  Easter Sunrise service had been a big deal in our house for years, dragging sleepy children out. A bit later, I figured out that we were on the Sunrise Turnpike, so that previous sign must have been...for Sunrise...Service Road, along the side.  Much less charming.

As we went south, though, through south Jersey and down the Delmarva Peninsula, it didn't look much different from those, either. These are agricultural places that look to be just getting by. The gas stations have horrible bathrooms in the back, as bad as I've seen since the 1960s. The billboards are only about 75% in use, always a sign of a failing economy. The attractions are dated and worn out. I wonder what all this looked like in 1965, when these small houses, hotels, and restaurants were new and filled with people who had hopes of prosperity.  Most likely, there were houses that were old then which are now gone. 

We didn't want to try and stop for lunch in NYC, so took a slight detour to Coney Island, which neither of us had ever seen. Of course we had a hot dog. 

Pine Barrens and Cape May

We had not intended to go through the Pine Barrens, but our GPS suggested that the longer route was better because of the wildfires in North Jersey. As we could see a haze of smoke thirty miles away we figured they were right.  There is a small section of pine barrens near Lake Ossipee in NH, but I had never seen anything so extensive. You can see quite a ways into the forest, as the pines are spaced and the underbrush is short. Perhaps later in the year that isn't so. At this time of year it looks like a great place to play paintball.

Cape May is elegant. Can you do a NJ/NYC accent?  Like "cuoffee" a little high-pitched?  Good.  Now say "fancy" with that accent.  Sort of feancy or fiancy.  Cape May has lots of kept-up or restored Victorian houses.  Wildwoods, just above it, is FANCY, built up in the 50s but with ever updated or replaced hotels. Shiny, shiny. The Cape May hotels still have rooms called the Aloha Room, with a pronunciation guide Ah-loh-hah ("meaning 'welcome'") because Hawaii was a deeply exotic and ethnic place when this was built. I had seen something similar in Coney Island, where the signs still said "Shish-ke-bab," because New Yorkers were not that familiar with Middle-eastern foods in those days.  Even their Jews came from Poland and Russia, after all.  Not even Morocco or Greece, let alone Palestine.  Those were Other Jews. No one knew what those guys ate. 

We had another of our deeply Wyman coincidences there. Our waiter had an accent that I suspected was Romanian and we struck up a conversation. A nice young man named Zdeno, because his parents had come from Slovakia.  He said he was from Oradea, and looked a little shocked that we were familiar with Beius and mentioned Marghita. "Actually, I only said 'Oradea' because it is a bigger place and no one has heard of where I am from." He is from Alesd, which is two towns over from the tiny village in Transylvania where my sons are from.  Tracy and I may still be the only Americans who have ever been there. The next night on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, our waitress was from Barrington, NH.  These things are there to be had if you search for them as relentlessly as I do. 

Cape Charles

There were not many bright spots on the way down Rte 13.  They haven't caught the idea of vineyards yet, and there are still lots of garages that do a bit of everything, unlike the specialty shops in the cities and suburbs. Cape Charles itself has been boom-or-bust throughout its history. The Chesapeake network as all on water, with small boats providing the trade. When the railroad came in down the spine there was worry by the investors that no one might come to bring their goods for sale.  The roads weren't good and they already had a method for getting farm products to market.  But it turned out the other way.  The trains eventually put the little ports out of business, by and large.  Cape Charles was the end of the line and prospered, with small victorian houses. But that in turn fell apart when the Bay Bridge Tunnel came in in the 60s. They didn't have to rely on the ferries to get to Norfolk anymore, and trucks made the trains obsolete. The charming houses in Cape Charles fell into disrepair...until the tourist industry came in because of the shorefront property.  The churches and public buildings were already built, and carpenters and glaziers had work again restoring the historic district. 

Now that is imperilled, as everything is moving to short-term rentals and the sort of shops and restaurants that serve the in-and-out crowd. A lot of the town isn't occupied over the winter. I've seen it in vacation towns in lots of places.  My folks summered in Wolfeboro for years and then retired there year 'round.  They said it was a different world. The friends we stayed with in Cape Charles would rather it not be a different world. 

We went on to Williamsburg and the reunion.  Not much to say, though I have a bit to think about from my conversations.  We went to a storefront church in a strip mall and the people in front of us had been to our same church camp NH and gone to the church in our denomination in North Easton MA, where our pastor at the church that eventually failed went to serve as interim.  Of course.