In My Hometown...

I never spent a lot of time tromping around my hometown. There are parts of it I have never been in.

Huntington, NY, is a big place, with several small "sub" towns in the township. We went geocaching yesterday in South Huntington, and it was one of the funnest geocaching days I've ever spent. Doug was amazed that I'd never been in these parts, but to be honest -- why bother when you have no friends and you're hiding in your room listening to Jackson Browne all day.

Or, when you ARE out with the few friends you have, you're up in the bay sneaking into beach clubs to sit and drink on the beach. If you needed to find out how to get around Huntington Bay, I'd be able to tell you. But navigating through historic old South Huntington... that was a task in and of itself.

We went to a Jayne's Hill, also known as High or Oakley's Hill, which is supposed to be the highest spot on Long Island at 410 feet, and did three of the four caches in West Hills County Park.

Walt Whitman "is said to have walked through this area..." And there are tons and tons of blue and yellow "historic" markers all through the neighborhood marking all the places Mr. Walt was to have allegedly been/walked/ate.

All we could think of, naturally, was Homer Simpson in the episode where he finds out his mother is alive. He thinks the grave at the top of the hill is hers, but finds out it belongs to Walt Whitman. (Whitman is actually buried in New Jersey I think). So he starts kicking the gravestone, yelling: "I (kick) hate (kick) you (kick) Walt (kick) Freakin' (kick) Whitman (kick)! Leaves of Grass my ASS!" And then he falls into an empty grave, which is supposed to be his own.

Here is Doug doing his imitation of Homer, sans falling into empty grave, and instead of a headstone it's a boulder with a Whitman poem from "Leaves of Grass My ASS!"

All told -- Monday was Columbus Day and a great day for exploration by my clan. We had a lot of fun and quite a few laughs. Here is photographic evidence.

	My children, lounging on the boulder with the "Paumanok" poem on it. I guess it is some ode to how wonderful Long Island was/is. Yawn. My whole childhood Whitman was shoved down my throat and I can honestly say it is the fault of my former school system that I hate American poets for the most part. Oh Captain, my Captain. My ass.
Jessie being extra dang cute in her brand new jacket. Love that blonde hair!	Found the cache! This one was a hard find, but a good one. We were the first finders! Again -- an homage to exploration and adventure!
Me. Looking red. I always look so damn red. I hate my skin. Like the head hankie? I didn't have time for a shower before hitting the trails... so I opted for farmer Jane headgear.	Geoff got Pokemon cards from one of the caches... Of course, the highlight of his little day.

Speaking of my public education experience, I was dragged on a field trip all the way out to Hauppauge to the top of a geological moraine and told THAT was the highest point on Long Island. Mr. Hiscox (nice guy, unfortunate name) was my 8th grade earth science teacher, and could have saved a lot of time and effort by taking us around the corner to West Hills.

Another thing that bothers me is my whole elementary/junior/and high school experience revolved around Walt Whitman (again, Hate Him!) and Harry Chapin. Had I known interesting tidbits like John Coltrane's final resting place is in my freaking home town, as well as Count Basie and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, I might have been more inclined to learn more about my home town.

A field trip to the Pinelawn Cemetery in Huntington would have been interesting to me at any age. But no. We had to learn about 20,000lbs of banannas and ... Leaves of Grass, MY ASS! I had to learn about these final resting places from an online GAME. Ugh. I hate my educational experience. It could have been so much better.

But as usual, I rant.

For more info on the 3 caches we got, visit these pages, and our comments (logged by me) are under "Team Screamapillar."

W2-4
SFR002
Kyle's Cache

The rest of our Long Island visit was ruined by a late arrival to the house on Saturday (due to traffic and weather) and rain all day Sunday.

My dad REALLY wanted to go to this Fall Festival in town, but Sunday was totally washed out, and our desire to get out for some heavy duty hiking and exercise weighed more for us in deciding what to do. I was irritated that he didn't want to come with... his longest hike is to the bar over by the train station that he frequents. Oh well. We didn't go into a town filled with cabin fever filled New Yorkers, and I'm happier for it. I wish it hadn't rained the whole time.

My parents' neighbors harbor a stray cat, and she had YET ANOTHER litter of kittens. They really should take her in and get her spayed if they want to keep her around. This is like her third litter and she's gotta be about four years old max.

But. Kittens are frigging cute as all get out and you know I'm a pet whore... so. Here are some quick pictures. I'm off to get my own pets from the kennel (freshly bathed and groomed, hallelujah!) and I have laundry and other things to do. Have a super day all.

Uh, Meow!??!
Stop, you're too damn cute!!