Some things just go along with getting old. Besides all the joys of the mental and physical reminders that we're getting closer to death than birth are things that remind us just how aged we are. There's nothing like a 40 year-old high school reunion to give us that reality check. This weekend it was Theresa's turn as her alma mater, Baldwin High School, out on Long Island, held their celebration, of just how old that Class of 1984 are.
While most attendees leave their spouses home, me and another side kick had the joy of being witness to a lot of fun for the graduates. 40 years. Jesus. That's a long time. I guess I'll be in that seat when the Red Bank Class of 1986 hosts our shindig in two years. One thing I can say is, if your class is having one, you should go. Don't worry about how you look or what your life story is, people who go are just happy to see you and you never know how many of these you'll be around to attend.
It was held out in Oceanside, Long Island on Friday night. I liked the Friday night pick as it leaves you with most of the weekend to recover and enjoy the weekend. You could still pull off some fall harvesty stuff on Saturday and it doesn't interfere with Sunday football. On the way out there we
stopped by Bensonhurst, New York which sits on the Gravesend Bay. We stopped to get a quick bite at Wendy's and to check out some bird action I saw from the Belt Parkway. I've had some really good fishing, from my boat, in that bay which sits just a stones throw from the Verrazano Bridge.
Siri gave us a different route out east then we were used to. She directed us to Flatbush Ave. past Floyd Bennet Field and onto the Rockaway Peninsula. I've fished out in front of these places from the boat but it was my first time being on the barrier island. We passed Breezy Point and Rockaway Beach before crossing into Long Island near JFK Airport. At some point you cross from Brooklyn, into Queens, into Long Island. With the small spit of land to our right we had Jamaica Bay to our left.
The event was held at the Knights of Columbus in Oceanside. It was the culmination of hard work and planning done by that group of graduates we most likely didn't hang out with. Kudos to those people, there's a group of them in every graduating class, most willing to trade in and return to some of their best years in their life. If I think about it I might like to trade in and go back myself. How much easier were things in life back then? Going to class, figuring out how to hook up, working a little part time job, and hanging out with friends. I'll take that all day. You know these events, food okay, drinks always good, maybe to good for some, and a warm up period that usually kicks in just a few songs away before they throw the lights on. I enjoyed watching people relive their youth attempting to find their groove to "Rapper's Delight", the "Electric Slide", "You Shook Me All Night Long", and of course, "Livin' on a Prayer".
After the festivities we made our way down to Long Beach where we would stay at the Allegria Hotel which is a boutique hotel right on the Long Beach Boardwalk. Knowing this in
advance had me add my waders and gear to my packing list. If I got out, great, if not that would be okay, but what wouldn't be good was not being prepared and watching as bait gets blown up by big bass starting their migration south. We got a good night sleep and before sunrise I was up and out the door.
As I dressed on West Broadway I could hear the thunderous roar from the waves and watch as the surfers scurried across the road. That could only mean one thing, big swells. The whole place had a Long Branch, New Jersey vibe to it. From the hotels and condos, to the boardwalk, to even the beaches which were dotted with groins up and down.
What was the biggest difference was where the sun rose off to my hard left as I approached the beach, while in New Jersey it's more straight out. The South Shore of Long Island points south, and I am sure different winds mean different things to anglers out there.
There was a good ground swell, not always easy to catch in pictures, on the incoming tide. I made my way to the first groin on the beach and was greeted with a "Keep Off Jetties" sign which I am sure is
more for the beachgoers than local fishermen. These groins sit lower than I am used to in New Jersey and with the hard sweep and swells I stayed put on the sand. There was a ton of cabbage in the wash and just about every cast had me clearing off the green from my fly. While my thinking was that it was going
to be good, "Hey, the fish must be up here", I didn't see anything for signs of bait, birds, or bass. I made my way up and down for about an hour without a tap or anything that piqued my interest, but at least I was out there giving it a shot. If you don't go then you'll never know.
We ended up staying put and having breakfast at the hotel before taking a walk on the boardwalk and calling it a morning. Before we checked out I took a peek at the beach from one of the rooms that faced the ocean. I can only imagine how cool it could be to look out and see what I had hoped for, bass pinning bait into the pockets of the groins along the beach.
As we drove home near the JFK Airport I looked up and saw the below sign and it caught me off guard. "Fish Oil Wastes Fish". We spent the next 20 minutes trying to find access to take that picture as I knew my buddy
Paul Eidman, aka Menhaden Defenders, would find it interesting. Fish oil means bunker, bunker means bunker boats and the redction fleet from Virginia which decimates schools of bunker up and down the coast. The bill board was an ad from Costco showing an alternative to Omega's fish oil, Ovega, which is a vegetarian option for omega- 3's. That's the last thing the Omega Protein folks want to see I'm sure.
And of course any ride from the South Shore or "The End" of Long Island means you'll be stuck in some traffic some where between there and New Jersey. Either it's the Montauk Highway, the Belt Parkway, the Staten Island Expressway, or The New Jersey Turnpike, somewhere it's going to get bottled up. So I took the opportunity to make a pit stop at one of my favorite bakery's over in Staten Island, Holtermann's. It's not that I needed my blood sugar to rise into the hundred's or needed any extra
fat stored on my aging body, but it's just a right of passage through Staten Island. These places, ones from our youth, are hard to come by anymore. While I found this place very late in my life it's a throwback, kind of like a high school reunion, on how we and things once were. It's similar to the old Dixie Lee in Keansburg, Calandra's in Newark, and the Italian People's Bakery in Trenton. When I'm close, I go. Maybe I should have that same relationship with a gym every now and then.
Getting old sucks. Things not being like they were sucks. Change sucks. Maybe I'm just old school, or too stubborn to embrace new things that life throws at me. Waking up everyday is better than the alternative and when I get all crotchety I should count my blessings and think of those less fortunate or in a worse spot then I think I am. It's all good in the hood I guess. I got two years till my 40th and maybe I should reacquaint myself with which way to move during the Electric Slide.