Meanwhile on the North Fork...........

[Uninformed]

That is almost my vision of heaven’s long-term waiting room.

[Volkonski]

That is almost my vision of heaven’s long-term waiting room.

Is this Heaven? No, its the North Fork.

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

Been there seen that.

[Volkonski]

This is a big deal for the North Fork which has a number of free range organic poultry farms.

[Volkonski]

Not quite the North Fork but close.

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I love these North Fork videos. They are calming.

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

The NY Times seems determined to make North Fork traffic even worse.

Riverhead, N.Y.: A Long Island Community That’s Suddenly Popular
To many, the Suffolk County town has long been a signpost rather than a destination. But recently, it has been giving people a reason to hang around.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/real ... 2SIexnXdZo

Marking the end of the Long Island Expressway’s 71-mile stretch of banality, Riverhead is known for its farms, beaches, orchards, paddocks, golf courses, big-box stores, water park, raceway and vineyards. To many people, the town, which comprises the 15-square-mile census-designated place called Riverhead and several surrounding hamlets, is a signpost rather than a destination. Rolling off the highway into a shock of East End greenery, travelers start to count down the minutes to pastoral North Fork communities like Mattituck, Southold and Orient.

Lately, however, an influx of residents and visitors has jammed the roads east, and those minutes have piled up. What used to be a fluid half-hour drive from Riverhead to Greenport, 22 miles away, can now take more than an hour, depending on the month. (Autumn harvest season, which attracts pumpkin pickers, is the worst, locals say.) If the town once repelled some rural-home seekers with its gritty pockets and suburbanized spots, like Tanger Outlets, a shopping mall on West Main Street, it now shines with the advantage of proximity to the Hamptons, Nassau County and Manhattan. It is easy to get to, easy to leave.

At the same time, Riverhead is intent on giving people a reason to hang around. For a couple of decades, the town has been adding or repairing cultural touchstones on or near its historic Main Street, including the Long Island Aquarium; the 1881 Vail-Leavitt Music Hall; Tweed’s Restaurant and Buffalo Bar, in the Victorian-era John J. Sullivan Hotel building; and the Art Deco-style Suffolk Theater, which is undergoing expansion. Joining them will be a relocated Long Island Science Center with a rooftop planetarium.

As the pandemic has receded, new businesses have taken root or grown. Recent arrivals on Main Street include the Peconic County Brewing, the Privet consignment warehouse selling home goods from Hamptons estate sales, the Cuban restaurant Lucha Cubano, and the restaurant and catering company Insatiable Eats Creative Kitchen. This month, the East End Food Market, a winter farmers’ market on Main Road, northeast of downtown, announced plans to remain open year-round.

[Volkonski]

More or less true on the North Fork.

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Thank you, V! I miss my Princess!

[Volkonski]

I can personally vouch for the superior quality of Schmitt's prepared horseradish.

[Volkonski]

Mrs. V's parents, aunt and uncle belonged to a group called the Jimmies who were folk who had attended the Jamesport Methodist Campground and/or the adjacent Epworth League Fresh Air Camp in Jamesport LI in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. (Our cottage there was part of the Campground.)

Mrs. V's mother's family had a cottage in the Campground and her father attended the Fresh Air Camp. That is how they met as teenagers.

When I showed up the Jimmies met twice a year for a weekend, in the summer at Mrs. V's family cottages at the Campground and in February at Pawling in upstate NY and in later years at the Methodist Camp Quinipet on Shelter Island between the North and South Forks because there was less snow.

Mrs. V. and I were married in February and after our honeymoon in the Poconos drove to Pawling for the Jimmies weekend. We attended every year until we moved to Texas.

Several years later when we lived in New Jersey my parents came to the Jimmies meeting on Shelter Island to get a first look at our younger daughter who had been born a few weeks before in January. That was the last time I saw my father who died early that spring.

Over the years the number of Jimmies shrank, or as my father-in-law told me quite early on "the Jimmies are depreciating".

Tonight the last living Jimmie member's daughter called us to let us know that her mother just passed away at age 99. And so a Jamesport tradition for a generation which began when they were young Epworth Leaguers almost 100 years ago has come to an end.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

[Volkonski]

Polish Town fair is canceled again this year

https://riverheadlocal.com/2022/04/06/p ... I9hI5r-lLI

The cancellation marks the third consecutive year that the iconic street fair and festival, which had been held on the second weekend in August since its inception in 1975, will not take place.

The fair was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and by uncertainty due to COVID last year.

The Polish Town Civic Association, host of the fair since its inception in 1975, had been planning to resume the fair this year, civic association treasurer Bob Gottschalk said. But the event’s chairperson, Kay Davis, passed away in February and then the civic’s headquarters on Lincoln Street was severely damaged when a pipe in an upstairs bathroom froze and burst, he said.

“We came in one day and there was three inches of water,” Gottschalk said. “So we’ve been dealing with that.”

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

[Volkonski]

Mrs. V., our 2 cats and I leave to drive up to the North Fork tomorrow. I will be posting much less than usual.

Hope we don't have to dodge too many tornados on the way up.

[AndyinPA]

Have a good trip. Stay away from that convoy!