come on irene

hurricanes aren't funny.  i know that.  but they can be fun.  let's get a little nostalgic here, people...

the biggest hurricane i lived through - 1991's hurricane bob

up until a few months ago, my family owned a summer house near port jefferson on long island.  when i was a little kid, we would actually kind of move out there between memorial day and labor day.  it was the most amazing thing.  on my dad's side of the family, it was his brother, sister and cousins and their kids.  we all stayed in the house together during the summer and the men, my dad and uncles, would come during the weekends when they were off work.  the best way to spend summers, hands down.  during the day we would play around the villa and head to the beach, where we spent the majority of our time.

but the reality of being on long island during the summer means, as many are finding out, the occasional hurricane or tropical depression.  now this isn't good news.  this is boarding up windows if you aren't evacuating, stocking up on flashlights and candles, and bottled water.  but that's in this day and age.  when we were shook by hurricanes in the early 90s, we didn't have days to evacuate before hand - we buckled down and stayed put.




i've survived a few hurricanes in the summers we spent at the villa with my cousins.  and you know what?  each one, to me, was more fun than the last.  some of my best hurricane memories are:

• eat popsicles for breakfast.  this was hurricane bob (i think), a major category 5 storm to hit us.  we were without power and my mother, thrifty and creative as always, had us eating things out of the fridge before they were to go bad - which meant fun things like popsicles for breakfast.  what kid is upset about that?
• hide-&-go-seek in the dark.  that's right.  we'd always lose power during the hurricanes and one of the best things to do EVER was hide and seek with our dads/uncles.  they always had good hiding spots, such as: my godfather hiding in the attic, inside of the cot while it was folded up(!); my dad hiding in the outside bathroom where our washer/dryer were and no one being allowed to wanting to go out and look; my uncle hiding in the basement under the stairs where all of us kids were terrified to visit
• card games by candlelight.  especially during a particular 5-days-without-electricity stretch where one of aj's friends who was visiting that summer knocked over a candle and burst into song, "i didn't start the fiii-yaa!" we'd spend days, literally, playing games of kemps.  kemps is a relatively unknown card game that you play in teams and involves signaling to your partner when you have the right cards.  it's a ton of fun, especially if you are 9 years old and have nothing else to do for days.
• this wasn't something i did, but i did learn the other day that my brother aj is here because of hurricane gloria.
• it was a time when i would sit in the candlelight and tell stories with my cousins.  the four of us would share a room (we insisted, of course) so we were all safe together, and we would stay up late talking about what it would be like to be outside in the hurricane.
• my father would sit with us in the living room and tell us stories of the hurricanes he lived through in that very same house when he was a child - when they really didn't have warning to the storms, what his mother made them eat, how his father would be going crazy about the yard and being cooped up with the kids. 

hurricane bob caused widespread damage all along long island.  my dad's good friend, known as bobby k, was actually visiting the week the hurricane hit and was stuck with us in the summer house.  i remember everyone blaming the power outages, lack of food and no water on bobby k.  my cousin even shared a memory that she had of our parents cutting out articles about hurricane bob and pasting them around the house - just to get at bobby k.  (hey, we had to do something to pass the time.)  even after the rain had passed, when we finally ventured outside to survey the damage, one of our huge trees had fallen across the driveway at the street - and it was days more before we could even leave the house.

i've been thinking about those past summers on long island a lot this year - because of things going on in my family right now and also because this is the first summer in my life that i haven't gone out to our summer house.  it feels like there's something obviously missing - summer was a big part of my childhood.  "we were born and raised in a summer haze," as adele sings.  that is really how i feel about my childhood.  such a huge number of the significant memories of my childhood took place over the summer, at that house we all shared.  it was some of the best times in my entire life and one of the biggest reasons i've been as close to my family out east even after i moved to colorado.  that house was a huge blessing and i was lucky to have it, and all the memories it created, in my life.

hope all my family and friends in new york and boston are safe - i love you all and i'm sorry i missed the fun :)