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Our entire family had passes on the Long
Island Rail Road. It was “one of the perks” that you got when
your father was in management in those days. I’m sure I didn’t
use the pass in those days as much as I would today, but that is the
perspective time gives you.
Until 1956, we lived in Mineola. I was born in Nassau Hospital,
which probably explains a great deal about my love of trains. From
1957 until 1973, we lived in Syosset, within a few blocks of the railroad;
just enough for good, healthy walk My brother, 11 years my
senior, would check out the timetables and figure out how to work the
trains so he could take his little brother fishing at Oyster Bay.
We’d entrain with our fishing rods and a tackle box at Syosset, go into
Mineola, and change trains for the Bay. If I recall correctly, since
this was post steam era, the trains were hauled by a gray and orange RS1,
long before “Dashing Dan” appeared on the scene. A regular
Conductor on those trains was a man named Dan Harrington, and a nicer man
you’d be hard pressed to find. Mr. Harrington was always
interested in what we were going after, where we were going to rent a
boat, and wished us good luck. Frequently, we’d time our return
trip so he’d be on the return run from the Bay to Mineola.
When we got to Oyster Bay, we’d detrain and walk down the yard while the
locomotive was brought down, uncoupled, and turned on the turn table.
The watering column stood in the yard yet, not having been cut down in the
rush to “modernize”. The whole place smelled of hot ties and
creosote, warm air, old bait, and Diesel oil. From there, we’d
walk down to the park and rent a boat or perhaps walk up to the beach area
near Jakobsen’s Shipyard. That place always intrigued me because
of the stacks of tug parts, cabins, wheel houses, and sheet steel.
They almost always had something interesting in the berth, whether it was
the H.M.S. “Bounty”, built for the film, or the converted sub-chaser
turned yacht, “Argo”. The beach was a joke, since it was mostly
broken clam and oyster shells, or broken concrete with hunks of twisted
re-bar sticking out of it!
My brother took some of his earnings from driving deliveries for Jackson
Pharmacy in Syosset, and purchased a box of sandworms. Then we’d
pile into a wooden row boat and he’d row us out into the harbor to wet a
hook. He taught me how to set up a flounder spreader and bait the
hooks so the worms didn’t catch you with their sharp, hooked, pincer
jaws. They were nasty things! And we fished. Oh, how we
fished! I doubt there was anything as much fun as catching flounders
from a rowboat with your big brother, then occasionally stopping for a
drink of Pepsi (out of the bottle) and scarfing down some ten-cent
chocolate Hostess cupcakes. This was paradise. It was rare
that we didn’t catch two or three dozen flounder, and Lord knows how
many sea robins, begalls, and sand sharks. We tossed back what we
didn’t want and strung the rest out on a chain to bring home.
When the fishing part of the day was done, two very brown, tired, but
happy boys would head back to the Oyster Bay yard. One trip I
specifically recall put us in the P54 combine at the rear of the outgoing
train. Dan Harrington had us hang our burlap bag of fish in the
baggage section, while we sat in the passenger compartment on the dark
green leatherette seats. Mr. Harrington told me that he had
something for me if I wanted it after he made his way through the train.
When he returned, he handed me a huge rubber banded wad of punched ticket
stubs, collected after the coach string had made its outbound trip from
Jamaica to the Bay and on the return. It must have held 600 ticket
checks in every conceivable color of which they were printed. It was
the only time I remember purple ticket checks amongst the more familiar
reds, greens, and oranges. I kept that wad of ticket checks from
that trip until I was into high school. To this day, I have no idea
what the different colors represented, but I remember Dan Harrington, and
I remember changing trains at Mineola. From that point on, the best
part of the trip was over.
For the record, we filleted the flounders back at home and yes, we ate the
pure white meat. My brother took me fishing many times afterward,
too, often at Bayville, on Stehli’s Beach, sometimes down at Quogue,
trapping blue claw crabs in the canal, and each time was a great
experience with wonderful memories. But I must say with all honesty,
the train trips to Oyster Bay, the train ride out and back, and a
fine Conductor who was happy to see two young boys doing what boys should
be doing, made the “fish trains” special. And I wonder if boys
today have that same chance with men who represented the Long Island Rail
Road in the manner of great railroaders, like Dan Harrington?
Richard D. Glueck 01/17/2008
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