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Without any
of its long-term residents
being my blood-relatives,
no zip code on Long Island
holds more fond/funny
and life defining
memories than
All of those memories
are within very short
walking distance
of this image
***
I could bore you to death
with a mini-recital
of those memories
but I will list only one:
On virtually
every Wednesday night
in 1970,
a middle-aged man
would treat his
college-student son
to dinner at a 5-star restaurant
in downtown Port Jefferson
Their precise meeting place
was the square-shaped lounge
in the middle of the dining room
The first of these Wednesdays,
the Stonybrook junior
arrived late
because his doobie-loving
girlfriend had a dormitory room
to herself...
"Sam, your dinner table is ready."
"Thank you, Amos."
But the tardy sstudent
lingered behind
—for one minute—
because never before
had he been
in a five-star restaurant
without both parents
and two sisters et al
When he walked
into the dining room,
he said
"Daddy, you left these two dollars
on the bar."
"Paulie Boy,
that $2 was left there as a tip."
Both father and son laughed.
"I'll be doobie-damned, Daddy,"
I said.
Then Paulie Boy
returned the money
to where it belonged
while adding a dime
that had been
in his pocket.
It never happened again
and I don't give
a fart's ass
about the friggin' banner
visible in the image below
because the cropped
American Flag
alongside it
guarantees
you can have
friends
with different
political views
The photograph
was taken from
the parking lot
of the world-famous
The photographer is
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