Sunday Journeys to the Far East
Memories of Eastern Long Island Long Island grew longer on Sundays. As a child, forced to endure family drives out east, I was sure of it. Dad said it was 118 miles long, but it seemed more like a million. We lived in Mount Sinai, a town on the north shore, almost halfway between New York City and the eastern tip of Long Island. The drive always took about three hours with traffic and stopping along the way. From a kid’s point of view, that was way too long to sit in a car—but Dad promised we’d have surprises on the trip. And we usually did. Mt. Sinai sat smack in the middle of the Island’s suburbs where new mini-malls grew every few months. We were never more than five minutes from a Long Islander’s necessities: pizza, bagels, ice cream and a hair salon. Traveling east brought us away the malls and into the new sights, sounds and smells of farmland. For my sister and I who only saw milk at 7-11’s, spotting a clu