Between milestone events, the season changes Signals
By John McKinney
September 24, 2008 | 02:46 PM Autumn padded in on quiet feet around 11 o'clock Monday morning, a lovely 65-degree day. Nothing more climactic than a light breeze presaged the cooler days waiting to come. On its final weekend, this benign, beautiful summer of 2008 continued to behave itself. But at 6:45 am when my wife and I set out for our morning walk it was only in the 50s, and we had put on blue jeans instead of shorts for the first time since spring. I can't remember a year more conducive to spending virtually the entire summer in shorts, and reveling, even at my age, in the boyhood-ness of it all — the wild sense of freedom that a summer in shorts brings, the feeling of connection with times long past, someone you used to be. We spent a couple of hours Sunday afternoon strolling through the big, much-anticipated annual Outdoor Art Show at Gallery North in Setauket, enjoying the quality of painting, photography and crafts accomplished by some of the finest artists working on Long Island and nearby states. (Disclosure — I am an officer and trustee of this splendid not-for-profit organization.) A section of North Country Road was closed to traffic, and for two days thousands of show-goers ambled among 150 white booths set up along the road. Under a perfect azure sky, it was a wonderful place to meet old friends and acquaintances. For me, the weekend was book-ended by a pair of life's milestone events, a wedding on Saturday afternoon and, at the end of the day on Sunday, a funeral. The wedding reception was held at the Shoreham Country Club, a compact, tidy gem of a place atop a bluff 80 feet or so above the sandy shore of the Long Island Sound. I stood with the wedding guests on a graceful, wrap-around deck, drink in hand, looking up and down the vast Sound and recalling, with a sense of disbelief, that almost 60 years ago I had lived in this small village of Shoreham. In all that time I had not even once stood where I was standing on Saturday. Now I was at the wedding of the daughter of a friend, wondering where all that time had gone. I looked down at the water, remembering in a sudden flash a golden summer morning spent diving into its startlingly clear depths from a float anchored offshore. Could the water, hope of hopes, still be that clean? The beach looked unchanged, the same beautiful line of sand lying between the bluff and the water, a bright ribbon stretching as far east and west as the eye could see. Back inside, the timeless rituals of a wedding unfolded — introduction of the wedding party, the best man's toast (they are too long today), the first dance, the cutting of the cake. The meal was splendid, the band so loud conversation was difficult. Out on the deck again as twilight came down, the lights of New Haven across the Sound were winking on. I noticed three tents set up on the beach a little to the east, and a group of people sitting around a fire in front of them. Driftwood, I thought, remembering how it was done. The memory of the excellent wedding reception was still with me the next afternoon as I drove to the Casimir Funeral Home. The younger brother of a man who had been in my own wedding party 50 years ago had died, after a long and cruel illness. In the room were flowers, and childhood photographs and people I had not seen in many years. Funerals affect the behavior of men, for the better. American men do not normally embrace, but at funerals we do. It is a way of expression that is deeper than the spoken phraseology of sorrow. The weekend, with its pairing of joy and sorrow, was a way of looking ahead and looking back at the same time. But isn't that precisely what happens at the moment when summer ends and fall begins?