Westhampton: Golden Days and Memories for a Lifetime

By Chuck Mansfield

WESTHAMPTON: Golden Days and Memories for a Lifetime is Mansfield’s seventh book. Its preface begins with, “Westhampton is in my blood.” In some 300 pages the author makes his case by telling sometimes hilarious tales of family, friends and situations.
He calls his “life experiences in Westhampton…the most joyful in my nearly four score years. They have provided clear and warm memories all the way from childhood to the present day, a span of more than 76 years. The richness of these experiences is inestimable but oh so gratifying, as they were golden days and memories for a lifetime.”
In his epilogue Mansfield writes: “An online dictionary defines nostalgia as ‘a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.’ To me these words apply perfectly to my life and times in Westhampton.”
It is a funny, story-telling book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669822493

Chuck Mansfield

For thirty-years Mary Ann Mansfield contributed to mathematics education as an innovator, motivator and instructor of both children and colleagues. The recipient of numerous awards, she currently co-chairs the Working Group of the Museum of Mathematics (MOMATH) and serves on its Advisory Council, as well as authoring solutions and problems for math tournaments. Chuck Mansfield graduated from Chaminade High School (Mineola, N.Y.) in 1962 and the College of the Holy Cross in 1966. Upon graduation, he was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, subsequently assigned to Vietnam and served as a platoon commander. Later, he received an M.B.A. from New York University. Since 1999, he has served as a director/trustee of the mutual funds of Federated Hermes, Inc., a $585-billion Pittsburgh-based complex listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The couple has been married for 53 years and resides in Stuart, Fl., and Westhampton Beach, N.Y.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Chuck Mansfield.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The cover’s beach and sea scene is by artist Joann Dean, used with her permission and published with the author’s gratitude.

The cover’s sea shell image is courtesy of www.pixabay.com. It is Free for commercial use No attribution required.

Unless otherwise indicated, the photographs and other images herein are courtesy of the author and used with his permission. Some of these belonged to the photograph collection of Mary C. Mansfield, the author’s late mother, who gave them to him. Several other photographs were taken with the author’s self-timer camera.

This book is a memoir, largely a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author, other contributors and the publisher make no explicit guarantee as to the accuracy of the information contained herein. In some cases, stories have been revised or reconstructed, and the names of people and places altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture is taken from the World English Bible.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/05/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

836248

Contents

Preface

Dedication

Other Writings by Chuck Mansfield

Acknowledgements

The Westhampton Of Yore

A City Girl In Westhampton

By Mary Ann Mansfield

A Eulogy For Angelica

Lawrence Jules Charrot

Mary Elizabeth Charrot Mansfield

My Aunt Jeanne: A Reflection

A Poem And A Eulogy For Mavis

Bits And Pieces Of Good Times Past

Mamie’s Boot Camp

By Mary Ann Mansfield

The Church Of The Immaculate Conception

A Would-Be Cantor Who Can’t

Long Island: The Most Wonderful Place On Earth

By Jim Norwood

Summer Interlude (Saturday, July 17, 1965)

By Tom Kiley

Westhampton Memories

By G. Michael Hostage and Thomas Andrew Hostage

A Westhampton Remembrance

By Sheila O’Brien

The Folly Of Renting Our Westhampton Home

The Beach

By Katie Mansfield

Cupsogue Beach

By Frank Fallace

Which Way To The Beach?

By Pat Killian

Gull Guide

By Katie Mansfield

A Very Exclusive Club

By Frank Teague

Westhampton Recollections

By Patty and Bob Lund

The Gathering: A Remembrance

By Roger Hunt

The Gathering: My View

Walter Harris, Friend

A Tale Of A Whale Of A Christmas Tree

An Inconvenient Tree

Long Island’s North Fork Wine Country And Pindar Vineyards

Hampton Eateries Then, Now And In Between

An Unwanted, Unwelcome And Wayward Woodpecker

Our Intriguing Audubon Prints

The Kileys Of Westhampton, If Ye Please! (Well, Almost!)

By Tom Kiley

Water, Hospitality, Refuge And The Fence

By Katie Mansfield

A Perfect Storm: The Hurricane Of 1938

Hell On Earth: The Sunrise Wildfire Of 1995

The Hamptons Eruv

By Mary Ann Mansfield

Lieutenant General Arthur C. Blades, USMC (Ret.)

Colonel Kevin P. Brooks, USMCR (Ret.)

Hallock W. Culver, American Hero

Westhampton Country Club

Bobby Jenkins, Friend

The Westhampton Beach Outdoor Art Show

The Hamptons Television Series

A V-Tach Attack

Epilogue

About The Author

Preface

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one’s talent, and one’s inner happiness.

—George Sand

W esthampton is in my blood. I have loved this special place and its environs for some three quarters of a century. My mother, Mary, first brought me there (at age two months) in June 1945 when we were living with my maternal grandparents at their Brooklyn home while my father, Charlie, flew missions against the Japanese from bases in the South Pacific during World War II, which the United States won there that summer and in Europe the prior year.

Beginning in the 1940s my maternal grandparents, Angelica (Stewart) and Lawrence Charrot (pronounced Sharrow), whom their grandchildren and great-grandchildren always called Mimi and Poppa, respectively, rented a small cottage each summer at The Cedar Beach House & Cottages in Westhampton, N. Y., on the east end of Long Island. Summers there for a youngster like me from the gritty streets of Brooklyn’s Flatbush section were extraordinary – bucolic, idyllic and simply wonderful. New York Times bestselling author of action and suspense novels Nelson DeMille has called Westhampton this unique and special piece of America. My college classmate, friend and fellow Marine, Frank Teague, writes herein that Westhampton Beach is a beautiful place. Even Long Island’s newspaper Newsday, as recently as July 2021, has called Westhampton picture-perfect. Every year since 1945 (except 1967, the year I was married and moved with my new bride to Pensacola, Fla., where the Marine Corps had temporarily assigned me for training), I have spent time in Westhampton. Languid childhood days, teen and lean years, maintaining a home there and sharing its beauty with friends and family – all are cherished memories. As James M. Barrie once wrote, God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December.

According to Meredith Murray in her 2010 book Around Westhampton, Westhampton is a 15-square-mile area of the south shore of eastern Long Island in the state of New York, with a year-round population of 7,000 or so and a flourishing summer resort head count of more than 30,000. Like Ms. Murray, I consider the area I call Westhampton to include the hamlets of Westhampton and Quiogue (pronounced kwaiog) and the nearby villages of Westhampton Beach and West Hampton Dunes but I would also add Quogue (say kwog) to the east and the charming little hamlet of Remsenburg to the west. Of Remsenburg Wikipedia reports, "There are no stoplights and very few commercial businesses. Ms. Murray writes further, Blessed with moderate temperatures; wide, white-sand beaches; and the natural beauty of sand dunes, waterways, and salt spray roses, with efficient transportation to New York City, New England, and beyond, it is a resort area of international repute." (Author’s note: Please see Katie Mansfield’s The Beach, Frank Fallace’s Cupsogue Beach and Pat Killian’s Which Way to the Beach? later herein.)

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A salt spray rose (rosa rugosa). Its actual color is dark pink, and there was a huge hedge of them at Cedar Beach back in the day. I have read that these hedges are so strong and thick that animals, children and trespassers can’t get through them.

(Wasn’t there a Rosa Rugosa in my grade-school class?)

(Photograph courtesy of en.wikipedia.org and used under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.)

During the COVID-contaminated summer of 2020, my lifelong friend and co-author Tom Kiley and I were engrossed in writing and editing THE PERFECT SEASON: The Untold Story of Chaminade High School’s First Undefeated and Untied Varsity Football Team. At the same time my wife Mary Ann, aka Mame, always one for great ideas, told me, Your next book should be all about Westhampton. I liked her idea very much and decided to invite family members and friends familiar with Westhampton and the local area to share their memories in writing. The ground rule for submission was simple (and successful in the past): A paragraph, a page or a chapter would be warmly welcomed. For my part, I started writing almost immediately and enthusiastically even though THE PERFECT SEASON manuscript was job one and not yet finished. Happily, it was successfully completed on schedule and has received acclaim.

My cousin, Mary Anne McKenna, has written, I was very interested to hear that you were writing a book about growing up in Westhampton. Though my family typically only visited there to spend time with your grandparents or the Peters family each summer, I have fond memories of it too. Indeed, I believe the peace I find when near water was born in me early on when on the beach at Breezy Point at my maternal grandparents’ cabana, as well as in the Hamptons and on the many beaches of Long Island I was lucky enough to spend time on over the years.

The early chapters of this work contain what is actually a significant history of the Charrot family and its branches, not only here in the United States but also in francophone Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Vive la famille Charrot!

Mimi and Poppa retired to Westhampton from Brooklyn in 1959, and my wife Mame and I bought their home from Poppa’s estate in 1984. At present, Westhampton serves as our retirement retreat in the summertime, still providing fresh and wonderful memories of good times past. Now, at age 76, I write this memoir along with welcome fellow contributors not only to share so many nostalgic decades and memories but also to revive and revisit them for comfort in my twilight years. As Mame writes of me later herein, He so obviously cherished these memories shared here in this book that I’m surprised it took him 76 years to write about them!

In the interest of full disclosure the narrative herein ventures occasionally from Westhampton to Long Island’s beautiful and nearby North Fork.

This should be a funny, story-telling book, Mame has encouraged me. I have tried to make it such and hope you enjoy it.

Of countless moments

I give this one now to you

it’s yours, yes, truly.

—Les Horning

FARM LANE #336

April 26, 2021

A YEAR ON THE FARM

LANE: an adventure in

awareness

And now, as the late, great Paul Harvey used to say, for the rest of the story.

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For all those family members, friends and other wonderful people who helped make the memories of many golden summers in Westhampton so profoundly epic, treasured and unforgettable.

OTHER WRITINGS BY CHUCK MANSFIELD

Books

NO KIDS, NO MONEY AND A CHEVY: A Politically Incorrect Memoir (2003)

BITS AND PIECES: Stories to Soothe the Soul or Raise the Hackles (2017)

VIETNAM: Remembrances of a War (2018)

LEADERSHIP: In Action, Thought and Word (2019)

With Mary Ann Mansfield

KEVIN COURAGEOUS: A Journey of Faith, Hope and Love (2020)

With Tom Kiley

THE PERFECT SEASON: The Untold Story of Chaminade High School’s

First Undefeated and Untied Varsity Football Team (2021)

Poems

Ode to Chaminade, Cornerstone and Classic

Ode to Joy, Also Known As Mame

Ode to the World of Light

Time Cannot Kill

Vietnam Valentine: Reflections on Leaving You and Coming Home

Articles, Essays, Letters and Thesis

A Comment on Al Gore

A Few Choice Words about Jimmy Breslin

A Footnote on the Simpson-Bowles Commission

A Letter to a Fellow Marine

A Letter to a Liberal

A Letter to a Misguided Classmate

A Letter to a Very Young Chaminade Alumnus

A Letter to Another Very Young Chaminade Alumnus

A Letter to My Holy Cross Classmates

A Letter to the Chief Justice

A Letter to the Not-So-Holy College of the Holy Cross

American Culture in Extremis

A Message to a Friend in Doubt

A Message to the Mother of a Fine Young Student-Athlete

An Approach to Evaluating Foreign Bank Credit Risk

Another Obama-Generated Disgrace

Another Vote for Export Trading Firms

Biography of G. Michael Hostage

Captain Cancer

Connection: The Mansfields

Contemporary Commercial Bank Credit Policy: Economic Rationale and Ramifications

Credit Policy and Risk Acceptability for International Financial Institutions

Crisis and the Five Fs

Do You Know the Mustard Man?

Fail to the Chief

Fannie and Freddie’s Chickens Come Home to Roost

Farewell to Federated

Fidel in Hell: A Message for Pope Francis

First Lieutenant Ronald Winchester, USMC

Frank Teague, Marine

Giving the Best Its Due

Hail, Erin, Full of Grace: Epic Erin and the Book of Job

How I Came to Know and Love the iPad

In Memory of John F. Donahue

It Wasn’t Mere Flaw That Led to Tragedy

Jack Lenz – In Memoriam

Joe Altman: A Reflection

Leadership by the Left

Legislators and Regulators Failed in 2007

Lessons from a Legend

Letters of Credit: Promises to Keep

Lines Written in Early Spring

Marines as Extremists

My Fellow Marines React to Trump Election Victory

Of Valor, Victory, Virtue and Vietnam

On Tom Brokaw and Vietnam Veterans

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Please Go Home, Ms. Tierney

Roman Catholicism and Socialism

Stuprate Mesopotamiam

Systemic Racism is a Myth

The Bane and the Pain of Bain D. Slack

The Function of Credit Analysis in a U.S. Commercial Bank

The GCGC

The Kaepernick Caper

The Rise, Fall and Rise (?) of a Middle-Aged Executive

Things That Paid Off for Me in My Life

Too Many Hats

Vietnam Memory: Acts of Good Faith

Vocations: Our Urgent Need

What Does the Tet Offensive Have to Teach Us 40 Years Later?

When Perception is NOT Reality

You People are Disgraceful

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Acknowledgements

The author’s gratitude is owed and offered to the following, whose willingness to share their writings and/or otherwise help in the production of this work is deeply appreciated.

Camille Altman

Baby Moon Restaurant

Erin Bailey

Scott Bannon

Mary Pinto Barnett

James M. Barrie

Reverend Michael Bartholomew

Amanda Belavsky

Lt. Gen. Arthur C. Blades, USMC (Ret.)

Albert Bliss

Timothy Bolger

Pietro Bottero

Elizabeth Boyce

Tony Brinker

Virginia Brooks

Buoy One Seafood Restaurant and Market

Luann Burke

Ron Campsey

Shana Campsey

Gilles Caramante

Jay Carrieri

Casa Basso Restaurant

Pamela Casey

Sean Casey

Vince Cavalier

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Anne Elizabeth Mary Charrot

Geoffrey Charrot

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Pamela Cipparulo

Megan Sullivan Collins

Church of the Immaculate Conception

Emilie Roy Corey

Pindar Damianos

Dan’s Papers

Bryan Dean

Joann Dean

Nelson DeMille

Annie Miller Devoy

Disabled American Veterans

Elaine DiGiacomo

Peggy Dillmeier

Ian Drew

Kenneth Ducey

Rosemary Ducey

Eckart’s Luncheonette

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Express News Group

Frank Fallace

Bruce Farnsworth

Marcelle S. Fischler

Dianne Francis

Anne Frank

Max Funk

Garden City News

Dennis C. Golden, Ed.D.

Gospel of John

Gospel of Luke

Gospel of Matthew

Gordon M. Grant

John Joseph Hagerty, Jr.

Walter Harris

Paul Harvey

Vega Boschetti de Heinrich

Dr. Brian H. Herrin

Les Horning

G. Michael Hostage

Thomas Andrew Hostage

Joanne Hunt

W. Rogers Hunt, Jr.

Mort Hyman

John Jenkins

Kansas State University Parasitology Laboratory

Philip C. Kantz

Lance Keelan

Annalise Kenney

Eric Kershner

Thomas P. Kiley, Jr.

Col. Charles T. Killian, USAF (Ret.)

Patricia Killian

Peter Kingsley-Smith, Ph.D.

Lisa Kombrink

Anneta Konstantinides

Krames, LLC

N. Rama Krishna, Ph.D.

Kenneth LaValle

Brianne Ledda

Joan Levan

Alice M. Lissemore

Long Island Press

Patricia B. Lund

Robert E. Lund

Thomas Lynch

Fay Mack

Laura Mann

Alicia Mannerz

Charles F. Mansfield, Sr.

Charles F. Mansfield III

Elizabeth Van Hook Mansfield

John C. Mansfield

Kathryn M. Mansfield

Marissa H. Mansfield

Mary Ann Mansfield

Mary C. Mansfield

Mary K. Mansfield

Megan Mansfield

Michael L. Mansfield

Paula Marotta

Lucine Marous

Maryland Department of Natural Resources

Mary’s Pizza and Pasta

Theresa Masin

Danielle McClain

Mary Anne McKenna

Verna M. Merkel

Thomas Merton

Lee Meyer

Mitch

Lance Morrow

Denis M. Murphy, M.D.

Meredith Murray

National Parks Service

Jacob Neusner

New Moon Café

Newsday

John Newton

James C. Norwood, Jr.

James C. Norwood III

Arthur R. O’Brien

Sheila O’Brien

Charlotte Lipsom O’Connor

Katherine O’Donnell

Andrew Olsen

Carol Palmer

Dominic Papagno

Beth Passehl

Kay Payne, R.N.

Paul Peditto

John F. Peters

Mary Jeanne Peters

Patricia Mansfield Phelan

Pindar

Pindar Vineyards

Elizabeth Pinto

Patricia Pinto

Randee Post-Daddona

George Henry Powell

Midshipman William Reynolds

RVM

Saint Luke’s Kansas CityHealth System

George Sand

Carl Schwartz

John Schwarz

James Royce Shannon

Bain D. Slack

Laura J. Smith

South Carolina Department of Natural Resources

William Lloyd Stearman

William Stevens

Suzi Stewart

Catherine Stovall

Bill Sutton

Francis J. Teague, Esq.

The Patio Restaurant

The Southampton Press

The Suffolk Times

Sylvia Thompson

Kristin Thorne

Times Review Media

Alex Tomlinson

Tonino’s Italian Eatery

Town of Southampton Community Preservation Program

Trumpets on the Bay

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Taylor K. Vecsey

Joe Werkmeister

Westhampton Country Club

www.abc7ny.com

www.allaboutbirds.com

www.answerstoall.com

www.antiqueaudubon.com

www.babymoonrestaurant.com

www.bbc.com

www.behindthehedges.com

www.birdspix.com

www.bluenunwines.com

www.britannica.com

www.buoyone.com

www.celebrateboston.com

www.cheatsheet.com

www.convergemedia.org

www.dignitymemorial.com

www.dnr.maryland.gov

www.en.wikipedia.org

www.flickr.com

www.google.com

www.hamptonsweb.com

www.historyofwar.org

www.histsociety.blogspot.com

www.joesamericangrill.com

www.johnscottssurfshack.com

www.maidenandliberty.com

www.merriam-webster.com

www.newmooncafeeq.com

www.news.yahoo.com

www.nhc.noaa.gov

www.nppoa.com

www.oceanservice.noaa.gov

www.orderofmaltaamerican.org

www.pixabay.com

www.projects.news12.com

www.quoguewildliferefuge.org

www.sacredheartfl.org

[e-mail]

www.snl.fandom.com

www.sparknotes.com

www.staywell.com

www.stonecreekinn.com

www.toninospizzali.com

www.townofsouthampton.gov

www.tributearchive.com

www.trumpetsonthebay.com

www.unitypoint.org

www.urbandictionary.com

www.webmdhealthservices.com

www.westhamptoncc.com

www.whatsamptoning.com

www.woodsholemuseum.org

Here I also express my deep gratitude to and for my wife Mame, who has not only made fine submissions to this work but also served with candor, dedication, distinction and selflessness as my co-editor. Her brilliance, energy, knowledge and talent are amazing, and I am blessed to have her in my life and work. To her the beautiful words of Thomas Merton in Love and Living aptly apply: Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.

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The Westhampton Of Yore

Let’s hear it for Cedar Beach!

—Denny Golden

A s the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Still, the one below and the one that follows it require more than that, which will hopefully provide readers with sufficient background for them to appreciate the rest of the story.

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This photograph was taken in the summer of 1944 at The Cedar Beach House & Cottages at the south end of Jagger Lane in Westhampton, N.Y. The only persons now identifiable are wagon-master Wilton Morris, the gentleman pictured in the center; a woman two persons to his left believed to be Gertrude Thomas; to her left Mrs. Sayre, a neighbor; and, respectively, fourth from the rear on the wagon’s left, Mavis Holahan; my mother, Mary Charrot Mansfield, third from the rear; and Mavis’s husband, Eddie, second from the rear. With gasoline then stringently rationed during World War II, Wilton would drive house guests to the beach in this horse-drawn wagon.

The story begins shortly with tales of people and places that I hope will provide readers a distinct feeling of both the joy and the magic of the little hamlet of Westhampton, the small cottage that was once my summer vacation home and the vibrant community of young and old at The Cedar Beach House, as well as the other storied towns and villages of the Hamptons.

The following poem, entitled Cedar Beach, was written by a talented family member, who has declined attribution. It has hung in our Westhampton living room since it was written in 1998.

Beach of my memory

Beach of my youth

Beach of my happiness

Are you the truth?

Was bunny hunting real so long ago?

Or was it something I wish were so?

Was Jagger Lane the endless walk it seemed?

Was crabbing off the dock something I dreamed?

Were the deer at the sunhouse that magic morn?

I’ve never seen them before or since

But before was not far from being born

And since, I’ve been away.

So I choose to believe what I saw that day!

Wilton, Willow May, you really were there.

Oh, why couldn’t I catch with my crab net that hare?

Wilton, your morning pipe from your porch rocker filled the air

As my brother and I raised the flag with patriotic care!

Mary had great confidence there.

Although not home, she knew she belonged!

Her summer place where her family would now prolong?

Rita, Mavis, Eddie and Yrene Burrs:

You were all part of this world that was hers.

The her I refer to, as we all know

Is Mimi Charrot!

You don’t need a deed to make a place yours

Your spirit is what endures.

My memory of Cedar Beach so long ago

Is rejuvenated by Chuck whenever we go

He and I love this past so!

It all returns when we stand by the water and let the wind blow.

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In this late-afternoon photo, on the right is the cottage that my grandparents, Angelica and Lawrence Charrot, rented in Westhampton each summer. The structure in the background on the left is the sunhouse. My wife Mame and sister-in-law Maggie actually hid in the bushes to take this picture because the cottage was about to be razed and a No Trespassing sign was put in place after the sale of the property.

(Photograph courtesy of Mary Ann Mansfield and used with permission.)

For perspective, the summer season in Westhampton and adjacent Westhampton Beach starts on the weekend of Memorial Day, to which my grandparents always referred as Decoration Day, its name from 1866 to 1971, the year it was changed, and concludes on Labor Day. As aforementioned, times there were wonderful golden days.

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My mother took this shot of me, age two months, in the altogether at Cedar Beach in June 1945.

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Here’s our elder son Chas, almost four months old and more decently clad than his father above, on the same great lawn at Cedar Beach on July 28, 1968.

(Photograph courtesy of Mary Ann Mansfield and used with permission.)

Consider the matter of bunny hunting. This activity dates from the early to mid-’50s when my brother Mike and I were young boys. Our sister Pat was even younger and may have accompanied us but Peggy was almost certainly too young; our sisters Elisabeth and Kate hadn’t yet been born. My Dad, Charlie Mansfield; my Mom’s father, Larry Charrot; and her uncle, Willie Dillmeier, used to ride by car through then sparsely populated Remsenburg, a tiny hamlet west of and adjacent to Westhampton. On early summer evenings, we would search for rabbits, which were ubiquitous in the area. The approach was to drive slowly along the country lanes and look for bunnies on the edges of the cornfields. Uncle Willie often called me eagle eye because I seemed to have a knack for quickly spotting the little guys. When we saw one, Dad would stop the car and my brother, I or both of us would slowly and surreptitiously alight, pick up a stone or small rock and hurl it at the unassuming animal. Of course, we would miss and the little bunny would swiftly and safely scamper away.

Parenthetically, I had initially contacted the Long Island Rabbit Rescue Group to request permission to publish its photograph of an eastern Long Island rabbit, a mistake. At first the group’s representative thanked me for requesting permission, and asked me to provide the context in which the photo would appear. Presumably because of my use of the term animal cruelty she replied, "I also would consider this cruel. Does the episode resolve (sic) in a lesson learned about being kind and humane to animals? I emailed, Yes, of course. Her next reply: I am unable to grant you permission to use the photograph without viewing the episode in its entirety. I responded that the paragraph above was the entirety of the episode. She rejoined, If this was the entirety, then I am unable to grant permission for use of the photograph in this context. I hope you understand. I wrote back, May I ask why? Next she emailed, No judgments, however as a rescuer, this story just makes me sad and I simply don’t want my name or our rescue’s name on it. It’s just off brand for us. Poor baby is sad and my writing is off brand. My final note to her: I was six years old at the time! Give me a break."

What a world we live in! We abort babies by the millions but God forbid a kid throw a stone at a rabbit some 70 years ago – and miss the target every time!

The end of the lane

where what is meets what might be

let’s have a look, eh?

—Les Horning

FARM LANE #158

October 17, 2020

A YEAR ON THE FARM

LANE: an adventure in

awareness

Jagger Lane is explained in the caption beneath the first photograph at the beginning of this chapter. Still, the lane, described in the earlier poem as an endless walk, likely meant the afternoon hikes Mike and I would often take as boys from Cedar Beach north to South Country Road, a distance of about a half-mile. To us as youngsters it did indeed seem endless. The lane is named for the Jagger family, who came to the U.S. originally from England and settled in eastern Long Island. According to www.longislandgenealogy.com, "There was a great tribe of Jaggers who lived in Southampton, L. I. (Author’s note: