Jones Beach crew hangs out year round

Tony Peanuts, Jimmy the Butcher, Doc and the rest of the gang were at the usual table in the Field Six snack bar at Jones Beach when Neil Mitzman walked in off the desolate sand, rubbing his hands for warmth.

"I've been to a lot of beaches and I like it here. I like it better than anywhere," said Mitzman, 53, of Merrick, a night security guard and part-time mechanic who swims this stretch of beach for much of the year but thought better of it this blustery day.

He belongs to an informal group that has gathered daily for some 20 years at Jones Beach for talk, cards and time-passing. In 2001, members collected $2,500 for a hardwood bench in their own honor on the boardwalk; it bears 85 names of members past and present, but most days half a dozen to 20 people show up.

More came in the old days, most say. As annual attendance at the beach has dropped from 8 million or more in the 1980s to about 6 million in recent years -- a function of demographics and the spread of air conditioning, among other factors, according to George Gorman, deputy regional director for state parks on Long Island -- so too have the group's numbers, winnowed by Florida's draw and grimmer attrition.

"The new generation is not moving in," said Tony Peanuts, matter-of-factly.

Tony Peanuts is Tony Piselli, 81, a Merck retiree from Freeport whose pockets used to be filled with peanuts from a particular bar. (He stopped going when they stopped giving away the peanuts; the name stuck.) Jimmy the Butcher is a butcher from Westchester. Doc is Cynthia Paulis, 58, a writer from Massapequa Park who used to be an emergency room doctor.

"My regulars," park director Sue Guliani calls them. "They have the pulse of what's going on here," she said. "If they feel somebody's behavior is out of line, or if something's dripping, a beach shower, somebody calls."

On this early March day the snack bar was almost empty. Puzzle Pete, aka Peter Tullo, 67, a retired NYPD sergeant from Wantagh, was pondering his crossword; Bill Regina, 76, a former toy manufacturer from Long Beach, read his Robert Ludlum.

Talk between old friends had an easy, irregular cadence. Yes, one can use a crossword dictionary to solve the Friday puzzle, but isn't that missing the point? Did anyone see "A Gifted Man" last night on the TV?

"Glucosamine," Doris Regina said to Piselli, who plays tennis almost daily but has been having trouble with his knees lately. "They give it to horses for running."

"Well, stop taking it and see what happens," Piselli said.

"But it's working for me!"

"If it worked for everybody, everybody would be using it."

Later, Stanley Goldberg, one of the former regulars, got on the line from Sarasota. He and his wife, Juliette, moved there a year and a half ago. Goldberg is 72 and his wife is 71; they visited Jones Beach almost daily for 15 years but northern winters got hard after his heart attack.

He missed the gang, he said. "The sand is different, and the people," he said. "I got to consider the people at Jones Beach my friends. They were part of my family, almost, and it's hard to adjust."