The Column: Undercurrents in our placid pool

How are we doing out here in the ’burbs?

The crush and clamor of the city are miles away.

We’ve got a corner on peace and quiet.

Oh, sure, there’s the kid who roars down the street on his red motorcycle at all hours and macho guys in muscle cars trying to break the sound barrier on a stretch of straightaway near the Legion hall. The expressway is nuts, bars are loud on weekends, and occasionally someone sets off a skyrocket on the beach.

But, overall, not much to complain about. Or is there?

I’ve been checking the neighborhood chatline and, turns out, all is not copacetic.

Teenagers still hanging out at the train station.

Port-a-potties overturned at the park. Gross!

Car smacked the mailbox and kept going.

Floor refinishers say you’ll have to move the furniture yourself.

Neighbor’s dog ate my delivery. No apology. Some nerve.

Rental apartments in private homes — what is this, Queens?

Leaf blowers on Sunday. Really?

Kayak stolen from front yard.

Mine too — from a boat rack.

Think that’s bad? Someone heisted my cat!

And, so, we learn that St. Augustine was onto something when he instructed, “This is the very perfection of man, to find his own imperfections.”

Augustine spoke with such wisdom you wonder if he spent a summer in the Hamptons.

Certainly, there are ample upbeat chatline postings about trustworthy plumbers, superior exterminators and where best to get that dent knocked out of your fender. Plentiful are photos of kittens, puppies, rose gardens and tranquil waterside retreats. And, hey, let’s hear it for the highway department for clearing a branch blocking the street — at 4:30 in the morning!

But, boy, do we have our beefs.

Restaurants rate particular attention. Had a reservation and waited two hours. Management pushed us out before dessert. Waiter shortchanged us and didn’t apologize. Food overpriced and tasted like cornstarch. Surcharge for credit cards. Cash tips only. Might as well stay home.

Politics — supposed to be off-limits but stuff slips through. Your guy’s a jerk. Yours is worse. The country’s kaput. Government’s fault. His fault. Her fault. Your fault.

Masks? Take it off, pandemic’s over. Mind your own business — it’s still around. “My wife reads lips,” says one fellow seeking a truce, “so I have kept a mask on for years!”

Remember John Cheever’s 1964 short story, “The Swimmer,” and movie a few years later starring Burt Lancaster?

Neddy Merrill takes a dip in several suburban pools — Westchester, in his case — on a kind of frenzied search for insight and self-awareness and comes up, well, dry. Nothing is as it seems or ought to be.

Even out here, you can’t have it all. Maybe that’s what Cheever was saying.

Like plenty of old-timers on Long Island, I come from “in there” — Brooklyn.

I go back often enough — back to the traffic and clatter and hustle and people calling out from one side of the street to the other.

“How y’been?”

“Pretty good, y’self?”

I’m scarfing a margarita pie with my son at this sweet little pizzeria on Fifth Avenue, across from Green-Wood Cemetery.

“He’s a lifer,” my son tells the owner. “He’s on Long Island, but he’s a lifer.”

“Nice.”

“Good pie.”

“Thanks — eat up.”

We eat up, say no to the tiramisu — maybe next time — and I head back to the Island.

Been here a long time now, my wife, Wink, and I. Blessed with a snug little cottage on a quirky little street that — except for Easy Rider — allows us peace and quiet. (When does he sleep?)

We appreciate what we have and I wouldn’t care to say which is better — Brooklyn or our little haven a block from the harbor.

There is an ease and comfort — a sense of order — in the suburbs that the city can’t match. There is vigor and surprise and a kind of addictive unruliness that goes with urban life — sometimes exhausting but uplifting, too.

Folks in the city complain about almost everything, sure — that comes with the territory. In the suburbs, we do the same despite all those “Life is Good” bumper stickers.

Human nature, maybe. The ideal is elusive. We are who we are. City or suburb, you can’t outswim yourself.