Expressway: Boys, bikes and a fog machine

Reader Anthony Antonelli lives in Islip.

On a recent morning I went outside for the paper and saw a dense fog rolling in. I sat down to watch, and the scene brought me back to when I was a child growing up in Deer Park.

It was the early 1970s and we had just moved from Brooklyn to West 11th Street. I was 9 years old and it was my first summer on Long Island. The first neighbors I met lived next door. The Strauss family had a couple of older boys who loved to play sponge ball or stickball in front of our house.

I watched them for a few days and finally was asked to play. The field was the width of the street and ran from telephone pole to telephone pole. There were no bases. We played two against two and every hit was an "automatic." Ground ball past the pitcher -- automatic single. Line drive or pop fly past the pitcher -- automatic double.

The first day I played, we were having a great time. A few other neighbors I hadn't met yet came over and reserved the next game by yelling, "We got winner!"

Suddenly, one of the Strauss boys yelled, "Here he comes!"

Everyone dropped his mitt and bat, ran to his house and came back on a bike. Carl DeGregorio, who lived one house to the left, rode by me and told me to hop on his handlebars. I had no idea what was coming until we got to the corner on Park Avenue.

To my amazement, a small truck with a huge fog trailing behind it was making a left onto our block. As it released this fog, it passed us going very slowly. We began to follow it.

It was thrilling! Our half-dozen bikes rode the entire block enveloped in the dense cloud it released. We yelled and screamed the entire ride until it crossed Grand Boulevard. We weren't allowed to cross the busy street, so we stood and watched it travel two more blocks until it circled back in our direction. We jumped back on the bikes and followed the truck throughout the entire neighborhood.

We didn't find out until later in the summer that this truck was not entertaining us with a "fun fog." Rather, it was spraying to kill mosquitoes.

Even before we found out, our parents had forbidden us to ride behind it. I think my mother and father were more concerned that the truck would stop short than because of any danger from the mystery fog. I confess that, forbidden or not, we boys couldn't resist the temptation to follow the amazing truck. Today my health is good, so I don't worry too much that I was inhaling pesticide back then.

That was a wonderful time. If I could have planned my first summer day on Long Island, it would have unfolded in exactly the same way: baseball and a ride behind the fog machine.

As I watched the fog roll in on that recent morning, I imagined running next door to call for the Strauss boys and the DeGregorios to jump on our bikes and ride.