'City girls' meet LI 'country boys' in paradise

It was a sunny June day in 1960 and, already, at 8 in the morning, the air was hot and humid. I, along with 40 or so other teenage girls mostly from Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, all in plaid, pleated skirts, green wool blazers, and green berets, waited in front of Saint Vincent Ferrer High School, on East 65th Street in Manhattan, for an adventure.

We were about to board the chartered bus taking us to Long Island — to Oyster Bay and Sagamore Hill, the home of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States.

“It’ll be a long ride,” the bus driver said. “Over the bridge and then all the way out there on Northern Boulevard.”

We sang “Lipstick on Your Collar” and “Splish Splash.” And “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” until our throats were sore and our voices hoarse. We quieted down when the landscape changed from city to suburban and then “country.” Or, at least what we city girls deemed country. Lots of trees and open land, pretty houses with flowers, and schools with expansive lawns.

We arrived early  for our scheduled tour. The groundskeeper suggested we return later after a drive through the quiet streets of the tiny hamlet of Oyster Bay.

We passed churches on hills, a tiny railroad station, the post office, bandstand and brick high school, set majestically above East Main Street, to the wooden benches close to a pebbly beach, gently touched by the tiny waves of the calm, blue waters of a small harbor.

With the extra time, we got off the bus to sit  a few minutes in the fresh air before making our way back to Sagamore Hill.  All was quiet and still until the boys appeared. Seven or eight of them, teens like us, shedding pants and shirts to reveal swimming trunks as they ran toward the water. Spying us, sitting so straight and formal in our green blazers, they stopped, approaching us with wide smiles.

“What are you? Girl Scouts?” one asked.

“Why aren’t you boys in school?” questioned one of our teachers.

“We just finished today’s exams. We are free for the rest of the day.”

As much as I wanted to feel sorry for these “country boys” stuck in a little town, wasting the day swimming instead of reading or studying, and audaciously flirting with “city girls,” I envied them. They were free from the restraints and demands of adults, self-assured in their masculine charm, and ready for an adventure with the girls in green who had stepped into their world.

We, under the watchful eyes of teachers and chaperones, ignoring the boys’ antics, sat silently, finishing our bagged lunches.

“Bye, Girl Scouts,” the boys shouted as they dashed off into the water.

“What was the highlight of the trip?” my father asked that evening.

“The polar bear rug,” I lied.

Years later, my husband and I bought a house in Oyster Bay. Our four sons could ride their bikes to the very beach where I envied the boys who shed their clothes as they ran into the water.

My own boys, grown now, are off living their lives. But I am still here in the house bought more than 50 years ago, still cherishing every day I am free to walk through Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park and to sit on a bench facing a small beach in the most beautiful place in the world, Oyster Bay.

Reader JoAnn DiFranco lives in Oyster Bay.