Musings: I miss the quiet past as change dims my joy
On the corner of Montauk Highway and William Floyd Parkway in 1961, signs advertise the area offerings. Credit: Newsday / Rex Lyons
Formed during the last ice age approximately 21,000 years ago, Long Island has undergone numerous and complex changes, both environmentally and socially. Change is inevitable and something we should expect with the passage of time. Despite attempts to moderate this change, we must accept our vulnerability to it and the impact it has on our daily lives.
On a much less expansive time frame, I am certain that most would agree that the social transformation that Long Island has experienced is something that cannot be denied. For many who have spent the vast majority of their lives here, the change has left them searching for the old status quo when this glacial debris was more serene and riddled with less dissonance.
Long Island has become the classic example of cognitive dissonance. It's defined as the emotional discomfort when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs or values that need to be resolved. As each day's illumination gives way to the night sky, thoughts of the old Long Island begin to surface for me. Once a quiet refuge from our hectic neighbor, New York City, the Island has evolved into the opposite of what it once was.
Open land, calming roadways and a sense of tranquility have been replaced with congestion, excessive carnage on our highways and the general feeling that one is not in the calmness of "the country."
The feeling of being in the country has sadly vanished. As a child, I so looked forward to going out to the country to enjoy the serenity it so readily offered. Each weekend, weather permitting, I would help my father pack the Plymouth wagon, eager to exit Brooklyn for greener pastures at our summer home in Wading River.
It was the 1960s. The roads were empty, the air was clean, traffic congestion did not exist, and a general feeling of freedom encompassed the weekend journey. No longer is that sense of escape viable.
Reflecting on the past has both its good points and its negative aspects. Although the old Long Island that I so dearly remember has vanished, I am fortunate to still hold all the fond memories it so easily offered.
Jason E. Hill, Ridge
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