My voice from the island

The Daily News has this moderately interesting series going called "Voices from the Island."

I categorize it as "moderately" only because I don't think the pieces are long enough.

I live in what one person in one of the stories calls the "down-and-out" part of the island. We are not connected directly to the ocean/beach but have to drive or walk down Old Point Rd. to PI Blvd. and then east to the ocean. Of course, it's a 5-minute drive.

Between the two northern points of the island (south of PI Blvd. it's just one lump) is The Basin. Since The Basin is getting all silted up, however, soon we will all be able to make the trek across it and feel like we're much closer to the ocean.

We can hear it sometimes, though I have to say, I smelled more ocean when I lived in downtown Boston.

What it means mostly for us over on the Old Point (which used to stick out further than the 'new' point until the mouth of the river migrated north) is that the big houses that are being erected over here by economic necessity have to be tall enough to provide a view over the other side of the island, to the ocean.


In the slightly blurry image above you can see a "For Sale" sign. There are a lot of those out here now. This property abuts my yard ... I mean, my landlord's yard. That's the Merrimack River in the distance. A man who bought the property wanted to build a mammoth house there, to the dismay of the property owners on my street.

All 5 of them.

Problem is, that land floods when the river runs over the berm, which it did last May. So I guess he decided not to build his McMansion here after all.

I love love love it out here but honestly? It's not idyllic if one is not a hardy soul. There are frequent high winds (brutal in the winter), the beach is not really ideal for swimming (rip tides) and then there are the greenheads (biting flies that arrive mid-summer).

I only just got used to skunks and 'possums running around under the house (and I grew up on a farm) - and I can't keep a pair of shoes clean because I'm tramping through sand all day, every day.

I'm hoping the DN talks to some of the people I've talked to, who have been out here all of their lives, or close to it. A lot of them have "For Sale" signs in front of their houses.