Albert's Landing

Far from Brooklyn in miles and years, Debra and I once lived on the East End of Long Island while I learned my craft. I hesitate to call it East Hampton for that area's reputation of snooty wealth, BMWs, mansions and wild drug-and-champagne orgies behind the high hedges of Georgica Pond. The East Hampton I knew is where I sweated in the steamy noisy kitchens of the Stephen Talkhouse, the Porterhouse Inn and a few other kitchens willing to hire a novice who knew only the rudiments of restaurant cooking. My Hamptons was one of sharing a small house on Abraham’s Path and the apartment over Marley’s Stationery, late night beers at Ambrose’s Tavern, 60-hour weeks in-season, collecting unemployment off-season. My girlfriend, now wife, shared those living quarters while waiting tables. She has roots there and in Toronto. Mine are in Gotham.

I, for one, declared my intention to never visit again.

My last trip east was a mostly unpleasant affair- forced to witness the aggressive commercialization while on the heart rending drive to a funeral.

Funerals, weddings and Thanksgivings can bring out the worst of long-held animosities; at them, gestures and words, glances and silences passed among people well-acquainted carry the memories of ancient bruises, are fraught with slights real and imagined, never free of old shadows, every interaction cast in negative light, allowing no possibility for fresh communication.

My hesitation stemmed from both my more recent experiences there and from the pronounced chilliness of the welcome I received on my first visit; I had been unprepared for the pickup trucks fitted with shotgun racks, the CAT Diesel baseball caps worn by year-round residents, the stunned silences that greeted me on entering Ambrose’s - one of the local bars frequented by baymen, construction workers, landscapers and mechanics. These were the women and men whose roots reached deep in the waters and soil of the Hamptons, the people whose sweat and grit and muscular pride went largely unappreciated by the Summer Folk. The dependence and resentment of these two groups was mutual, but they shared a skin tone that I did not.

A couple of months ago my wife was invited to her family reunion on that East End. Eager to attend she was, I think, surprised at how little it took to convince her curmudgeon husband to agree to accompany her. Both our children, now grown, and the irrepressible Dot joined us on the morning train to Amagansett. Vaughan Allentuck has a lovely home there and was so kind as to put us up and loan us her car.

Later that day, with dark foreboding, I helped unpack at the edge of the beach.

It melted away within seconds of my first introduction.

Rick Bock
copyright RBock

Rick and Vanessa Bock had done much of the heavy lifting of organizing the confab and it must have been an exercise in herding cats. The welcome extended to us by him and by his wife, Vanessa, was warm, immediate and unreserved; they are sweet and funny both, despite his affection for the Red Sox. The welcomes of the rest of my new-found family were equally warm.  

Vanessa Bock and Fred Bock
copyright RBock

              I felt chastened.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

The party was held on a strip of hot beach called Albert's Landing.

Wide enough for the pickup trucks to bring the grills, clam shucking table, folding canopies, coolers, trestle tables and so on for the 40-50 born Bocks and Bock out-riders who braved the absurd heat on that day, it is sparsely peopled, ignored by the Summer Folk who prefer the Ocean side.

copyright RBock

copyright RBock

There was food and beer aplenty to awaken  memories shared and refreshed, and to ease connections forged, invitations extended, skins burned. Chips, avocado dip, coleslaws that would put a Church Supper to shame, cruel but justified grilled clams, potato salad, grilled kielbasa, cookies, brownies, pastas from Tortelloni Salad to Sesame Noodles, were laid out on the long tables and we stuffed our faces under the canopies. Burgers and hot dogs were offered, of course, but I hovered greedily by the table where the clams were shucked. Sweet, briny, so fresh they were a delightful al dente. While Dot and Sarah were hazed into eating their first raw clams, that flavor brought me back to sitting beside Big Ed Bennett on Beverley and Ed’s back porch, reaching into the pail of ice for the grey top necks, peeling back the shells and sucking back clam after clam, washing them down with cans of beer pulled from another pail of ice while Beverley and my wife shook their heads behind the screen door and exchanged smiles. Beverly and Ed are both gone now, and I wonder what shared sunny afternoon will survive me.

Clam Tasting
Sarah & Dot
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Brothers-
David & Fred Bock
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As an out-rider I was struck by the similarities among members of this extended family- the noses shared by some cousins, the sad eyes of another, overlapping group, the two main body types of the Bock men; one thick-chested and brawny, the other leaner, narrower through the chest, wiry rather than bulky; both strong, both manly.

The Bock women seemed to share, for the most part, strength of hip, thigh and calf - a sharp, highly female taper from hip to ankle. One woman so resembled my sister-in-law Cindy, that I, without my glasses, wondered briefly how she’d gotten shorter.

Aunt Carol & Tucker

The Guest of Honor was my wife’s Aunt Carol. Seventy-five, gently, proudly, with an ease earned over generations, holding her great-grand son, she looks enough like Beverley, my late mother-in-law, to confuse me. I wondered whether two Bock brothers had married two sisters.  I learned later that both brothers, of the same wiry body type had married two women unrelated to each other yet similar of face and form.

Tucker, a most amazing two-year-old, charms all he meets. I look forward to seeing him grow, if only from the other end of the island.

It was later in the day, the sun just starting its Pyrrhic, most ferocious blaze as it drifted to the horizon, when the lobsters were brought forth. There was a lobster shucker hard at work for the benefit of some, but I carried my own paper plate to the sand, plopped myself down and pulled apart the tastiest lobster I’ve ever eaten. Not quite as hard of shell as wished, but cooked in sea water, the sweet richness of the meat needed no butter or lemon to bring me to ecstasy. Even the tomalley was savored, the shoulder meat just inside the shell picked out, and, in a tacit gesture of thanks to Debra for having brought me to this day, I gave her a chunk of the tail meat.

As afternoon ended we prepared to leave, fried and sun-stunned.

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Finally, with lingering good-byes and promises to see each other again, wading through the luscious exhaustion after a day at the beach, the toddlers were rinsed of sand, the toys gathered, we brushed sand from our feet, got into our cars and left. The red sun was cooler and less threatening, its anger spent.

Tucker & Cake
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Rick is my wife’s cousin, the award-winning photographer who graciously provided many of the shots on this page.
For more of his great photographs visit:

http://rickbock.com/