It was a little bit like the TV show Revolution out here this last week – without the pre-blackout flashbacks. Blackouts are still all over the south shore of LI, including my mom’s place in Bay Shore. No electricity is not non-trivial but it feels so when compared to salt water that pervades everything by the water’s edge. If you live next door to a home with its carpet still tacked down you can smell/feel it. And though the sun has shined for 3 days there is dampness that just won’t go away.
The “vill,” as I like to call Babylon, has come together like a dookie. People in and out of the America Legion Hall have been cooking, cleaning, meals-on-wheels-ing, and volunteering like nothing I’ve seen before. Clothes are stacked to the rafters. And I’ve not even been to First Pres. or St. Joseph, where good’s work is also 24/7.
Mobile devices are helping save the day, but so are old school signs, hand painted and tacked to telephone poles. These signs, for some, are the only way people are learning of services. Many are still sitting on wet couches, on wet carpets, without power, waiting for the piles of wood, construction bags and furniture to recede, so they can ask for help…almost embarrassed to take an egg sandwich, from the many cars driving by. “We’re okay, go help someone else,” they say. I’ve been brought to tears, for no and every reason.
Never have I been prouder to live in Babylon. Every day is a new day. Every face a neighbor. And what is that on that blip on the weather map? That forecast for tomorrow? A mosquito? Keep your furniture high and your friends and neighbors higher. (Not a pot reference. How dare you?!)
Peace. Vote.
