When I was a wee thing, girls, and "Romper Room" was the program of the day, hosted always by some menstrual spinster, the headquarters for their products were the J.J.Newberry's stores, which I think no longer exist. And the home station store was located, as they kept saying at the "beautiful Green Acres shopping center, (the word "Mall" had not come into vogue, then!!!!) Sunrise Highway in Valley Stream, Long Island!" I used to think this was some sort of magical place!
Moving past the "Romper Room " stage, when I was in, oh, about fourth or fifth grade, my father had a chance to move us all out to Garden City, Long Island. We ended up not going, leaving me forever to wonder what my life might have been like, had this taken place!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, yesterday, thanks to Auntie Alvin, whose birthday we celebrated, I saw for myself not only how non-magical the Green Acres Mall and Valley Stream is, but what would have happened if I had moved to Garden City. I would have turned out an alcoholic, and a realtor. Really; on Long Island, there is not that much to do!
It seemed strange, kicking off Summer in this way, because, for the first time in 24 years, I was NOT at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. The group I always go with, could not make it this year, due to a series of reasons that included, in some cases, health problems, and I decided it just would not be the same. But I honored the tradition in one way yesterday.
Yesterday, we dined, in Freeport at the River House Grille, located along the beach side on Woodcleft Avenue. You should have seen the array of LON GISLAND girls, walking along the streets, dressed like tramps--TRAMPS! Not like my darlings!!!!!!!!!-- with their teased to the max hair!
Oh, my God! We sure knew where we were! And not a beach boy in sight! Not even a greasy Guido!!!!!!!!!!!!
The RHG, as it is called, was superb. As I said, to honor the tradition, I had a bowl of Linguine , with White Clam sauce! Heavenly, especially when washed down by two generous glasses of white wine, after which I was saying Taffy Davenport's lines out loud, and singing show tunes!!!!!!!!!!
Auntie Alvin had paella, and some got on him, while Monsieur had a lobster, with a clam appetizer! My appetizer was artichokes!!!!!!!! Fabulous, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then we got ices, and high tailed it back to civilization! I am telling you, I breathed easier out of Long Island! Next year, I hope to see all my girls at the Mermaid Parade! Which will mark my 25th Year of attending!
Nevertheless, Summer is here, my loves! Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Until I was 10, we lived in Queens Village,which is very close to Green Acres, so we shopped there all the time. In those days it was an open air mall, and the highlight for me was J.J. Newberry's, not only did it have Romper Room toys, it had a great pet dept. that included a squirrel monkey! The mall was actually very nice back then. Last time I was there was in the early 80's and it was a complete dump. Seems like a certain "element" took over. Oh well!
ReplyDeleteSounds like had I gone there during the time you remember, it would have lived up to my expectations!
ReplyDelete