Summer 2007

On Saturday, August 4, we returned to New York, to my parents' home, for a week of vacation time. Hooray! My brother and his family were already in New York when we arrived, so we had many activities on the agenda. Eric and Jennifer left on Sunday, and Jeffrey stayed in New York until Tuesday, when Peter and I brought him back home to Massachusetts. We enjoyed the remaining days of vacation, and then Peter returned to Grenada on Saturday, August 11. I remained to visit with my family until the 21st.

On Sunday, we took Jeffrey to the docks in Montauk to see what the boats may have brought in that day. The most common catch of the day seemed to be tuna:

These photos were taken at the Montauk Marine Basin. Undoubtedly, the most entertaining experience was brief, but takes a great deal of explaining. It happened behind Peter in the photo below: around the tables in the background, in front of the very, very large plastic model of a shark in the background.

Turn back the clock. The plastic shark represents an animal caught and killed off of Montauk in 1986, shortly after my family moved our summer headquarters from Montauk to East Hampton. My mother heard about the news, and she subsequently woke up my brother and I so we could drive all the way to Montauk and see the beast. (Yes, it did seem like a strange quest, even at the time.) A record. The largest great white shark, caught on a rod and reel, in the world. 3,427 pounds. We arrived to join the gathered crowd. The carcass had already been weighed and hauled onto the land. On land, it was dead and deflated. Yet...you could really still imagine this creature alive and cruising the ocean. Over the years, we had spent many hours strolling around the docks and viewing the catches of the day, even before I could actually stroll. In doing so, we saw many, many sharks. This, in contrast, was immense. Not just immense. Great whites have such a different body type than all other sharks: they are all mouth.

Credit for the catch was given to Frank Mundus, captain of the Cricket II. The Cricket had previously brought in a number of memorable catches, including a whale shark: larger than the boat itself. That whale shark in life was a gracious, harmless animal who came to it's sad end being chopped up for chum to hunt other less enormous creatures. Back to the great white: I remember Mundus as he spoke with the media who had arrived. The particular character of the hardscrabble fishermen who brought in such a, formerly, majestic creature made an impression.

Fast forward to 2007. Mundus is still alive and kicking and has written a book. "50 Years a Hooker," referring to his fishing career, in case there's any ambiguity. Frank was at the Marine Basin while we were there, with his tiny entourage and a few copies of his book. From what I remembered of his 1986 appearance, I couldn't imagine what could possibly come from his head that might be fit to print. Well, Mom and I were amused to see him, still shamelessly self-promoting. Mundus appeared very frail, in stark in comparison to the bold plastic model of the "monster" he landed in the background. We had tried to relay the legend that Mundus is in the area to Peter. Mundus claims to be the inspiration behind the "Jaws" movies, and the first to promote killing sharks as "sport" fishing. After all, we had seen the actual animal represented by the shark model. Peter was taking all of this in. Then we walked past Mundus, as people trickled by now and then, paying homage to a local hero: meekly asking for a signature on a book, or just saying "hi." Then they would slink away. Peter was taking all of this in. And then we heard him speak.
"HMKJH MAJKSOE MDKL SDEWE NVFJNK." All mumbled together. It was hard to fathom a book full of mumbles and ranting.
All of this led Peter to his favorite response to any question asked of him for the next month: "In the immortal words of Frank Mundus: "HMKJH MMMJHK MOUWEEMMA."

I shall give Frank himself the final say. Although I have strong feelings about the morality of an activity which he pioneered, I invite anyone who is interested to hear from the source himself. I've only just discovered that you, too, can hear the immortal words of Frank Mundus. Yes, he has the most modern of shameless promotions: www.fmundus.com. You can read his, really quite amazing, story for yourself. He now describes himself as a "conservationist." Or, scroll down the first page to the play button in the middle of the page. For purposes of this story, though, it's disappointingly comprehensible; perhaps Frank was just having a bad day when we saw him. He even has a children's book available for purchase. I shudder to think.

From the docks, we picked up some Herb's chicken and headed out to have a tailgate dinner at the lighthouse. Yep. In a parking lot.

On the other hand, here's the view:

We worked off our fried chicken by running and walking around the lighthouse grounds.

On Monday, left to our own devices, with grandma and grandpa off to work...you'll never guess. Ramp time. The holiday ramp was limited in height by the basement ceiling. Jeffrey and I helped Peter build a BIGGER ramp with which to torture my brother's beloved childhood Tonka truck. The old fashioned, metal kind. It sure is holding up well...so far!

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Hoooey! That metal, pointy missile flew, boy!
As if swimming and ramp building weren't enough for one day, we went out and discovered an early birthday present for Jeffrey. LEGOS! Even better: TRUCK LEGOS!