Mary Dowling Knows Oyster Bay
Billy Minicozzi guessed the photograph in the June 16 Enterprise Pilot was a street fair in Oyster Bay, near Town Hall. He’s got the location down pat!
“It’s the car show held every Tuesday night,” said Mary Dowling of Oyster Bay. “My husband was there every night when it started in our ’55 Chevy Belair when they were charging $3. Now they charge $5. We go but don’t bring the car.”
She added happily, “We did kick it off when it first started!”
FYI: the funds from the car show are collected by chamber volunteers and goes to pay for the seasonal plantings in the downtown area.
Belle Santora said, (as her 100th Birthday Party celebration held at the LEC Center of Oyster Bay, Saturday, June 18 was ending), “I know the mystery picture. It’s Cruise Night. I should know it, I came with the Indians,” she joked. Ms. Santora said she drove until she was 98. “I’d still be driving if my legs were better. I began driving at age 15, without a license. [It should be noted this was not unusual at the time on Long Island.] I never had an accident and never got a ticket. Well, I was stopped, but didn’t get a ticket. The first time I was stopped by a friend of my brother. I said, ‘Do you know my brother?’ He said, ‘I didn’t know he had a sister.’
“I said, ‘He’s asleep and I thought I’d take a drive.’ I never got a ticket but I talked myself out of a few. Sometimes I’d leave the policeman shaking his head. Once I said, ‘would you want someone to give your mother a ticket?’
“Another time I saw a flashing light following me. I pulled over and the policeman said, ‘you crossed the line’. Then he said, ‘you don’t have your seat belt on’. I said I just had surgery and I was sore. I didn’t tell him I had surgery 30 years ago.”
Attending the birthday party was Sunday Verrillo, who also had a good driving story. She said she took some time off during her lunch hour to leave the office to do her nails. She was driving back to work when a policeman pulled her car over.
“He said ‘How are you driving?’ I said ‘With my knees’. I had my hands sticking out of the moon roof. I was drying the polish. He said, ‘I can’t tell that story. I don’t have the heart to give you a ticket.’ He added, ‘Don’t let me see you doing it again or I’ll give you two tickets.”
Another Mystery
There will be a reunion of the Oyster Bay Class of 1976. “We will be having our 35-year Reunion on Saturday, July 9 from 8 to 11:30 p.m., at The Homestead in Oyster Bay. The cost is $59 if anyone is interested,” said Regina Brandt Rettig. The mystery here is she left no contact information but for those of you in the class, there probably isn’t any mystery.
That’s all there is for today. Enjoy!
-DFK
