is Long Island really something to be nostalgic about?

Well, when I was a kid, some of my relatives lived on Long Island, in a place called Bayport.

Of course it's all different now, but when I was four or five, there was sand visible at all times, and some of the streets were gravel. My grandparents lived in a place with a long muddy driveway and bits of stained glass in the door. There were willow trees in the back, and the fronds grew all the way down to make little swaying interior rooms you could crawl into and read Pierrot Lapin and watch millions of ants, or peer out and watch your grandfather in the garden, although it was never possible actually to catch him "painting the tomatoes," which is how he claimed he got them to turn from green to red. They also had big scraggly pine trees, perfect for climbing.

You could hear blue jays and train whistles. There was a little corner supermarket called Shand's, with shingle siding; a sort of inn called Hans and Katy's Bayport House; something called the Spotlight Beauty Salon (which, incredibly, was still there the last I looked), and friendly dogs shambling around loose. Best of all, at the ends of some of the streets was the bay, with here and there a crumbling old dock jutting out into the water; and the sand there was so perfect and silver that you never had to go to an official beach unless you wanted that scene. If you were a kid you could sit there for hours, letting the tide bowl you over and scratch you all over with sand, picking up clamshells, worrying about jellyfish.

At night there would be fireflies, the glowing tips from the grownups' cigarettes, and murmured conversations.

Sorry, TL, didn't want to hijack your music reviews, and I haven't heard the song, but since you asked: yeah, it's possible.

is Long Island really something to be nostalgic about?

IIRC, it's all about a family reunion. Having seen her live a couple of times, Mindy's upbringing was "eventful". I can't remember all of the, but she was adopted and her much-loved adopted mother died a few years ago and, I suspect that the lyrics about the reunion maybe sadder than on the surface.

tangerine: What I know about Long Island is based on the complaints I hear from a friend who works as a hostess in a steakhouse there, "Big Egg" and "Little Egg" of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the drunk college kids on the 1 or 3 am trains back to LI on the Port Washington line, and another friend who only goes back to see family and never has anything nostalgic-like to say about her visits. I'm glad to know that there's more to LI than what is on the surface.

TheDonF: I definitely can empathize with the nostalgia in a family gathering. My grandparents are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary in the Philippines and the whole family is a-flutter about most of the Sebastian clan getting together for it. I'm not going, but I remember going to P.I. for their 50th and one Easter vigil evening where we all sat around with the adults drinking beer in the wee hours of the humid morning.

Edit: Argh.... how can it be Easter vigil evening *and* morning at the same time? Chalk it up to me not knowing exactly what time it was and being fatigued from the vigil part.