Lindenhurst? The worst!

Nihilistics In Neguntatogue

2012 – The last time I was in my childhood home in Lindenhurst

The Village of Lindenhurst traces its beginnings back to the Indians, when Secatogue and Massapequa tribes roamed the ‘Lindenhurst’ woods in search of food. The area was then called Neguntatogue, which means, “forsaken land.– Evelyn Ellis, Lindenhurst Village Historian

“Forsaken Land” indeed. I prefer the accuracy of “Neguntatogue” to Lindenhurst or even “Breslau”–what my hometown was named when founded by Irishman Thomas Wellwood (it’s a long story involving German-Americans hoping to flee Manhattan and having the coin to bankroll the young Mr. Wellwood’s vision). This inaugural installment of NIHILISTICS IN NEGUNTATOGUE launches a series on the places where it all went down, beginning with what we not-so-affectionately dubbed “Swindlehurst” and the house there where I grew up.

Lindenhurst, where Mike (RIP), Troy (Nihilistics drummer) and I hail from, is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, located on the South Shore of Long Island 45 miles due east of Manhattan. The tracks of the elevated Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) West Babylon branch cut through town, the train carrying you into New York Penn Station in just under an hour. Troy’s house was less than 50 yards from the LIRR tracks, mine was further south, below Montauk Highway, and Mike’s was in North Lindenhurst, AKA “The Undiscovered Country” (until I visited him, I had no reason to go). No one took the LIRR into “the city” unless your parents splurged on a Radio City Music Hall excursion or–later, on our own–we attended rock concerts at Madison Square Garden (or were in need of a Times Square fake ID for some underage drinking, the legal age then being 18). I’ve labeled my hometown “Working Class” and “Blue Collar” because those titles described my family and our neighbors. My dad was a mechanic. Lenny Castiglione, next door, was a bricklayer and mason. Thomas Weissbach, to our south, was  a lineman (Bell Telephone?) or an electrician (LILCO) or something. I’m sure there was a doctor or lawyer or other professionals living nearby, though I never met one. But Lindenhurst isn’t Archie Bunker’s Queens: it’s the suburbs, with all that implies. When I’ve been back to Lindenhurst (and I haven’t been in awhile, and no longer have reason to) I feel that typical ambivalence most of us do going home: a combination of “Is that all there is?” and “This place isn’t so bad, is it?” Like many of the small towns on “Lawn Guyland,” Lindenhurst is fairly provincial and achieving escape velocity can prove difficult. Somehow, I knew I needed to get the fuck out of there but absent Mike and the Nihilistics, I’m not sure I would’ve.

Let’s go back now, as I take you to some of the places that loomed large in my formative years, beginning with my childhood home.

Me with my red bike,, circa 1968/1969, my mother on the stoop of 680 S. 5th

680 South 5th Street

Built circa 1955 (by school friend Adam Tese’s Mason Grandfather), our modestly-sized three bedroom, one bathroom (my parents added a back bedroom with en-suite bathroom sometime prior to my birth in 1962) brick ranch house with attached garage is set on a half-size lot (approx. an eighth of an acre) in the incorporated village of Lindenhurst, Suffolk County, Long Island, NY. South 5th Street is a north-south road between Montauk Highway–AKA Merrick Road–and the water’s edge, where Strongs Creek feeds into the Great South Bay. Just across Strongs Creek is Indian Island; a short boat ride away is Cedar Island; just beyond is the barrier island where you’ll find Captree State Park at the east end and Jones Beach State Park at the west. In between are Gilgo State Park, Gilgo Beach and West Gilgo Beach (AKA, a serial killer’s dumping ground).

Through our front door you’ll find the living room, outfitted with  two easy chairs separated by a tall table with lamp; a sofa along the wall, flanked by end tables and opposite a round coffee table; my mother’s stereo, encased in a vintage Victrola cabinet, is within reach of “her” chair; a few other pieces (vintage steamer trunk for storage, tall display cabinet for keepsakes, drop-desk secretary for everyday supplies) complete the layout. Just off the living room is the front bedroom–large window facing the street, smaller one facing the Castiglione house–where my sisters slept on twin beds. My brothers and I were down the hall in the middle bedroom–our sole window also facing the Castiglione house. I was on the bottom of a bunk bed; my brother Marc atop. Mario, the oldest brother, had his own Captain’s bed. My parents were at the end of the hall, in the aforementioned back bedroom (the largest), with windows overlooking the backyard. Opposite the boy’s room is a small eat-in kitchen. Beyond is a dining room with a table that could accommodate eight. There was also a hand-decorated hutch for my mother’s china and silverware. A large corner cabinet (now owned by a niece) held the “everyday” tableware. Off the dining room is the door to our small backyard–featuring an above-ground pool and “the barn” (a 2-story storage shed built by my father)–and the stairs to the finished basement, where I spent an inordinate amount of time sucking up radon, no doubt, while experiencing many revelations, whether emanating from our console color TV, my makeshift “stereo” (it was actually a cobbled-together “mono”), myself (it was the first place I snuck a Playboy) or my guitar.

The basement in 2012

The basement of 680 South 5th is where the Nihilistics were born circa 1978/1979, Mike and I covering The Ramones and eventually bashing out originals like “Grandmas Are Made For Kicking”:

Me & Mike in the basement circa 1978/1979

And the basement was where I’d increasingly lock horns with my weightlifting, bodybuilding brother, unavoidable because he was often down there working out on his homebrew wooden weight bench. At the far end of the basement was a “hurricane kitchen” with functioning stove, refrigerator and sink. Along the same wall in a corner stood my mother’s ancient Singer sewing machine. Through a nearby door was my father’s workshop, complete with bandsaw, router, drill press and an assortment of power and hand tools, none of which my brothers and I were supposed to LOOK at, never mind use. The scariest room of our house, for me, was the one at the end of the workshop, used for storage but perpetually dank, dark, musty and foreboding. My father, in a misguided attempt to dissuade “the boys” from going in his workshop and abusing his tools, told us a monster lived in it and whenever I was down in the basement alone I’d find myself running up the stairs before the monster could get me. Next scariest room was the attic, where standing up straight was ill-advised and stepping gingerly was required. All-in-all, our little brick ranch house wasn’t terrible to live in as long as I did (22 years) but some bad shit went down within and those memories tend to unfortunately swamp any good ones, trauma having a neurologically laminating effect.

The last time I saw 680 South 5th was when I was out on Long Island a few years ago to buy a guitar case. My friend Jim came along (he grew up just east of me in a house that’s also south of Montauk Highway) to visit his dad, now gone, and after I picked him up we did a South 5th Street drive-by. We ran into Lenny Castiglione Jr., who was cleaning up his parent’s house to be put on the market in the wake of his mother’s death. Lenny praised the family who bought my old house and, indeed, the place looked way better than it did before we sold it (netting nearly nothing after Superstorm Sandy and my mom’s reverse mortgage). I found myself wondering if we should stop and pay a visit but recalled how much I hated it when the people who sold my wife and I our place did an impromptu drop-in months after we moved in. No one wants to show you around your childhood home, dude. But would I love to rent the barn and do some writing upstairs, immersing myself in “Swindlehurst” one more time? As we’d say on Long Island, “Fucking A right.”

The “barn” circa 2012

NEXT TIME on NIHILISTICS IN NEGUNTATOGUE: The indispensable South Shore Self-Service (AKA Queeny’s)

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