Ducks, Deer, etc.

If you're fond of sand dunes

and salty air

quaint little villages here and there

you're sure to fall in love with

Loooooong ISland

And I did as R. showed me around her stomping grounds. I had wanted to see the duck in person, having seen a picture of it in the Tribune de Genéve. It was built as a shop in 1931 by a Riverhead duck farmer who thought it would encourage motorists to stop and buy his ducks. In the gift shop, the soft-spoken clerk heard my accent and didn't say "Are you Swiss?" but asked if I were from Beverly MA. Reading was close enough.

We explored places I'd read about in tons of books, such as the Hamptons and Jones Beach, where a sea gull questioned our sanity on being out on such a cold and wind day. But the treat, even more than the little tea room with its Norman Rockwell posters, antique stoves and portabello roasted pepper and mushroom melt, was when the deer at Jones beach ambled by our car. I felt smug when on the plane home I read about a concert in the IHT that Bernstein had given at a spot I'd just seen.

But the best parts were the long conversations over scrambled eggs and muffins, pancakes or chicken in her lovely kitchen, curled up on the sofa still talking, or in her office still talking.

And we talked all the way to the airport and I suspect when we meet on either side of the pond we will not have to search for more topics.