Furthermore, I’ve posted my real name to my ORIGINAL (not copied or cut& paste) contribution while you choose to hide behind a pseudonym and throw rocks. Catbox was it, or was it just what you find in one?

the truth hurts, don’t it?

btw…i didn’t write the article. it’s from newsday. complaints should be directed to them.

There is not one speck of ‘development’ along the beaches in Smithtown and virtually the entire north shore of LI, unlike many other locales that have “The great wall of condos” and/or barbed wire fences with “Private Beach – Keep Out” signs)

The “virgin countryside” was destroyed not by tract housing and shopping malls, nor even by Robert Moses trying to pave over every square inch of Long Island, but mainly by farmers clearing the land. This activity began in approximately 1630 and continues on a tiny scale today as the vineyards of the North Fork wineries expand in a carefully managed fashion.

Most of the land that is now occupied by ’sub-divisions’, shopping malls, condos, industrial parks, office buildings, and retirement villages were farms immediately prior to being developed. At one time I lived on such a farm that is now Fairfield Village in St. James.

The highest point on Long Island is Bald Hill (elevation approx 575 ft.) in Farmingville (not to be confused with Farmingdale. Note the ‘farm’ theme developing here?), not a garbage dump. You must be thinking of Fresh Kills on Staten Island. Bald Hill even had skiing facilities at one time. The Fresh Kills landfill had seagulls then and continues to have them.

Speaking of farms, what is now Nassau County (The townships of Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay) was once part of Queens, which became a part of New York City when it was formed in 1897. These three townships were shunned and summarily expelled from Queens and excluded from becoming part of the city because the Democratic Party Machines than ran Manhattan and Brooklyn didn’t want a bunch of “Republican Farmers” being a part of the city and causing trouble by asking too many questions.

So, not much happens here?

Long Island is the #16 (as of Nov 2004) Ranked Metropolitan Statistical Area (a GDP-like measure) beating out St. Louis, Seattle, Baltimore, and Tampa. With that large of an economy, there’s got to be just a huge amount of ‘nothing’ going on here to sustain that.

Insignificant happenings of the past:

Charles Lindbergh took off on his historic flight across the Atlantic from Roosevelt Field in Nassau Country. Yes, I will concede that it’s a shopping mall now. But it was a farm before it was an airfield.

The Lunar Module that allowed man to land safely on the moon and return home again, and acted as a lifeboat for Apollo 13 was conceived, designed, and built on Long Island by Grumman Aerospace (which nearly everyone in my family worked for.) Prior to that Grumman built aircraft such as the Hellcat which provided a decisive advantage in the Pacific during WWII.

Long Island was on the only part of the continental USA that was actually attacked during WW II. It was a somewhat pathetic skirmish involving a German U-Boat that was attempting to extricate some Nazi spies who were operating in NYC.

Many of the technological advances in the printing and graphics industry were developed on Long Island.

I would think that the 1.3 million people who work on LI would take umbrage at the assertion that “nothing goes on here.”

How could we possibly feel “outside the loop” when we are inexorably connected to the NYC media and all it has to offer like the Channel 5 “If it Bleeds, it Leads” 10 O’clock News? “It’s 10 P.M., do you know where your children are?” “Yeah, upstairs making a We hate Timmy website….”

The main reason for the ‘attitude’ cited stems from those came here from elsewhere (like NYC) and expected it to be just like Jackson Heights or Flatbush, but with a larger yard and a driveway. They were more used to Big Political Machine Government taking care of the problems rather than taking some responsibility or initiative of their own. Eventually enough of that type of person moved here to elect that type of Government (along with the corporate-type “We’re only going to be here for 2-3 years, so we don’t care. Yeah, fine, go ahead, whatever. Just as long as I can get to the train station when it’s snowed.”)

Well, having Government deal with those issues comes at a price, being higher taxes. More money means more incentive for corruption. More Government intrusion into people’s lives. One of the results of this is that would have dozens of annoying, inconvenient stop signs erected at intersection that serve absolutely no legitimate traffic safety or engineering purpose at all simple from someone complaining that “people were driving too fast.” For people with this Big Government mindset, money is a very easy metric by which to measure things as it’s purely quantitative. Rampant consumerism and materialism is more associated with those migrated here, not ‘natives’ whose families have lived here for generations.

Which leads me to my comment about this cyberbully ’cause.’ This sounds to me like another excuse to attempt to indoctrinate children with politically correct crap under the same kinds of threats of dire consequences if they were to bring a butter knife to school or to utter some innocuous remark that a school employee could twist into either ‘a terroristic threat’, ’sexual harassment’, or the -ism of the month (chromatism, sexism, lookism, raceism, sizeism, astigmatism, boogerism, catechism, pick one, or make one up yourself.) The people who should be dealing with individual children’s behavior are their parents, not some self-appointed organization.

Furthermore, unless the alleged activity DIRECTLY involves the school district they should just stay out of it. Time and time again, school officials have intervened in some situation where a child posted something on the internet from their computer at home to a public forum not hosted by the school where the only involvement of the school was the fact that those involved all happened to attend the same school or the student was criticizing someone or something connected with the school (free speech.) The student would wind up being subject to some kind of draconian “zero tolerance” (really just a synonym for “zero thought required”) disciplinary sanctions, a lawsuit would ensue and the school district winds up shelling out lots of money in a settlement for overstepping their authority.

Finally, it’s clear that the contributor’s knowledge of Smithtown isn’t very substantial. The “rich” do not live in Nesconset. Nesconset is an upper-middle class area that underwent explosive development in the 1960s. It’s original ‘tract-house’ development was comprised mainly of 1400 – 1800 sq ft ranch homes and 2200 – 2500 sq ft colonials built on streets whose names had some common theme.

You’ll find the ‘rich’ in the shore areas such as Head of the Harbor, Nissequogue, San Remo, and Fort Salonga, but primarily the first two. In fact, the main factor pertaining to the original growth in Smithtown in the 1890 – 1920 era were the well-heeled people from NYC (who were NOT AT ALL in the category of the Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers, more on the order of doctors, bankers, merchants) who had leisure residences in Nissequogue and Head of the Harbor who needed goods and services to operate their homes, as well as staff. My maternal grandmother’s father was the ’superintendent’ of a large estate in Nissequogue and her mother ran the ‘household.’ My maternal grandfather was born into such a household in the Village of the Landing in Smithtown and my father born into such a household in Syosset in Oyster Bay.

I would say that this was ultimately the main source from which I learned manners, proper behavior, respect for others, and other such values. Such deportment was simply expected from members of the household or the staff. Children of the household were not allowed to scold the staff or be disrespectful despite being from ‘upstairs’. The adults in the household didn’t micromanage the staff or request them to do things that were clearly outside their scope of duties. Unless it was some egrgious transgression requiring immediate intervention, the protocol was for the head of the household to bring an issue concerning a particular staff member’s behavior or performance to the attention of the superintendent who would then deal with the problem out of view of any member of the household. (The depression of the 1930s put an end to this mode of living, then came WWII and after that, the suburbanization of Long Island.)

I ACQUIRED THE VALUES AND SOCIAL MORES FOR INTERACTING WITH OTHERS FROM MY FAMILY, NOT FROM SOME “COMMUNITY LEADER” OR “EDUCATOR.” (or book, or TV Show, or DVD, or bumpersticker, or packaged curriculum sold by McGraw-Hill, complete with educator’s guide and classroom achievement wall-chart for stigmatizing each child into conformity.)

So, I would respectfully request that you not further denigrate and disparage a community of which you’ve demonstrated very little in-depth knowledge. That way, you won’t end up sounding like an ignorant putz.

–William Ure
St. James NY
william.ure@gmail.com

i’m very surprised that no parents from anywhere have commented here. i know the area of smithtown, and L.I., in general very well and i can say that WiredSafety has it right, for the most part.

not all of L.I. is wealthy (i didn’t live on the rich end or gold coast), but the mentality and attitudes described are spot on.

not quite connecticut, definitely not nyc, “Lawnguylanders” have always felt outside the loop. not much happens there, except for the building of pre-fab Levittown tract houses, shopping malls, and the destruction of virgin countryside and beaches to build more malls and condos. the highest points above sea-level are landfills and garbage dumps.

smithtown and nesconset have always been – for the most part – populated by the rich and stupid. this is also shown by excessive taxes and the corruption in the local government at all levels. interest in money and status is more important to community and school leaders than of teaching ther kids manners and respect for people.

as it’s always felt socially left out and indeed, geographically seperate from the continent, Lawn Guyland – or Lawnguy Land – is the epitome of American discrimination, waste and spendthriftiness- a microcosm of american society on an island that has never found it’s own identity.

Just what cause is this jr. ass-hat talking about? The after school hate club? I wonder if any of the other students replied “YOU” to his post. Let’s hope he does not get the chance to reproduce.