Quiet Time

When The Groundhog Wakes Up, He’ll Find North Forkers Snuggled In

By Phyllis Lombardi

Ssh. Please just tiptoe through our towns. I think the entire North Fork has, like Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil, settled down for a long winter’s nap and I wouldn’t want to waken anyone before April rolls around. No matter what that little groundhog sees today.

And really, a three-month sleep is not so long. Why, it’s only one-quarter of a North Fork year and everyone knows the North Fork packs more life into a year than the rest of Long Island does in five. So let ’em sleep.

In the meantime, I’ll tell you about who’s deep-sleeping and who’s just cat-napping. For example, if you’re in Greenport, you’ll notice the Greenport Movie Theatre is closed for the season. Their marquee reads “Thanks for a great season. See you next spring.” So what goes on in the theatre during the winter? Surely equipment and lighting needs to be checked out, repaired if necessary. Special events such as the East End Student Film Project are planned. Staff is recruited for next season.

But imagine this during the long winter months in the darkened Greenport theatre. Across the stage, across the screen, come the ghosts of celluloid past. For no audience at all, Gene Kelly splashes his way into our hearts in “Singin’ In the Rain.” Alec Guinness, whistling the Colonel Bogie March, makes way into our very souls as he defies evil in “The Bridge On The River Kwai.” And Walter Huston in “Treasure of Sierra Madre” reminds us it is all dust, albeit gold dust. This is what winter is for – reality. Via an empty theatre.

Also empty, in hibernation this time of year, is Old Town Art and Crafts Guild in Cutchogue. The sign in the big bay window says See You In The Spring. But what of the scores of North Fork artists and craftspeople who present their work here during warmer seasons? Well, Cutchogue’s Bob Kuhne is President of the Guild and he’ll tell you most members are not sunbathing in Florida. Rather, they’re still here on the North Fork, planning, creating, painting, carving, and sewing. What a delight on a cold winter’s day, safe at home, to pick up a paint brush and layer color on canvas. Or select a needle, some scraps of cotton, and fashion a quilt. Winter is a time to think and work things out.

They’re working, too, at Bayview Market and Farm on Main Road in Aquebogue. Yes, from asparagus to zucchini, the place is empty now. Except for those who remain to plan and paint and plant for Spring – which is really just around a few corners. Brad and Lorraine Reeve own the 150-acre farm, which stretches from Main Road to Peconic Bay and has been in the family for 300 years. Lorraine’s mom, Terri, who lives in Riverhead, has been working at the stand for more than 20 years. We talked as she fed wood to the stove heating the market on the last (and chilly) day of their season.

Brad, Lorraine, and the staff have been busy even as the farm stand sleeps. Pansies, many thousands of them, have been planted in the greenhouses. They’ll be in full bloom when Bayview reopens in the spring. The asparagus and rhubarb have been fertilized and of course the strawberries have been mulched to prevent winterkill. Winter is also the time for extensive machinery maintenance.

Brad, when I asked if he vacationed for a time during the winter, was emphatic in his reply. “No,” he said, “I love my work and I love the North Fork. Why would I go away?”

Terri added, “There’s always time to look across the frozen bay and think how beautiful.” Then she spoke of the customers, friends really. “They always seem sad when the market closes. It’s off to the supermarket for a few months.”

Finally, there’s the Southold Library Book Cottage, open only on Saturdays now until spring. While the library is open every day, of course, volunteers at the Book Cottage, where you can buy your very own lovingly used books, spend winter weekdays straightening up for the season ahead. They sort the thousands of book donations and shelve them appropriately. Janeth Wanzor and Betty Fitzpatrick, both of Southold, staff the Saturday Book Cottage as they have for 14 years.

So don’t put any stock in what that foolish groundhog Phil sees today. What does he know of movies, and farming, and painting and reading? Let’s just cherish this quiet time, this behind-the-scenes time. It will give way, as it always has, to fulfillment.