DAN'S PAPERS, July 3, 2009 Page 43 www.danshamptons.com
CarHampton Every Town and Village Here Has Its Very Own National Car By Bob Gelber When touring Europe, I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that each country has its own patriotic preference for home grown automobiles. In Germany, one sees mostly Volkswagens and Mercedes. These cars are also very Teutonic in design and engineering. They’re technically advanced, serious drives. To the French, it would be traitorous to drive anything but a Citroen, Peugeot or Renault. These Francophile delights are all soft-riding, extremely comfortable vehicles. Of course, Fiat owns Italy and there is literally a Fiat dealer in every small village. Fiat is so omnipresent, I’ve often thought all these Fiat
dealers should have a McDonald’s franchise attached to make some extra dough. The nationalistic fervor for cars built in their own countries can also be seen with the Volvos and Saabs of Sweden and the various makes predominating the wrong side of the roads in England. Here in the Hamptons, every town and village has its own personality. Maybe you’ve noticed town and village nationalism. There are definitely socioeconomic variations between people and places. Just like Europe, each Hamptons village has its own automotive personality. You may not have noticed, but in the Hamptons, you are what
you drive. Starting with Remsenburg, we’ll drive out East and investigate the types of vehicles that predominate, and literally what drives the people. REMSEN-WHAT? Remsenburg, considered by many to be the gateway to the Hamptons, is a quiet little hamlet just west of Westhampton. This town is probably the best kept secret of the Hamptons and the locals would have it no other way. Its main street, South Country Road, is storeless and was once named one of the prettiest main streets in America. What types of cars does this secret society drive? Unfortunately, it’s the (continued on page 54)
TSUNAMIS, LEAPING WHALES, LAVA WATERFALLS By Dan Rattiner Many of us who live and work in the Hamptons get a chance to take long vacations in the wintertime when business slows down. The choice really is to do one of two things — either go somewhere to relax or go somewhere or have an adventure. For relaxing, go to Cancun or the Caribbean or Hawaii. For an adventure, well, it’s up to you. Try the badlands of Turkey, the highlands of Guatemala, the deltas of Botswana or the outlawed country of Cuba. I’ve adventured in all of those. This year Chris and I took time off from an adventure to go back to Hawaii to visit friends
and family we know there. We went there to relax. We came home with adventures. We will never forget these adventures. One adventure involved a sound. We were at the Mauna Loa Resort on the Kona Side of Hawaii — this is the former Rock Resort — and were waiting at the tennis court for a friend when we heard it. It was a boom. Something like what you would hear when an aircraft goes through the sound barrier. Then it came again. Boom. It was out at sea. “There they are!” someone on a tennis court said, stopping play and pointing. We looked. Boom. Way off in the ocean, perhaps a quarter
mile out, an enormous, glistening whale the size of a truck leaped high out of the water and then fell down on top of it, sending up a great white splash. There was a pause of three seconds. Boom. There it was again. We had seen the splash. Now, three seconds later, we heard it. All tennis play had stopped. It was two of them — a mother and her calf, perhaps the mother teaching the calf. First the mother would leap up. Then the calf. The calf was about the size of a Previa. The mother the size of a Suburban. Boom. Then boom again, but softer. This went on for quite some time. Binoculars (continued on page 86)