Today started out such a good day. I had been good getting things done. I had done dishes, cleaned the bathroom and was ready to take my father shopping all before 10am. We did the stores my father wanted. We started at Entermann's Outlet where my father bought bread. I was proud of myself because I never once looked at the cakes and stuff. Then we went over to Sam's Club. There my father picked up essentials like paper towels, toilet paper, and other things for the house. Me, I bought my fruits there and was happy I didn't go near the cakes or cookies. The it was over to Target so my father could pick up things for his corgi, JJ.

Okay so came home, unpacked the car and put the stuff away. All I needed now was gas. But I also wanted to go get some pictures of the Great South Bay, this time from near my home. I drove over a town so I would have easy access to two locations where there were docks. I happily snapped a couple of pictures and then figured I would go over to see Captain Andy's. That bar had had a long history with my family.

In the early 70s my father use to come out to Mastic and Mastic Beach so he could go drinking and fishing with his buddies. As a child there were two bars that were really family places. They served food, made sure anyone who brought their kids had things for them to do, and basically made sure one adult was always able to drive. This was long before the days of the bars being required to have a designated driver. Captain Andy's was the bar my mother ended up learning to be a barmaid at. My mother basically had had many jobs in her life time. My father went on strike with the phone company and that meant Mom found work. I can remember her for months going the twenty minute drive out there where she would tend bar, cook food, clean up, and then come home.

By the later the later half of the 70's we had moved out to the area. By the early 80's, my mother was working in the local school district. Fast forward 25 years and now Mom was retiring as a Teacher's Assistant. The old Captain Andy's was now Claire's by the Bay. It was a restaurant and catering hall down on the water. There are pictures of my mother's retirement from inside the building but now I was getting fond of my memories and wanted to capture that old building. Of course things change, which is something I forgot.

The parking lot was really almost gone now. The weeds and sea grass had filled the parking lot. At first I thought the damn building had been torn down but then the reality of the situation hit me. The catering hall hadn't survived the recession. Early last fall it had closed and the windows and doors had been boarded up. the neatly kept gray building was now a mess. The docks that had gone out into the bay were gone leaving only the pilings which looked like tombstones jutting out of the water. The building itself was now marked with spray paint of words, signs, and pictures. I couldn't bring myself to snap a photo of what it had become. The place of my memories was gone and a shell of it was left.

I never mind seeing progress make over spots where things have fallen on hard times. I have a problem with the hard times make spots that have been in business for 60 or so years fade because the economy has turned to garbage. So now another part of my past and that of my family's is gone. Seems I missed the opportunity to get a picture of this place for my own records. Now it has only my memory to live on in.