After a friendly meeting with few words at which even
less was said I climbed into my car and (thanks to the miracle of GPS on my
phone) decided to visit the nearby large body of water in Suffolk County known
as Lake Ronkonkoma. Despite its size of
two hundred and forty acres it is difficult to find in dense suburbia when
approaching it from the west. According
to the maps there are many shady streets leading down to its shore, each one
lined with that archetypal Long Island blend of clapboard houses with the
interspersed shanty. But each street
ends in a severe wire fence and dense undergrowth, through which the lake may
be glimpsed tantalizingly above the innumerable colonies of feral cats. The only open views and access are on the
northern and south eastern edges.
My advice when at the north end of the lake is: Focus on the water and not on the commercial properties
behind you. For if you turn around you
may be tempted to spend money on your nails, a martial arts lesson, your first tattoo,
or, God forbid, sell your last scrap of gold to an unscrupulous merchant. Oh, and get your dog groomed at the same
time. No, park the car and walk past the
children’s playground to the waters’ edge.
I was greeted by dozen or more geese (including three white
geese which reminded me of my childhood) and I spent a few long minutes looking
out over the lake. Almost a perfect circle
in shape each shore is about a sixth of a mile from its opposite bank. And although I did not know this – Ronkonkoma
is deep, very deep. There are places
where the bottom lies ninety-five feet under water, such was the scouring power
of the glacier that carved it out in the last ice age. Coupled with its sheer featureless surface
these depths make it very difficult to fish.
A man was trying his best during my brief visit, up to his waist and
gently casting a floating line in front.
I hoped success for him, but I would have been more realistic had I been
the angler.
I read that Ronkonkoma was a thriving resort in the late nineteenth
century. Large lakeside houses and
hotels were constructed. Even a pavilion
or two, as people flocked in their thousands to the area. Some even believed that the lake water has
medicinal properties. There was even a
claimed “Lady of the Lake,” an Indian princess who fell in love with an English
settler and who drowned while swimming one night. (There are so many variations
of this story and no space to tell them all.
They all focus on one man, one woman, and tragedy.)
The resort gave way to residential which was replaced by
commercial development, notably on the north shore. Thankfully pockets of land are preserved in
County and Town park-lands. The rest is
at the mercy of future developers.
Will I return to fish? Perhaps. Perhaps on a late autumn day if I can find a
boat and row out into the center. Then a
slowly sinking line …
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