The Mast-Head: Freeze Time

It doesn’t freeze up the way it used to. That was what a guy I went to high school with but whose name I cannot recall at the moment agreed on at the counter of Goldberg’s Bagels the other day. 

We had gotten on the subject in the usual way: lightly chatting while waiting by the cash register. Ever since Bucket’s Deli closed for good some years ago, Goldberg’s has become a sort of town center, where on many mornings, the estimable Joan Tulp of Amagansett sits down with friends, including former Police Chief Tom Scott, for a relaxed breakfast. The cold weather early this week came up quickly.

We traded memories of how my father took us kids iceboating on Georgica Pond and even salty Three Mile Harbor during one or two winters. My friend recalled driving in another friend’s Jeep on a frozen Napeague Harbor.

“That took balls,” I said. 

“The water wasn’t so deep,” he replied. Ah, what passes for Bonac humor.

That said, there was almost ice enough for sailing early this week. Skating had begun on the ponds here, and when I had a look at Poxabogue earlier in the week, it appeared promising. Next will come digging the boats out, sharpening the runners, finding extra warm layers of outer clothing, then packing it all onto the truck. 

Thirty or 40 years ago, there would not have been quite such a rush to get it all ready before it was gone. Not only did we get good ice more often, the slabs stayed intact for long stretches of the winter. Now, if we’re lucky, we get a few days of hard freeze, then a warm-up, often with rain. “Unless you get on it that day, you’ll miss it,” I told my old acquaintance at Goldberg’s.

The problem is, not expecting ice, I had scheduled all kinds of things for tomorrow. There is always Saturday, but I’ll likely be busy then, too.