Relay: Girls and Guys of Summer

If tourists didn’t want to be picked on then they shouldn’t give us so much material to work with. This summer out here in Montauk was a horror, and I do not exaggerate!

A perfect example is of a young woman last week who was standing in front of the 7-Eleven smoking a cigarette. Not only did she throw it on the ground to put it out, but then coughed up a wad of phlegm and spit it out on the sidewalk, where quite a few people still walk barefoot. That was the closest I’ve been to having words with a tourist, but I knew better. She’d probably beat the hell out of me or cough up some more yucky stuff and aim it at me. She looked like a tough broad.

I don’t know how bad it was in other parts of town since I dared not venture out of Montauk. One day in July I had to see my doctor in East Hampton, and I found the Napeague stretch gridlocked. I’ve been living out here for over 40 years and have never seen it like that.

Our little hamlet was saturated with all types of people, making me wonder at what point we reach full capacity. And how will that be regulated or enforced? Will the fire marshals be posted near the pond in East Hampton counting cars? I’m pretty sure they have other things to do.

I’ve come up with a few ideas for regulation, one of which is to require those who visit in summer spend a winter here before they are issued a summer pass. The cold weather, closed restaurants, and endless gloomy gray days should be a nice deterrent. Only the strongest of us survive when the winter days grow darker and quieter.

Spending the winter would also require them to put on more clothes. I’ve never seen women parade Main Street in the tiniest of bikinis like I did this summer. What ever happened to cover-ups? Even when I had the body, I didn’t show it off any place but at the beach. But then again, I’m Catholic and was taught that patent leather shoes reflect up our dresses. Back then we all wore cotton granny panties so there really wasn’t much to see anyway.

Women who are flashing all their bits and pieces are ruining it for the rest of us. Such little dress allows it all to hang out, some of it real but a lot of it fake. It also takes all the mystery from a woman’s body, a body that most of us were smart enough to use as our secret weapon. You want to see something, treat me to a nice meal or concert with really good seats and you might get to first base afterward. Now, first base — and sometimes second and third — are hanging out for all to see.

Men weren’t much better this summer. Earlier in the season, a local girl posted pictures on Facebook of a few really buff males walking the beach at Nick’s with just a sock-like contraption covering their main piece, not even the bits. And though I hate to sound like my mother, I must admit she was right when she warned, why buy the cow when the milk is free?

The days of sweaters will soon be upon us. We’ll turn on the ovens and cook a nice roast, and fire up the wood stove. Halloween will see little tykes dressed in costume begging for candy. My only hope is they don’t dress like the girls and guys of summer.

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The East Hampton Star and The Star’s Montauk correspondent.