SPLISH-SPLASH
Tom Caruso of Smithtown captured this scene at Frank Melville Memorial Park in Setauket on Aug. 7. He writes, ‘I was walking around the Setauket Millpond when I heard a lot of splashing. I found several Canada Geese flapping their wings on the water and caught this one spraying water everywhere. It was quite a sight.
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Like many organizations, the Sons of Norway Loyal Lodge #252 in St. James was unable to hold events, including its annual bazaar, last year due to the pandemic.
On Aug. 21, the lodge members hosted its Scandinavian Fun Day that included axe throwing, cooking demonstrations, games, penny pitching and more.
The lodge members are currently planning their Viking Auction on Friday, Sept. 17 and the 2021 Scandinavian Bazaar for Nov. 20. For more information about both events, call 631-862-8017.
Due to a shortage of lifeguards, the Town of Huntington is closing four of its eight beaches to swimming starting Thursday, August 26.
BEACHES CLOSED TO SWIMMING
Swim lines and lifeguard stands will be removed at the following beaches for the remainder of the season:
“No lifeguard on Duty” and “No Swimming Allowed” signs will also be posted. Town of Huntington residents may visit the beaches closed to bathing but they must stay out of the water.
BEACHES OPEN TO SWIMMING (TOWN OF HUNTINGTON RESIDENTS ONLY)
The following beaches will remain open to swimming for the remainder of the season:
You may also contact the Suffolk County Bathing Beach Water Quality Hotline for beach closings throughout Suffolk County at (631) 852-5822.
By Tara Mae
A celebration of music, community, and nature, the 9th annual Fiddle and Folk Festival at Benner’s Farm will be held on September 12, from noon to 8 p.m.
Participating musicians will include headliner Chris Smither, Travis McKeveny & The Famous Dr. Scanlon Band, Quarter Horse, Mick Hargreaves with Pete Mancini and Brian Moritz, CB Jacobs & Russ Seeger: Songs from the Black Book, Maria Fairchild and Bill Ayasse, and Jonathan Preddice and Brian Chabza.
Most of the musicians are locals and have played at previous Fiddle and Folk festivals, according to Benner’s Farm’s co-owner, Bob Benner. The event will also feature artist workshops, and activities for children in the Kids’ Corner, including music, crafts, and more.
“This is a low-key day with high quality talent,” said Amy Tuttle, program director for the Greater Port Jefferson-Brookhaven Arts Council and a member of the festival committee.
Four festival stages
This year there will be four venues at which to hear the music with each stage offering its own audience experience and ambience.
The event barn’s Back Porch will serve as the main stage of the festival, offering sets of 45 to 60 minutes long, and align with a traditional festival concert experience while Jam Hollow will be a designated space for musicians to bring their instruments and play together. The Shady Grove stage will offer a more intimate opportunity for artists and audiences to interact, with conversations as well as Q&A sessions. Performances at the Shady Grove stage will be hosted by a to-be-announced radio personality from radio station WUSB.
This year, the fourth stage is making its Fiddle and Folk debut. The stake bed of a 1924 model-T truck owned by Benner’s Farm co-founder Bob Benner, it will serve as an informal stage for anyone interested in participating in an open-mic. Guests can sign up on site.
Musical acts
Making his Fiddle and Folk debut is Chris Smither, a folks/blues singer based out of Massachusetts. Smither is a favorite of both Benner and Claudia Jacobs, a musician and friend of the Benners who helped book the acts. “Bob and I are massive fans,” said Jacobs.
Smither is happy for the opportunity to play at the festival and reconnect with audiences in person, having missed that connection during online, live-stream performances. “You try to build an entity between you, that exists among you. It’s electric; it’s a life-affirming, ephemeral sort of substance,” he said.
Blue Point resident Travis McKeveny, of Travis McKeveny and The Famous Dr. Scanlon Band, considers his favorite part of playing live to be the “chance to experience the interchange of energy between myself and the audience.” The singer/guitarist is excited to be “…sharing the bill with peers, but especially sharing it with Chris Smither, the headliner, who is one of my songwriting heroes.”
One of the returning favorites is Quarter Horse, a group that blends elements of rock, folk rock, Americana, and jam band. Quarter Horse, which five years ago had its album release party on Benner’s Farm, feels a connection not only to the people but to the place.
“We know Ben Benner [Bob’s son] heard us and liked us, and asked us to play at another concert series he did on the farm. We eventually decided to have our album release party there. We’ve all gone to Benner’s Farm, even as kids on school field trips,” drummer John Reizi, of Centereach, said. “There has always been a connection to Benner’s Farm, it’s a really pleasant place. I take my daughter there sometimes; you don’t feel like you’re in suburban Long Island — you’re in a sort of portal.”
Jonathan Preddice, of Port Jefferson Station, echoes the sentiment. “I love spending time at Benner’s Farm. It has a great “down home” feel and sets a great atmosphere for relaxing and listening to good music.” A member of the band Miles to Dayton, the singer/songwriter will be focusing on his solo folk/America work with fiddler Brian Chabza.
The farm’s environment is part of what appeals to Hicksville resident Maria Fairchild too. A singer and banjo-player, she is drawn back to the farm by “the setting; it is one of the few places to see traditional and roots-based music on Long Island.”
Benner’s Farm
In addition to hosting the Fiddle & Folk Festival, the 15-acre organic farm hosts everything from school field trips to weddings and offers seasonal festivals, summer camp, workshops, and other programs. Bob Benner believes this versatility is part of its appeal.
“This farm, partly planned, and partly because of the way it is set up, changes its personality depending on what you’re doing. There is a friendliness to this space and we tried to keep the aesthetic beauty,” he said.
Bob and his wife Jean, purchased the farm in 1977 and over the years have transformed it into a prominent local educational non-profit and one of the last true working farms in the area.
“There are very few farms around here now; we are trying to keep the farm as an agricultural place,” Benner said. “Also because we have educational backgrounds, we opened it up so people can take courses and have festivals and do things on the farm. People can see what the farm is like.”
The Benners were drawn to the farm’s educational potential: first for themselves, and then for the public. “We have absolutely no background in farming, but we could read…we’re learners and teachers,” he added.
Community outreach began with local pre-school children visiting the farm to learn where their vegetables came from and expanded into educational opportunities for people of all ages.
Continuing a tradition
Part of Benner’s Farm’s ethos is to support the people of the area and preserve cultural customs for current and future generations. So when Bob Benner learned that the original Fiddle and Folk Festival at the Long Island Museum was being discontinued, he reached out to the people who ran it, volunteered to revive it at the farm, and then assembled his own team to help put it together.
“I always thought the farm was the perfect place to have a big event, like the ones the Benners and I went to. The timing was right. We pretty much created it together,” said Jacobs.
Following so many months of isolation, this year’s festival holds particular meaning for everyone involved in it, said Jacobs. “This one is really special. Bob’s great desire for this year was to keep it local. He felt that it should be a big community event. A ‘return to the farm’ in a gathering, communal way,” she added.
For Bob Benner, hosting and supporting the musicians is a way to honor both his own musical interests and his dedication to the community.
“I am not a musician, but I like a variety of music…I thought I would have local people because local musicians have been royally impacted by COVID. We’re having local bands and local people singing (open mic) and an incredible visiting headliner who will be playing with a whole bunch of locals…I have never been let down by the bands we have chosen, ” he said.
The 9th annual Fiddle and Folk is supported by Benner’s Farm, Homestead Arts, WUSB, the Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council, and TBR News Media and sponsored by the Folk Music Society of Huntington, Long Island Blues Society, and Jack and Karen Finkenberg.
Benner’s Farm is located at 56 Gnarled Hollow Road in East Setauket. Advance ticket sales are now open: adults are $22 per person, seniors are $17 per person, and children are $10 per person. Tickets on the day of the event are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors, and $12 for kids. To order, visit www.fiddleandfolk.com. Audience members are encouraged to bring their own seating. A full schedule of performances and events will be available online. For more information visit the website or call 631-689-8172.
Photos courtesy of Bob Benner
By John L. Turner
Beginning on Friday, August 27th, the Four Harbors Audubon Society will kick off its fifth season of the “Stone Bridge Nighthawk Watch” at Frank Melville Park in Setauket. Each night participants will meet on the north sidewalk of the Stone Bridge (where Main Street crosses the water) and count Common Nighthawks as they pass overhead during their fall migration.
The Watch begins at 5:30 p.m. and concludes at dusk each night, when observers typically see bats emerge to forage for insects over the ponds. Sometimes participants are rewarded with a dozen or so nighthawks feeding on aerial insects low over the ponds before it gets too dark.
Nighthawks, related to whip-poor-wills, are highly migratory birds that leave the Northern hemisphere in the autumn as their insect prey wanes, ending up a few weeks later in the Amazon River basin where they overwinter. Unfortunately, as with so many bird species the Common Nighthawk is declining and the Nighthawk Watch was established by the Four Harbors Audubon Society as an effort to gather more specific long-term data about its numbers and population trends.
Participants often see other birds species such as Bald Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Great Blue and Green Herons, Belted Kingfisher, many types of songbirds and mute swans. The Watch runs through to October 6. Please join us. The only items recommended for you to bring along are binoculars and a healthy curiosity about the natural world!
Frank Melville Memorial Park is located at 1 Old Field Road, Setauket. For more information, visit www.4has.org.
By Lisa Scott and Nancy Marr
Planning and decision making in our county needs to be a more open, thoughtful process. There is a concern on the part of communities in the area surrounding the Brookhaven Town Landfill that the plans for closing it in 2024 are unclear and have not been fully disclosed to the public.
The League’s March 2021 TBR column on zero waste (https://tbrnewsmedia.com/making-democracy-work-how-can-we-get-to-zero-waste/) set the stage … our goal is to significantly reduce our garbage, but we are far from getting significant action from our neighbors (and our consumer/disposable society) in the next few years. Thus, what the Town of Brookhaven (TOB) does with the landfill site, the surrounding area, and the ash disposal will be a major factor for central Suffolk residents in the coming years.
The TOB landfill was established on vacant land zoned mostly residential in 1974. Hamlets, developments, neighborhoods now surround the landfill site, including the areas of North Bellport and Horizon Village.
Looking ahead to the closing of the landfill, TOB officials have proposed changing the zoning of 136 acres on the landfill site from residential to light industry and selling some of the land for an industrial park, with a codicil to prevent certain waste-related uses. (The remaining acres include the municipal recycling facility and yard waste and composting operations and undisturbed woodland.)
At the zoning hearing held by the TOB in July, residents from all parts of the town protested the plan to sell the acreage and suggested instead that the town seek community input about how to remediate and re-purpose the entire landfill property. Clearly information is required about possible contamination of water and soil and the testing results over the past 50 years (think of the Bethpage and Brookhaven Lab plumes).
The League is focused on civic education and government transparency. We urge the TOB Supervisor and Board to THINK BIG! The problems and possible solutions to the landfill closure, possible pollution, health effects and ash-disposal are just one part of a proposed ongoing discussion.
Appointing a sustainability committee could lead the TOB toward better understanding of the problem and solutions and lead a community education effort. The town needs to communicate the issues openly with the public and hold public listening sessions to get constituents’ input. Garbage itself, and its costs in dollars, health, property values, and yes, our children’s future, MUST be described and garbage volume reduced significantly. If the landfill is to close in 2024, time is of the essence. Everyone should have the opportunity to be heard.
In a time of contentiousness and public strife, it’s critical that government brings its citizens/residents into the tent and that accurate, thorough information is the basis. The people must be heard, and decision-making must be transparent and accessible. The Town of Brookhaven owes this to the people who elected them and placed their trust in these representatives.
Lisa Scott is president and Nancy Marr is vice-president of the League of Women Voters of Suffolk County, a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government and influences public policy through education and advocacy. Visit www.lwv-suffolkcounty.org or call 631-862-6860.
By Barbara Anne Kirshner
The mighty Yankees and the AL Central first place White Sox magically emerge from a voluminous cornfield to take their places on a well-manicured baseball diamond and the game begins.
This scene played as if right out of a movie, except this wasn’t a movie, it was an actual baseball game. But it wasn’t being played in a grand stadium, instead it was played in a regulation ball field in rural Dyersville, Iowa, surrounded by acres of tall corn only feet away from the original baseball field and house featured in the iconic Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams.
The regular-season baseball game, which had been delayed for one year due to the COVID pandemic, finally played Thursday evening August 12. It was exciting as if scripted by Hollywood with a surprising edge of your seat twist at the end.
The Yankees fought their way back from a 7-4 deficit at the top of the ninth when they rallied with a two-run homer from Aaron Judge, then another two-run homer by Giancarlo Stanton off the Sox closer Liam Hendriks, to make the score 8-7 in the Yankees’ favor.
But the Yankees’ dreams of victory in Iowa were suddenly dashed when at the bottom of the ninth inning Tim Anderson hit the first pitch from Zack Britton to land a walk-off home run right in the middle of those corn fields giving the win to the White Sox.
Though the Yankees left in defeat, just being a part of this spectacular event was thrilling for the players and their fans. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, “That was as special and breathtaking a setting for a baseball game as I’ve ever been part of.” Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge said, “It was pretty cool driving in and seeing everybody standing on the side of the road, with signs, cheering us on as we’re coming in.”
This newly built 8,000 seat ballpark sits right next to the original built for the 1989 movie starring Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta and James Earl Jones. Before the game, Costner ambled onto the outfield like his character Ray Kinsella and watched as the White Sox and Yankees walked out of the cornrows to take their places.
Baseball in hand, Costner headed to the microphone while the original musical score from the movie accompanied him. The actor looked at the crowd and uttered, “It’s perfect. We’ve kept our promise. The dream is still alive. There’s probably just one question to answer. Is this heaven? Yes, it is.” And it was perfect; it was heaven. The dramatic introductory festivities were a prelude to this exciting game.
Throughout the evening there were clips from the movie featuring some of the classic quotes, adding to the enchantment of it all. One pivotal quote from James Earl Jones’ character Terrance Mann was “Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom.”
And that’s exactly what happened Thursday, August 12, 2021. People came to Iowa to that magnetic cornfield to be part of the tradition of baseball, but more than that, they came to be part of a unique event. In addition to those in attendance were the 5.9 million total viewers on FOX Television, the largest audience for a regular season game on any network since 2005.
At the end of the movie, the ghost players were on the field with Ray Kinsella looking on. Suddenly, the catcher takes off his mask revealing he is Kinsella’s deceased dad and after a few words, the father and son play catch leaving all of us to ponder what if we could have just a few minutes to play catch with a loved one.
Playing catch is such a singularly inviting activity for two people. The ball and the throw unite the pair. If only I could have one more moment with my mom, the person who introduced me to baseball and her beloved Yankees. If we could play catch like we did when I was a kid, what I would give for the chance to relive that moment with her.
Fans and players lingered after the game, then finally started their pilgrimage back home with the wish for one more moment.
Thankfully, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the Field of Dreams game will return to Dyersville, Iowa next August 2022. The teams taking part are undecided as of this writing.
Miller Place resident Barbara Anne Kirshner is a freelance journalist, playwright and author of “Madison Weatherbee —The Different Dachshund.”
Stripes is heading back to select theaters nationwide in honor of the classic comedy’s 40th anniversary on Sunday, Aug. 29 and Thursday, Sept. 2, courtesy of Fathom Events. Released by Columbia Pictures in 1981, Stripes stars Bill Murray as John Winger, a man who loses everything he has all in one day and decides that his only option is to volunteer for the army, taking his best friend Russell (Harold Ramis) along with him. The film is rated R.
Viewers will also be treated to a special introduction of the film by Bill Murray and director Ivan Reitman as they sit down together 40-years later and give fans an inside look at their time filming Stripes.
Locally the film will be screened at AMC Stony Brook 17, 2196 Nesconset Highway, Stony Brook on Aug. 29 at 3 and 7 p.m. and Sept. 2 at 7 p.m. and Island Cinema de Lux, 185 Morris Ave., Holtsville at 7 p.m. on both days. To order tickets in advance, visit www.fathomevents.com.
MEET BETTY BOOP!
Betty Boop is a nine to ten year-old Female Pit Bull Terrier Mix at the Smithtown Animal Shelter who is a total sweetheart! She is a very calm and low-key couch potato who absolutely loves people and attaches to them very easily. She would love nothing more than to spend her golden years snuggled up with her favorite person, lulling them to sleep with her adorable snore. Betty has significant arthritis in her hips and knees, and will need a home that can help her manage this issue by giving her medications twice a day. Her ideal home will be an adult-only home without any other dogs or cats.
If you are interested in meeting Betty Boop, please call ahead to schedule an hour to properly interact with her in a domestic setting, which includes the shelter’s Meet and Greet Room, the dog runs, and Dog Walk trail. Family Pet Meet and Greets and at home interactions are also welcome and an integral part of the adoption process.
Foster Opportunity:
If you have no other pets or young children at home, and are looking for a way to serve your community, please consider signing up to be a foster. Foster parents provide temporary care for cats, kittens, and dogs in their own homes. Some animals need as little as two weeks of care, while others may need care for extended periods of time.
Download the Foster Application at:
https://www.smithtownny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4325/Foster-Application
Thinking About Adoption:
The Smithtown Animal Shelter’s primary concern is finding the perfect home for each animal that finds his/her way to us. The Animal Control Officers and Kennel Attendants at the Smithtown Animal Shelter will go out of their way to ensure both the rescued and rescuer are made for one another.
Residents who have other pets can arrange to bring your four-legged family member to the shelter or set up an at home meet & greet to see how your prospective family member does with other family, pets and the household itself. Please allow yourself an hour minimum to meet with your potential new family member.
Hours at the Smithtown Animal Shelter are currently Monday – Saturday 10AM – 3PM. (Sundays and Wednesday evenings: by appointment only).
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the shelter is open to the public, however, they continue to practice social distancing in their facility and indoor mask guidelines. To inquire about the Pet of the Week or to meet your potential soulmate, please call the Smithtown Animal Shelter at 631-360-7575.
Photos courtesy of the Smithtown Animal Shelter
Broadway Beach, Tides Beach, and Terraces on the Sound Beach, all in Rocky Point, are closed to bathing due to the findings of bacteria at levels in excess of acceptable criteria. The following beaches remain closed due to high levels of bacteria: Tanner Park Beach in Copiague, Benjamin Beach in Bay Shore, Gold Star Battalion Park Beach in Huntington, Venetian Shores Beach in Lindenhurst, Corey Beach and Bayport Beach in Bayport, West Islip Beach, Amityville Beach, and Sayville Marina Park Beach.
According to Suffolk County Commissioner of Health Dr. Gregson Pigott, bathing in bacteria-contaminated water can result in gastrointestinal illness, as well as infections of the eyes, ears, nose, and throat.
Beaches will reopen when further testing reveals that the bacteria have subsided to acceptable levels.
For the latest information on affected beaches, call the Bathing Beach HOTLINE at 852-5822 or contact the Department’s Office of Ecology at 852-5760 during normal business hours.
Program information –
Interactive map of beach closures/advisories- https://ny.healthinspections.us/ny_beaches/
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